what is the meaning of book review

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How to Write a Book Review: Introduction

• Introduction

Steps to Write a Book Review

• Other Resources on Writing Reviews

Writing Book Reviews

Academic book reviews are helpful in enabling people to decide if they want to read a given book. A book review is not a book report, which you may hae done in elementary school. A book report describes the basic contents. Book reviews go far deeper than that. This guide will explain what an academic book review is and how to write one well.

Introduction to Writing Book Reviews

• What is a Book Review?
• Benefits of Writing Book Reviews

 What is a Book Review?

• Describes the purpose of the book
• Describes the contents of the book (subject of each chapter)
• Analyzes the approach/argument(s) of the book: Does it seem accurate? Does it make sense? Is the argument strong or weak?
• Assesses whether the book did what the author said it would do
• Suggests potential audiences for the book (pastors, students, professors, lay people) and potential uses, such as a textbook
• Based upon a careful reading of the entire book
• Uses a structured, formal, academic tone
• Most often appears in academic journals, though more informal versions may appear in magazines and blogs
• May include comparisons to other works in the same subject, e.g., if you are reviewing a book on Paul's theology, it would help to compare it briefly to another book on Paul's theology
• In an academic setting, a review assumes an academic audience

A book review requires the reviewer to read the book carefully and reflect on its contents. The review should tell a reader what the book seeks to do and offer an appraisal of how well the author(s) accomplished this goal. That is why this is a "critical" book review. You are analyzing the book, not simply describing it. A review assumes that the readers know the vocabulary of the discipline. For example, a reviewer of a book on the Gospel of Matthew could use "Q" and not need to explain it because it is assumed that the audience knows what Q is in the context of talking about the canonical gospels.

A book review does not

• Seek to be entertaining and/or engaging
• Describe your feelings regarding the book, e.g., “I loved it,” “it was terrible,” or “I disagree completely.”
• Superficial treatment similar to the blurb on the back of the book
• Offers an ad hominem (against the person) attack on the author

Here are two examples of typical academic book reviews:

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAiFZU171223002713&site=eds-live&authtype=ip,sso&custid=s8984749

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAi9KZ180630003303&site=eds-live&authtype=ip,sso&custid=s8984749

You may see non-academic book reviews that are more inform al or use humor but that is not appropriate for an academic book review.

Why would you write a book review? There are a few reasons.

• Meet a course requirement
• Understand a book better and grow as a scholar
• Write reviews for publications in the future, such as magazines

1. Your professor assigned it. You are probably reading this page because a professor gave you an assignment to write a review. This is straightforward. Your professor may have a specific set of requirements or directions and you need to follow those, even if they differ from what you read here. In either case, assume that your review is for a large audience. 

2. Writing a review will help you understand a book better. When you are going to write a good book review, you need to read the entire book carefully. By assigning a book review, the professor is seeking to help you understand the book better. A book review is a critical assessment of a book. “Critical” here means analytical. What did the author seek to do and how convincing was it? Your professor wants you to read the book carefully enough to explain both. A critical assessment recognizes that the status of an author/scholar is no guarantee that the book accomplishes its goal. The skill of critical assessment is valuable in all your research work, both now and after graduation.

3. You may have an opportunity in the future to write a book review for a denominational publication, a magazine like Christianity Today , a church newsletter, or in a blog post, which is very common.

So, a book review can fulfill a course requirement, make you better at critical assessment of the views of others, and create opportunities to use that skill for various publications.

Step 1: Read the book carefully.

Step 2: Write the basics.

Step 3: Fill in the details.

These steps are explained in the next tab of this research guide.

This is not for Book Reflections

If you have a (personal) reflection on a book assigned, what this guide says, besides step #1, likely does not apply to your assignment. You need to ask your professor for guidance on writing a reflection. There are two reasons.

1. A book reflection is not a standard, academic type of document. Therefore, general help based upon reading book reviews is not relevant.

2. Book reflections are heavily dependent upon exactly what a professor asks for. These frequently require comparing good and bad points of the book. That is not a feature of book reviews as such and reviews do not include your personal reflections.

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• Last Updated: Jun 20, 2022 4:36 PM
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How to Write a Book Review: A Comprehensive Tutorial With Examples

You don’t need to be a literary expert to craft captivating book reviews. With one in every three readers selecting books based on insightful reviews, your opinions can guide fellow bibliophiles toward their next literary adventure.

Learning how to write a book review will not only help you excel at your assigned tasks, but you’ll also contribute valuable insights to the book-loving community and turn your passion into a professional pursuit.

In this comprehensive guide,  PaperPerk  will walk you through a few simple steps to master the art of writing book reviews so you can confidently embark on this rewarding journey.

What is a Book Review?

