How does smutrecs.com rate books?
Every rating on smutrecs.com comes from public sources about the book. AI models draft each rating from those sources, two independent reads have to agree, and a rating is shown only when the evidence is strong enough.
Where the evidence comes from
- The author's own pages, including their content-warning lists.
- Publisher pages and library or catalog data such as Open Library.
- Independent reviews that describe the book's content.
We never use Goodreads, Amazon or Audible pages as evidence, and we never copy text from the books. Each source is linked on the book page with a one-line summary in our own words.
How a rating is decided
- Two different AI models read the same sources separately. A value is kept only when both reach it or come close. When they come close, we keep the more cautious result: the lower spice level, the more severe content warning, only the tropes both found, or the overlap of two scene counts. A close result gets lower confidence than an exact match.
- Confidence is calculated from how good the sources are, how many independent sites agree, and how directly they say it.
- Below the confidence threshold, the page says there isn't enough data. We don't guess.
- A rating is marked checked when both reads agree, not just come close, and sources on at least two independent sites support it. Otherwise it's shown as an estimate. Our software applies this rule; a person doesn't review each rating.
- Where the spice starts and how many scenes there are appear only when a source names a chapter or position. When the two reads place the first scene within 10 points of each other, we show the average.
Spice and darkness
Spice uses the 0–5 spice scale. Darkness rates the weight of the themes on its own 0–3 scale:
| Darkness | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Light; no heavy themes. |
| 1 | Some heavy moments. |
| 2 | Dark themes run through the book. |
| 3 | Dark romance; the dark themes are the point. |
Dates and corrections
"Ratings last checked" changes only when our software actually re-checks a rating against its sources. Kindle Unlimited status carries its own check date. Every book page has a link to suggest a correction.
What we cover
smutrecs.com covers romance novels for adults. Books for young adult or child readers aren't rated.