Our ratings system is based on defined critera, broken down into 5 tiers and six categories.
- What does that mean for you?
- You can judge and choose the content you want to consume at a granular level based on your own personal values, beliefs, and criteria.
- Want books that are appropriate for your kids?
- We've got you covered. Find tier one and tier two content easily.
- Want spicy romance for your summer beach read?
- You can find it here. No problem.
- Okay with language but don't want graphic sexual content?
- You can define your tastes by category and tier.
So what are the tiers?
Tier One: Wholesome and Universal Content
Completely free of explicit or mature themes, featuring clean language, innocent romance (e.g., crushes, flirting), mild conflict without violence, healthy lifestyle choices, educational or positive religious themes, and no mention of LGBTQ+ identities. Ideal for all ages, this level prioritizes uplifting, age-appropriate storytelling that promotes virtue and accessibility.
Tier Two: Mild and Accessible Content
Focuses on mild, non-explicit themes, such as light insults, romantic affection (e.g., kissing), fantastical action, unhealthy habits as secondary plot points, faith-promoting stories, or inclusive narratives with minimal focus on LGBTQ+ identities. Appropriate for most audiences, this level emphasizes emotional or adventurous storytelling without mature details.
Tier Three: Implied or Moderate Content
Includes implied or moderately described mature themes, such as mid-level swearing, fade-to-gray sexual references, realistic fighting with minimal gore, struggles with mental health or addiction, personal faith crises, or characters navigating gender dysphoria. Content is plot-driven and suitable for mature audiences, balancing realism with restraint to maintain narrative integrity.
Tier Four: Mature and Explicit Themes
Features infrequent but noticeable explicit content, such as strong profanity, detailed sexual imagery, graphic violence, recreational drug use, negative portrayals of specific religions, or focused LGBTQ+ relationships and transitions. While less pervasive than Tier Five, these elements are still prominent and potentially unsettling, requiring careful contextual justification to avoid alienating readers.
Tier Five: Explicit and Gratuitous Content
Content is dominated by frequent, graphic, and often disturbing elements, including extreme profanity, explicit sexual scenes, gory violence, glorified harmful behaviors (e.g., drug addiction, alcoholism), promotion of controversial ideologies (e.g., satanic rituals, child gender transitions), and vilification of specific groups. This level is highly offensive, disruptive to storytelling, and unsuitable for most audiences, often prioritizing shock over narrative purpose.
What are the categories?
Analyzes words, phrases, and context and applies a tier based on severity and frequency.
Analyzes romantic scenes and relationships to determine the level of description present from none to graphic.
Analyzes frequency and severity of violent encounters from arguments, to fantastical battles, to graphic depictions of violence.
Analyzes the frequency and promotion of unhealthy behaviors and thematic plots concerning mental and physical health.
Analyzes the use and frequency of religious themes and whether religion is depicted in a positive or negative light.
Analyzes the presence of LGBTQ+ themes or relationships.
Wait. If you are using AI, how do you protect the intellectual property of authors and creators?
That's a great question! One of our founders, Marcus Williams, is a published author and understands the importance of keeping his work out of the hands of large AI models. We use a locally installed AI engine that is walled off from the internet/world wide web on a secure server. Our AI model has no access to the web and is trained to only anlayze the books within our secure ecosystem. It cannot send any data out to large consumer level AI models.
We use only legally owned books and produce the rating under the fair use doctrine, which covers anyone who reviews a copyrighted work.