A book review is a critical evaluation of a book, offering insights into its content, quality, and impact. It helps readers make informed decisions about whether to read the book.

Writing a book review as an assignment benefits students in multiple ways. Firstly, it teaches them how to write a book review by developing their analytical skills as they evaluate the content, themes, and writing style .

Secondly, it enhances their ability to express opinions and provide constructive criticism. Additionally, book review assignments expose students to various publications and genres, broadening their knowledge.

Furthermore, these tasks foster essential skills for academic success, like critical thinking and the ability to synthesize information. By now, we’re sure you want to learn how to write a book review, so let’s look at the book review template first.

Table of Contents

Book Review Template

How to write a book review- a step by step guide.

Check out these 5 straightforward steps for composing the best book review.

Step 1: Planning Your Book Review – The Art of Getting Started

You’ve decided to take the plunge and share your thoughts on a book that has captivated (or perhaps disappointed) you. Before you start book reviewing, let’s take a step back and plan your approach. Since knowing how to write a book review that’s both informative and engaging is an art in itself.

Choosing Your Literature

First things first, pick the book you want to review. This might seem like a no-brainer, but selecting a book that genuinely interests you will make the review process more enjoyable and your insights more authentic.

Crafting the Master Plan

Next, create an  outline  that covers all the essential points you want to discuss in your review. This will serve as the roadmap for your writing journey.

The Devil is in the Details

As you read, note any information that stands out, whether it overwhelms, underwhelms, or simply intrigues you. Pay attention to:

• The characters and their development
• The plot and its intricacies
• Any themes, symbols, or motifs you find noteworthy

Remember to reserve a body paragraph for each point you want to discuss.

The Key Questions to Ponder

When planning your book review, consider the following questions:

• What’s the plot (if any)? Understanding the driving force behind the book will help you craft a more effective review.
• Is the plot interesting? Did the book hold your attention and keep you turning the pages?
• Are the writing techniques effective? Does the author’s style captivate you, making you want to read (or reread) the text?
• Are the characters or the information believable? Do the characters/plot/information feel real, and can you relate to them?
• Would you recommend the book to anyone? Consider if the book is worthy of being recommended, whether to impress someone or to support a point in a literature class.
• What could improve? Always keep an eye out for areas that could be improved. Providing constructive criticism can enhance the quality of literature.

Step 2 – Crafting the Perfect Introduction to Write a Book Review

In this second step of “how to write a book review,” we’re focusing on the art of creating a powerful opening that will hook your audience and set the stage for your analysis.

Identify Your Book and Author

Begin by mentioning the book you’ve chosen, including its  title  and the author’s name. This informs your readers and establishes the subject of your review.

Ponder the Title

Next, discuss the mental images or emotions the book’s title evokes in your mind . This helps your readers understand your initial feelings and expectations before diving into the book.

Judge the Book by Its Cover (Just a Little)

Take a moment to talk about the book’s cover. Did it intrigue you? Did it hint at what to expect from the story or the author’s writing style? Sharing your thoughts on the cover can offer a unique perspective on how the book presents itself to potential readers.

Present Your Thesis

Now it’s time to introduce your thesis. This statement should be a concise and insightful summary of your opinion of the book. For example:

“Normal People” by Sally Rooney is a captivating portrayal of the complexities of human relationships, exploring themes of love, class, and self-discovery with exceptional depth and authenticity.

Ensure that your thesis is relevant to the points or quotes you plan to discuss throughout your review.

Incorporating these elements into your introduction will create a strong foundation for your book review. Your readers will be eager to learn more about your thoughts and insights on the book, setting the stage for a compelling and thought-provoking analysis.

How to Write a Book Review: Step 3 – Building Brilliant Body Paragraphs

You’ve planned your review and written an attention-grabbing introduction. Now it’s time for the main event: crafting the body paragraphs of your book review. In this step of “how to write a book review,” we’ll explore the art of constructing engaging and insightful body paragraphs that will keep your readers hooked.

Summarize Without Spoilers

Begin by summarizing a specific section of the book, not revealing any major plot twists or spoilers. Your goal is to give your readers a taste of the story without ruining surprises.

Support Your Viewpoint with Quotes

Next, choose three quotes from the book that support your viewpoint or opinion. These quotes should be relevant to the section you’re summarizing and help illustrate your thoughts on the book.

Analyze the Quotes

Write a summary of each quote in your own words, explaining how it made you feel or what it led you to think about the book or the author’s writing. This analysis should provide insight into your perspective and demonstrate your understanding of the text.

Structure Your Body Paragraphs

Dedicate one body paragraph to each quote, ensuring your writing is well-connected, coherent, and easy to understand.

