Topics to Think About: Book Ratings

I was looking through my shelf on Shelfari to find books to review that I had read prior to creating this blog. While searching it became clear to me that most of the books I read are rated as 4 stars.

That got me thinking.. Am I rating the books high because I'm an easy to please reader? Is it because I gloss over imperfections and accept them as part of the story? Or is it because most of the books I read are from recommendations of fellow readers and they have really liked the story, enough to recommend it?

I don't really have the answer to these questions. It was something that I never really noticed before. So I was wondering if other people noticed this when they first started really rating books and writing reviews of them.

Please leave your thoughts below :)