We crunched 100k Goodreads titles from a Kaggle dump, trimming the set to 10k clean records to see what drives praise.
Does a hefty page count lead to higher scores? We started by comparing length with rating.
Page count vs rating
The scatter shows only a faint trend—length alone doesn't sway opinion.
Title length vs rating
Short titles feel snappy, yet they don't correlate strongly with ratings. Next we hunted for under-the-radar favorites.
Hidden gems
Here are five acclaimed sleepers worth seeking out: All City Writers: The Graffiti Diaspora, Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Washington, Parade of popular hits, Deceptions of the Ages: "Mormons" Freemasons and Extraterrestrials, and The New Testament with the Joseph Smith Translation—each praised with ratings above 4.8 despite fewer than two dozen reviews.