For example:

• In  Jane Eyre , Charlotte Brontë writes, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.” This powerful statement highlights Jane’s fierce independence and refusal to be trapped by societal expectations.
• In  Normal People , Sally Rooney explores the complexities of love and friendship when she writes, “It was culture as class performance, literature fetishized for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys.” This quote reveals the author’s astute observations on the role of culture and class in shaping personal relationships.
• In  Wuthering Heights , Emily Brontë captures the tumultuous nature of love with the quote, “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” This poignant line emphasizes the deep, unbreakable bond between the story’s central characters.

By following these guidelines, you’ll create body paragraphs that are both captivating and insightful, enhancing your book review and providing your readers with a deeper understanding of the literary work. 

How to Write a Book Review: Step 4 – Crafting a Captivating Conclusion

You’ve navigated through planning, introductions, and body paragraphs with finesse. Now it’s time to wrap up your book review with a  conclusion that leaves a lasting impression . In this final step of “how to write a book review,” we’ll explore the art of writing a memorable and persuasive conclusion.

Summarize Your Analysis

Begin by summarizing the key points you’ve presented in the body paragraphs. This helps to remind your readers of the insights and arguments you’ve shared throughout your review.

Offer Your Final Conclusion

Next, provide a conclusion that reflects your overall feelings about the book. This is your chance to leave a lasting impression and persuade your readers to consider your perspective.

Address the Book’s Appeal

Now, answer the question: Is this book worth reading? Be clear about who would enjoy the book and who might not. Discuss the taste preferences and circumstances that make the book more appealing to some readers than others.

For example:  The Alchemist is a book that can enchant a young teen, but those who are already well-versed in classic literature might find it less engaging.

Be Subtle and Balanced

Avoid simply stating whether you “liked” or “disliked” the book. Instead, use nuanced language to convey your message. Highlight the pros and cons of reading the type of literature you’ve reviewed, offering a balanced perspective.

Bringing It All Together

By following these guidelines, you’ll craft a conclusion that leaves your readers with a clear understanding of your thoughts and opinions on the book. Your review will be a valuable resource for those considering whether to pick up the book, and your witty and insightful analysis will make your review a pleasure to read. So conquer the world of book reviews, one captivating conclusion at a time!

How to Write a Book Review: Step 5 – Rating the Book (Optional)

You’ve masterfully crafted your book review, from the introduction to the conclusion. But wait, there’s one more step you might consider before calling it a day: rating the book. In this optional step of “how to write a book review,” we’ll explore the benefits and methods of assigning a rating to the book you’ve reviewed.

Why Rate the Book?

Sometimes, when writing a professional book review, it may not be appropriate to state whether you liked or disliked the book. In such cases, assigning a rating can be an effective way to get your message across without explicitly sharing your personal opinion.

How to Rate the Book

There are various rating systems you can use to evaluate the book, such as:

• A star rating (e.g., 1 to 5 stars)
• A numerical score (e.g., 1 to 10)
• A letter grade (e.g., A+ to F)

Choose a rating system that best suits your style and the format of your review. Be consistent in your rating criteria, considering writing quality, character development, plot, and overall enjoyment.

Tips for Rating the Book

Here are some tips for rating the book effectively:

• Be honest: Your rating should reflect your true feelings about the book. Don’t inflate or deflate your rating based on external factors, such as the book’s popularity or the author’s reputation.
• Be fair:Consider the book’s merits and shortcomings when rating. Even if you didn’t enjoy the book, recognize its strengths and acknowledge them in your rating.
• Be clear: Explain the rationale behind your rating so your readers understand the factors that influenced your evaluation.

Wrapping Up

By including a rating in your book review, you provide your readers with an additional insight into your thoughts on the book. While this step is optional, it can be a valuable tool for conveying your message subtly yet effectively. So, rate those books confidently, adding a touch of wit and wisdom to your book reviews.

Additional Tips on How to Write a Book Review: A Guide

In this segment, we’ll explore additional tips on how to write a book review. Get ready to captivate your readers and make your review a memorable one!

Hook ’em with an Intriguing Introduction

Keep your introduction precise and to the point. Readers have the attention span of a goldfish these days, so don’t let them swim away in boredom. Start with a bang and keep them hooked!

Embrace the World of Fiction

When learning how to write a book review, remember that reviewing fiction is often more engaging and effective. If your professor hasn’t assigned you a specific book, dive into the realm of fiction and select a novel that piques your interest.

Opinionated with Gusto

Don’t shy away from adding your own opinion to your review. A good book review always features the writer’s viewpoint and constructive criticism. After all, your readers want to know what  you  think!

Express Your Love (or Lack Thereof)

If you adored the book, let your readers know! Use phrases like “I’ll definitely return to this book again” to convey your enthusiasm. Conversely, be honest but respectful even if the book wasn’t your cup of tea.

