Over the course of my reading life, I have read a mountain of spicy/steaming/hot and heavy novels. I am a fan of smut and I am not ashamed to say so! One of the things I have noticed though on Booktube, Booktok and Book Blogs is there doesn’t seem to be a clear system of what people would define as “Spicy”. Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough but I found it hard to find a clear rating system…so I decided to create my own!
Below is my own Spicy Book Rating System, one being spice that would be found in very clean romance based genres. Right up to what I consider absolute filth, this could include harems, BSDM, and possibly triggering content. I wanted to include light romance in the scale as this would help my readers who aren’t looking for descriptive romance in their books.
In my reviews, I will now add spice levels to help you give a quick picture of what to expect when it comes to the steamy moments.
I hope you find this helpful and let me know if you think I should amend anything?!
Spicy Book Rating
🌶 – tension between characters, PDA, light touching
🌶🌶 – descriptive touching, passionate kissing sessions
🌶🌶🌶 – oral, intense make out moments, summarised love scenes
🌶🌶🌶🌶 – 1 to 2 descriptive intimate love scenes, all of 1 to 3 spices scattered through the book
🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 – explicit, intense lovemaking, 3 + intimate scenes
🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 – absolute filth, kinky
Wayward Reviews 