The Fox Fairy Font Rating System (F3RS) (pronounced as “fears” or ef-three-ar-es) is a rating system developed by Marlena Marie.

For anyone else who wants to adopt the system, this page is dedicated to teaching you how to use the system. If you have any questions regarding clarity, feel free to contact Fox Fairy Font.

Please note that as of right now (May2025), this system is specified for FICTION books. There is a lot of nuance to Nonfiction, poetry, and some other types of plays and short stories, that this will not work for. A further developed system may be created in the future.

Sources for Inspiration: Genre sources (one, two, three) and general sources for the MBR see here and here. Others on the Compass Book Rating and the Novel Book Ratings sites.

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OVERVIEW

F3RS is a five part system designed around the fact that books can not be classified into single age range categories, without taking specific considerations into account. It adds content warnings and themes, as identifying both can benefit the reader’s experience.

Written Format:

Parent Genre – Sub Genre | Reading Level – Content Rating | Content Warnings | Themes

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GENRE

Parent Genre

EXPANDED GENRE LIST

Following the Parent Genre is the listing of the Sub Genre. A sub genre is the additional classification in which the novel falls under.

It is recommended not to use more than one sub genres, as adding too many sets up the readers expectations for those tropes to be followed.

For a book falling into two Parent Categories (in which it is equal parts both and meets the expectations of both genres) it shall be listed as: Parent/Parent.

Example:

Fantasy/Horror | NA-A | CONTENT WARNINGS | THEMES
vs.
Fantasy-Horror | NA-A | CONTENT WARNINGS | THEMES

In the former, Fantasy and Horror are equal. In this case the reader should expect both fantasy and horror novel tropes in equal measurer. In the latter Horror is secondary and one may expect that the horror elements may be more applicable to the writing style, vibes, or general horrific nature of the book.

How an author or publisher defines a book using two Parent genres together is up to their discretion.

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SUB GENRE

Here are the following lists of Sub genres that F3RS currently recognizes. Please note that a sub genre does not have to be included.

Also keep in mind that these genres were pulled from other sites and can be updated and changed with feedback regarding genres. At this time Romance, Historical, and Contemporary are in the most flux.

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READING LEVELS AND CONTENT RATINGS

Now that genre has been defined ask: who is your specific audience?

This is the primary question that both of these sections ask. Reading levels and content ratings go hand in hand. Not all books are the same, and not all readers are the same. Some want more intense content than others, while some just want feel good reads. While the reading levels and content ratings can not explain everything, they can explain who the book is meant for AGE wise and the NATURE of the content within.

Reading levels are based off of current industry standards, and content ratings are based on video games and movies. Because both of these topics are a lot more nuanced in their combination, there is a full breakdown.

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CONTENT WARNINGS

These are the warnings that are essentially the triggers for the book. These are NOT necessarily why the book is rated how it is (content rating) for that is based on a scale. Instead these are warnings the author is giving the reader about things that could trigger a reaction. Additionally, a reader looking at these warnings should consider them in relation to the content rating.

Character Death in a YA-D is different than character death in a YA-PW, but they are both character deaths. A Character Death in a YA-D may be a far more graphic scene or even a major character’s death. Destruction in a YA-M is different than a YA-E but it is still destruction. As such it will still be listed, it just won’t be expected to be as violent. 

Trigger warnings are warnings to protect people from having a reaction to the content. This is a protection measure, so that a person knows whether to pick up a book or not based on their own personal interests. The intensity of the content in the book does inform the rating in a way, but to say that death can only be in YA-D or higher, is not fair, because all people should have the chance to touch and explore mature topics, what matters is how they are handled in the book. 

Anything and everything can be a content warning. Content warnings are meant to protect the reader, and they can be skipped if the reader wishes. Content warnings can be used to explain other things in the novel that might need to be known that may not otherwise have a place. (Weapons, explicit content, etc.)

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THEMES

What is a theme? It is a core story question that the characters interact with. It is the big idea of the novel or an underlying message. 

Examples: What is identity? 

We often identify themes with large and grand sweeping questions and gestures: What is it to be evil? What is it to be human?

This is true, in the literary sense. However, I think all books touch on themes at least a little. It might not be trying to teach some grand gesture, but they do have themes. Which is why I break this down (for the rating system) into key words.

You can have things such as:

The above is not a cumulative list of themes (obviously) but some examples.

Please note that the theme section of this rating should NOT be a long exhaustive list of every possible theme in the novel. Instead the author should focus or narrow it down to 1-10 themes that they find central to the novel itself. Readers may expand upon this in their reading.

When labeling themes use words and phrases that will reveal the theme without giving too much away. These should be generally neutral terms (neither negative or positive words). F3RS theme listing is meant to invoke the concepts and intentions of the novel, as well as explain what sort of impact is intended.

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Theme is all about intention and Content Warnings are all about sensitivity. Character death might be a content warning but “processing loss” might be a theme. The two can (and should in some cases) work hand in hand.

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USING THE SYSTEM

When all is said and done, this system is intended to be simple. If you are spending more than five minutes filling out the parts, something went wrong (excluding content warnings, those should take time to list out). F3RS is intended to be easy to make and simple to read. All good rating systems are only as good as they are easy to understand for their intended audience.

For text based use Fox Fairy Font recommends the text based format.

Parent – Sub | Reading Level – Content Rating | Content warnings | Themes

Text based format for the F3RS

Hopefully there will be a PDF for all of these one day. The intention is to create a color coded format, based on the parent genre (there will be colorless versions for accessibility too).

If you have any other questions. Feel free to contact Fox Fairy Font.