Templates and Examples and Expert Help: Your Trusty Sidekicks

Feeling lost? You can always get help from formats, book review examples or online  college paper writing service  platforms. These trusty sidekicks will help you navigate the world of book reviews with ease. 

Be a Champion for New Writers and Literature

Remember to uplift new writers and pieces of literature. If you want to suggest improvements, do so kindly and constructively. There’s no need to be mean about anyone’s books – we’re all in this literary adventure together!

Criticize with Clarity, Not Cruelty

When adding criticism to your review, be clear but not mean. Remember, there’s a fine line between constructive criticism and cruelty. Tread lightly and keep your reader’s feelings in mind.

Avoid the Comparison Trap

Resist the urge to compare one writer’s book with another. Every book holds its worth, and comparing them will only confuse your reader. Stick to discussing the book at hand, and let it shine in its own light.

Top 7 Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Writing a book review can be a delightful and rewarding experience, especially when you balance analysis, wit, and personal insights. However, some common mistakes can kill the brilliance of your review. 

In this section of “how to write a book review,” we’ll explore the top 7 blunders writers commit and how to steer clear of them, with a dash of  modernist literature  examples and tips for students writing book reviews as assignments.

Succumbing to the Lure of Plot Summaries

Mistake: Diving headfirst into a plot summary instead of dissecting the book’s themes, characters, and writing style.

Example: “The Bell Jar chronicles the life of a young woman who experiences a mental breakdown.”

How to Avoid: Delve into the book’s deeper aspects, such as its portrayal of mental health, societal expectations, and the author’s distinctive narrative voice. Offer thoughtful insights and reflections, making your review a treasure trove of analysis.

Unleashing the Spoiler Kraken

Mistake: Spilling major plot twists or the ending without providing a spoiler warning, effectively ruining the reading experience for potential readers.

Example: “In Metamorphosis, the protagonist’s transformation into a monstrous insect leads to…”

How to Avoid: Tread carefully when discussing significant plot developments, and consider using spoiler warnings. Focus on the impact of these plot points on the overall narrative, character growth, or thematic resonance.

Riding the Personal Bias Express

Mistake: Allowing personal bias to hijack the review without providing sufficient evidence or reasoning to support opinions.

Example: “I detest books about existential crises, so The Sun Also Rises was a snoozefest.”

How to Avoid: While personal opinions are valid, it’s crucial to back them up with specific examples from the book. Discuss aspects like writing style, character development, or pacing to support your evaluation and provide a more balanced perspective.

Wielding the Vague Language Saber

Mistake: Resorting to generic, vague language that fails to capture the nuances of the book and can come across as clichéd.

Example: “This book was mind-blowing. It’s a must-read for everyone.”

How to Avoid: Use precise and descriptive language to express your thoughts. Employ specific examples and quotations to highlight memorable scenes, the author’s unique writing style, or the impact of the book’s themes on readers.

Ignoring the Contextualization Compass

Mistake: Neglecting to provide context about the author, genre, or cultural relevance of the book, leaving readers without a proper frame of reference.

Example: “This book is dull and unoriginal.”

How to Avoid: Offer readers a broader understanding by discussing the author’s background, the genre conventions the book adheres to or subverts, and any societal or historical contexts that inform the narrative. This helps readers appreciate the book’s uniqueness and relevance.

Overindulging in Personal Preferences

Mistake: Letting personal preferences overshadow an objective assessment of the book’s merits.

Example: “I don’t like stream-of-consciousness writing, so this book is automatically bad.”

How to Avoid: Acknowledge personal preferences but strive to evaluate the book objectively. Focus on the book’s strengths and weaknesses, considering how well it achieves its goals within its genre or intended audience.

Forgetting the Target Audience Telescope

Mistake: Failing to mention the book’s target audience or who might enjoy it, leading to confusion for potential readers.

Example: “This book is great for everyone.”

How to Avoid: Contemplate the book’s intended audience, genre, and themes. Mention who might particularly enjoy the book based on these factors, whether it’s fans of a specific genre, readers interested in character-driven stories, or those seeking thought-provoking narratives.

By dodging these common pitfalls, writers can craft insightful, balanced, and engaging book reviews that help readers make informed decisions about their reading choices.

These tips are particularly beneficial for students writing book reviews as assignments, as they ensure a well-rounded and thoughtful analysis.!

Many students requested us to cover how to write a book review. This thorough guide is sure to help you. At Paperperk, professionals are dedicated to helping students find their balance. We understand the importance of good grades, so we offer the finest writing service , ensuring students stay ahead of the curve. So seek expert help because only Paperperk is your perfect solution!

