true false top 25% +=500 center top 50% top 33% true 1 1 none 0.5 0 none center top 50% top 33% true 1 1 none 0.5 0 none center top 50% top 33% true 1 3 none 0.5 0 none center top 50% top 33% true 1 3 none 0.5 0 none

Read Clean!

Rated Reads is a book rating resource for
those who don’t like excessive vulgar language, violence or explicit sex in their otherwise good books.

Reading_Books

Our Ratings System

Red = High

A HIGH rating is for books that contain more than five or so uses of strong language, explicit sexual details (pages devoted to specifics of the act), shocking violence, or any other strongly vulgar content; sometimes the books we’ve rated have some harsh themes that alone require at least the moderate or the high rating (again, we will try to explain why and in as much detail as possible without making the review itself unreadable).

Orange = Moderate

MODERATE: Language might include some of the stronger expletives and perhaps up to four or five occurrences of the “f” word (referred to usually as “strong language”). Sexual references might include some details at several points throughout the book, even, but still nothing you’d read in a bodice-ripper. Violence could be fairly detailed, with some blood and guts or some harshness as to topic.

Yellow = mild

MILD means that you will see some occurrences of the tamest expletives, plus perhaps a few of the slightly stronger ones, like “sh” or “a.” None of the “f” word, however, or similar vulgarities. Sexual references might occur but nothing explicit. No descriptions of the act or detailed delineating of body parts! Violence might be a part of the plot, but there won’t be many gory details.

Green = None

NONE means the reviewed book contains no offensive language (or virtually none — maybe one or two uses of very mild language), no sexual references, and no violence.

Dirt= Don't invest reading time

There’s also a fifth category into which we occasionally (really, only very rarely) assign books: DIRT, for Don’t Invest Reading Time. Don’t get all worked up: this rating is not a comment on the quality of the writing. This is simply a note that the reviewer chose not to finish the book because it was already clear in the early pages that it would easily earn a HIGH rating. So the reviewer chose not to invest any more reading time, and if you’re using this site to find clean books, you would most likely not want to invest reading time either.

Cathy Lim_1

Meet our founder

CATHY CARMODE LIM

Cathy Carmode Lim has been a book reviewer for more than 25 years, two of which she was a newspaper book page editor. The mother of four daughters and four grandchildren founded Rated Reads in January 2008 and reviews many of the books. She has been reading since the age of 2½, according to her mom. She always has a variety of projects going in addition to running Rated Reads and working as a copy editor and writer (visit her website if you need copy editing for a book manuscript or other project). She lives in Alabama, and she blogs about books and several other topics at LifeandLims.com.

Praise FROM OUR READERS

Donate to Rated Reads

Sign up for our monthly newsletter

Get extra content delivered right to your inbox, such as a year-end “best of” list, ideas for book club picks or suggestions for great (and clean) seasonal reading.

Scroll to Top
Scroll to Top