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How to Write a Book Review: Awesome Guide

A book review allows students to illustrate the author's intentions of writing the piece, as well as create a criticism of the book — as a whole. In other words, form an opinion of the author's presented ideas. Check out this guide from EssayPro - book review writing service to learn how to write a book review successfully.

What Is a Book Review?

You may prosper, “what is a book review?”. Book reviews are commonly assigned students to allow them to show a clear understanding of the novel. And to check if the students have actually read the book. The essay format is highly important for your consideration, take a look at the book review format below.

Book reviews are assigned to allow students to present their own opinion regarding the author’s ideas included in the book or passage. They are a form of literary criticism that analyzes the author’s ideas, writing techniques, and quality. A book analysis is entirely opinion-based, in relevance to the book. They are good practice for those who wish to become editors, due to the fact, editing requires a lot of criticism.

Book Review Template

The book review format includes an introduction, body, and conclusion.

• Introduction
• Describe the book cover and title.
• Include any subtitles at this stage.
• Include the Author’s Name.
• Write a brief description of the novel.
• Briefly introduce the main points of the body in your book review.
• Avoid mentioning any opinions at this time.
• Use about 3 quotations from the author’s novel.
• Summarize the quotations in your own words.
• Mention your own point-of-view of the quotation.
• Remember to keep every point included in its own paragraph.
• In brief, summarize the quotations.
• In brief, summarize the explanations.
• Finish with a concluding sentence.
• This can include your final opinion of the book.
• Star-Rating (Optional).

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How to Write a Book Review: Step-By-Step

Writing a book review is something that can be done with every novel. Book reviews can apply to all novels, no matter the genre. Some genres may be harder than others. On the other hand, the book review format remains the same. Take a look at these step-by-step instructions from our professional writers to learn how to write a book review in-depth.

Step 1: Planning

Create an essay outline which includes all of the main points you wish to summarise in your book analysis. Include information about the characters, details of the plot, and some other important parts of your chosen novel. Reserve a body paragraph for each point you wish to talk about.

Consider these points before writing:

• What is the plot of the book? Understanding the plot enables you to write an effective review.
• Is the plot gripping? Does the plot make you want to continue reading the novel? Did you enjoy the plot? Does it manage to grab a reader’s attention?
• Are the writing techniques used by the author effective? Does the writer imply factors in-between the lines? What are they?
• Are the characters believable? Are the characters logical? Does the book make the characters are real while reading?
• Would you recommend the book to anyone? The most important thing: would you tell others to read this book? Is it good enough? Is it bad?
• What could be better? Keep in mind the quotes that could have been presented better. Criticize the writer.

Step 2: Introduction

Presumably, you have chosen your book. To begin, mention the book title and author’s name. Talk about the cover of the book. Write a thesis statement regarding the fictitious story or non-fictional novel. Which briefly describes the quoted material in the book review.

Step 3: Body

Choose a specific chapter or scenario to summarise. Include about 3 quotes in the body. Create summaries of each quote in your own words. It is also encouraged to include your own point-of-view and the way you interpret the quote. It is highly important to have one quote per paragraph.

Step 4: Conclusion

Write a summary of the summarised quotations and explanations, included in the body paragraphs. After doing so, finish book analysis with a concluding sentence to show the bigger picture of the book. Think to yourself, “Is it worth reading?”, and answer the question in black and white. However, write in-between the lines. Avoid stating “I like/dislike this book.”

Step 5: Rate the Book (Optional)

After writing a book review, you may want to include a rating. Including a star-rating provides further insight into the quality of the book, to your readers. Book reviews with star-ratings can be more effective, compared to those which don’t. Though, this is entirely optional.

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Dive into literary analysis with EssayPro . Our experts can help you craft insightful book reviews that delve deep into the themes, characters, and narratives of your chosen books. Enhance your understanding and appreciation of literature with us.

Writing Tips

Here is the list of tips for the book review:

• A long introduction can certainly lower one’s grade: keep the beginning short. Readers don’t like to read the long introduction for any essay style.
• It is advisable to write book reviews about fiction: it is not a must. Though, reviewing fiction can be far more effective than writing about a piece of nonfiction
• Avoid Comparing: avoid comparing your chosen novel with other books you have previously read. Doing so can be confusing for the reader.
• Opinion Matters: including your own point-of-view is something that is often encouraged when writing book reviews.
• Refer to Templates: a book review template can help a student get a clearer understanding of the required writing style.
• Don’t be Afraid to Criticize: usually, your own opinion isn’t required for academic papers below Ph.D. level. On the other hand, for book reviews, there’s an exception.
• Use Positivity: include a fair amount of positive comments and criticism.
• Review The Chosen Novel: avoid making things up. Review only what is presented in the chosen book.
• Enjoyed the book? If you loved reading the book, state it. Doing so makes your book analysis more personalized.

Writing a book review is something worth thinking about. Professors commonly assign this form of an assignment to students to enable them to express a grasp of a novel. Following the book review format is highly useful for beginners, as well as reading step-by-step instructions. Writing tips is also useful for people who are new to this essay type. If you need a book review or essay, ask our book report writing services ' write paper for me ' and we'll give you a hand asap!

We also recommend that everyone read the article about essay topics . It will help broaden your horizons in writing a book review as well as other papers.

Book Review Examples

Referring to a book review example is highly useful to those who wish to get a clearer understanding of how to review a book. Take a look at our examples written by our professional writers. Click on the button to open the book review examples and feel free to use them as a reference.

Book review

Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’

Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’ is a novel aimed at youngsters. The plot, itself, is not American humor, but that of Great Britain. In terms of sarcasm, and British-related jokes. The novel illustrates a fair mix of the relationships between the human-like animals, and wildlife. The narrative acts as an important milestone in post-Victorian children’s literature.

Book Review

Dr. John’s ‘Pollution’

Dr. John’s ‘Pollution’ consists of 3 major parts. The first part is all about the polluted ocean. The second being about the pollution of the sky. The third part is an in-depth study of how humans can resolve these issues. The book is a piece of non-fiction that focuses on modern-day pollution ordeals faced by both animals and humans on Planet Earth. It also focuses on climate change, being the result of the global pollution ordeal.

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How To Write A Book Review?

What to include in a book review, what is a book review, related articles.

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A book review is a thorough description, critical analysis, and/or evaluation of the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, often written in relation to prior research on the topic. Reviews generally range from 500-2000 words, but may be longer or shorter depends on several factors: the length and complexity of the book being reviewed, the overall purpose of the review, and whether the review examines two or more books that focus on the same topic. Professors assign book reviews as practice in carefully analyzing complex scholarly texts and to assess your ability to effectively synthesize research so that you reach an informed perspective about the topic being covered.

There are two general approaches to reviewing a book:

• Descriptive review: Presents the content and structure of a book as objectively as possible, describing essential information about a book's purpose and authority. This is done by stating the perceived aims and purposes of the study, often incorporating passages quoted from the text that highlight key elements of the work. Additionally, there may be some indication of the reading level and anticipated audience.
• Critical review: Describes and evaluates the book in relation to accepted literary and historical standards and supports this evaluation with evidence from the text and, in most cases, in contrast to and in comparison with the research of others. It should include a statement about what the author has tried to do, evaluates how well you believe the author has succeeded in meeting the objectives of the study, and presents evidence to support this assessment. For most course assignments, your professor will want you to write this type of review.

Book Reviews. Writing Center. University of New Hampshire; Book Reviews: How to Write a Book Review. Writing and Style Guides. Libraries. Dalhousie University; Kindle, Peter A. "Teaching Students to Write Book Reviews." Contemporary Rural Social Work 7 (2015): 135-141; Erwin, R. W. “Reviewing Books for Scholarly Journals.” In Writing and Publishing for Academic Authors . Joseph M. Moxley and Todd Taylor. 2 nd edition. (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 1997), pp. 83-90.

How to Approach Writing Your Review

NOTE:   Since most course assignments require that you write a critical rather than descriptive book review, the following information about preparing to write and developing the structure and style of reviews focuses on this approach.

I.  Common Features

While book reviews vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features. These include:

• A review gives the reader a concise summary of the content . This includes a description of the research topic and scope of analysis as well as an overview of the book's overall perspective, argument, and purpose.
• A review offers a critical assessment of the content in relation to other studies on the same topic . This involves documenting your reactions to the work under review--what strikes you as noteworthy or important, whether or not the arguments made by the author(s) were effective or persuasive, and how the work enhanced your understanding of the research problem under investigation.
• In addition to analyzing a book's strengths and weaknesses, a scholarly review often recommends whether or not readers would value the work for its authenticity and overall quality . This measure of quality includes both the author's ideas and arguments and covers practical issues, such as, readability and language, organization and layout, indexing, and, if needed, the use of non-textual elements .

To maintain your focus, always keep in mind that most assignments ask you to discuss a book's treatment of its topic, not the topic itself . Your key sentences should say, "This book shows...,” "The study demonstrates...," or “The author argues...," rather than "This happened...” or “This is the case....”

II.  Developing a Critical Assessment Strategy

There is no definitive methodological approach to writing a book review in the social sciences, although it is necessary that you think critically about the research problem under investigation before you begin to write. Therefore, writing a book review is a three-step process: 1) carefully taking notes as you read the text; 2) developing an argument about the value of the work under consideration; and, 3) clearly articulating that argument as you write an organized and well-supported assessment of the work.

A useful strategy in preparing to write a review is to list a set of questions that should be answered as you read the book [remember to note the page numbers so you can refer back to the text!]. The specific questions to ask yourself will depend upon the type of book you are reviewing. For example, a book that is presenting original research about a topic may require a different set of questions to ask yourself than a work where the author is offering a personal critique of an existing policy or issue.

Here are some sample questions that can help you think critically about the book:

• Thesis or Argument . What is the central thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one main idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world that you know or have experienced? What has the book accomplished? Is the argument clearly stated and does the research support this?
• Topic . What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Is it clearly articulated? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? Can you detect any biases? What type of approach has the author adopted to explore the research problem [e.g., topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive]?
• Evidence . How does the author support their argument? What evidence does the author use to prove their point? Is the evidence based on an appropriate application of the method chosen to gather information? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author's information [or conclusions] conflict with other books you've read, courses you've taken, or just previous assumptions you had about the research problem?
• Structure . How does the author structure their argument? Does it follow a logical order of analysis? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense to you? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• Take-aways . How has this book helped you understand the research problem? Would you recommend the book to others? Why or why not?

Beyond the content of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the general presentation of information. Question to ask may include:

• The Author: Who is the author? The nationality, political persuasion, education, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the author is affiliated with a particular organization? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they wrote about? What other topics has the author written about? Does this work build on prior research or does it represent a new or unique area of research?
• The Presentation: What is the book's genre? Out of what discipline does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or other contextual standard upon which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know this. Keep in mind, though, that declarative statements about being the “first,” the "best," or the "only" book of its kind can be a risky unless you're absolutely certain because your professor [presumably] has a much better understanding of the overall research literature.

NOTE: Most critical book reviews examine a topic in relation to prior research. A good strategy for identifying this prior research is to examine sources the author(s) cited in the chapters introducing the research problem and, of course, any review of the literature. However, you should not assume that the author's references to prior research is authoritative or complete. If any works related to the topic have been excluded, your assessment of the book should note this . Be sure to consult with a librarian to ensure that any additional studies are located beyond what has been cited by the author(s).

Book Reviews. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Book Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Hartley, James. "Reading and Writing Book Reviews Across the Disciplines." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 57 (July 2006): 1194–1207;   Motta-Roth, D. “Discourse Analysis and Academic Book Reviews: A Study of Text and Disciplinary Cultures.”  In Genre Studies in English for Academic Purposes . Fortanet Gómez, Inmaculada  et  al., editors. (Castellò de la Plana: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I, 1998), pp. 29-45. Writing a Book Review. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing Book Reviews. Writing Tutorial Services, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Indiana University; Suárez, Lorena and Ana I. Moreno. “The Rhetorical Structure of Academic Journal Book Reviews: A Cross-linguistic and Cross-disciplinary Approach .” In Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, María del Carmen Pérez Llantada Auría, Ramón Plo Alastrué, and Claus Peter Neumann. Actas del V Congreso Internacional AELFE/Proceedings of the 5th International AELFE Conference . Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza, 2006.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Bibliographic Information

Bibliographic information refers to the essential elements of a work if you were to cite it in a paper [i.e., author, title, date of publication, etc.]. Provide the essential information about the book using the writing style [e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago] preferred by your professor or used by the discipline of your major . Depending on how your professor wants you to organize your review, the bibliographic information represents the heading of your review. In general, it would look like this:

[Complete title of book. Author or authors. Place of publication. Publisher. Date of publication. Number of pages before first chapter, often in Roman numerals. Total number of pages]. The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History . By Jill Lepore. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010. xii, 207 pp.)

Reviewed by [your full name].

II.  Scope/Purpose/Content

Begin your review by telling the reader not only the overarching concern of the book in its entirety [the subject area] but also what the author's particular point of view is on that subject [the thesis statement]. If you cannot find an adequate statement in the author's own words or if you find that the thesis statement is not well-developed, then you will have to compose your own introductory thesis statement that does cover all the material. This statement should be no more than one paragraph and must be succinctly stated, accurate, and unbiased.

If you find it difficult to discern the overall aims and objectives of the book [and, be sure to point this out in your review if you determine that this is a deficiency], you may arrive at an understanding of the book's overall purpose by assessing the following:

• Scan the table of contents because it can help you understand how the book was organized and will aid in determining the author's main ideas and how they were developed [e.g., chronologically, topically, historically, etc.].
• Why did the author write on this subject rather than on some other subject?
• From what point of view is the work written?
• Was the author trying to give information, to explain something technical, or to convince the reader of a belief’s validity by dramatizing it in action?
• What is the general field or genre, and how does the book fit into it? If necessary, review related literature from other books and journal articles to familiarize yourself with the field.
• Who is the intended audience?
• What is the author's style? Is it formal or informal? You can evaluate the quality of the writing style by noting some of the following standards: coherence, clarity, originality, forcefulness, accurate use of technical words, conciseness, fullness of development, and fluidity [i.e., quality of the narrative flow].
• How did the book affect you? Were there any prior assumptions you had about the subject that were changed, abandoned, or reinforced after reading the book? How is the book related to your own personal beliefs or assumptions? What personal experiences have you had related to the subject that affirm or challenge underlying assumptions?
• How well has the book achieved the goal(s) set forth in the preface, introduction, and/or foreword?
• Would you recommend this book to others? Why or why not?

III.  Note the Method

Support your remarks with specific references to text and quotations that help to illustrate the literary method used to state the research problem, describe the research design, and analyze the findings. In general, authors tend to use the following literary methods, exclusively or in combination.

• Description : The author depicts scenes and events by giving specific details that appeal to the five senses, or to the reader’s imagination. The description presents background and setting. Its primary purpose is to help the reader realize, through as many details as possible, the way persons, places, and things are situated within the phenomenon being described.
• Narration : The author tells the story of a series of events, usually thematically or in chronological order. In general, the emphasis in scholarly books is on narration of the events. Narration tells what has happened and, in some cases, using this method to forecast what could happen in the future. Its primary purpose is to draw the reader into a story and create a contextual framework for understanding the research problem.
• Exposition : The author uses explanation and analysis to present a subject or to clarify an idea. Exposition presents the facts about a subject or an issue clearly and as impartially as possible. Its primary purpose is to describe and explain, to document for the historical record an event or phenomenon.
• Argument : The author uses techniques of persuasion to establish understanding of a particular truth, often in the form of addressing a research question, or to convince the reader of its falsity. The overall aim is to persuade the reader to believe something and perhaps to act on that belief. Argument takes sides on an issue and aims to convince the reader that the author's position is valid, logical, and/or reasonable.

IV.  Critically Evaluate the Contents

Critical comments should form the bulk of your book review . State whether or not you feel the author's treatment of the subject matter is appropriate for the intended audience. Ask yourself:

• Has the purpose of the book been achieved?
• What contributions does the book make to the field?
• Is the treatment of the subject matter objective or at least balanced in describing all sides of a debate?
• Are there facts and evidence that have been omitted?
• What kinds of data, if any, are used to support the author's thesis statement?
• Can the same data be interpreted to explain alternate outcomes?
• Is the writing style clear and effective?
• Does the book raise important or provocative issues or topics for discussion?
• Does the book bring attention to the need for further research?
• What has been left out?

Support your evaluation with evidence from the text and, when possible, state the book's quality in relation to other scholarly sources. If relevant, note of the book's format, such as, layout, binding, typography, etc. Are there tables, charts, maps, illustrations, text boxes, photographs, or other non-textual elements? Do they aid in understanding the text? Describing this is particularly important in books that contain a lot of non-textual elements.

NOTE:   It is important to carefully distinguish your views from those of the author so as not to confuse your reader. Be clear when you are describing an author's point of view versus expressing your own.

V.  Examine the Front Matter and Back Matter

Front matter refers to any content before the first chapter of the book. Back matter refers to any information included after the final chapter of the book . Front matter is most often numbered separately from the rest of the text in lower case Roman numerals [i.e. i - xi ]. Critical commentary about front or back matter is generally only necessary if you believe there is something that diminishes the overall quality of the work [e.g., the indexing is poor] or there is something that is particularly helpful in understanding the book's contents [e.g., foreword places the book in an important context].

Front matter that may be considered for evaluation when reviewing its overall quality:

• Table of contents -- is it clear? Is it detailed or general? Does it reflect the true contents of the book? Does it help in understanding a logical sequence of content?
• Author biography -- also found as back matter, the biography of author(s) can be useful in determining the authority of the writer and whether the book builds on prior research or represents new research. In scholarly reviews, noting the author's affiliation and prior publications can be a factor in helping the reader determine the overall validity of the work [i.e., are they associated with a research center devoted to studying the problem under investigation].
• Foreword -- the purpose of a foreword is to introduce the reader to the author and the content of the book, and to help establish credibility for both. A foreword may not contribute any additional information about the book's subject matter, but rather, serves as a means of validating the book's existence. In these cases, the foreword is often written by a leading scholar or expert who endorses the book's contributions to advancing research about the topic. Later editions of a book sometimes have a new foreword prepended [appearing before an older foreword, if there was one], which may be included to explain how the latest edition differs from previous editions. These are most often written by the author.
• Acknowledgements -- scholarly studies in the social sciences often take many years to write, so authors frequently acknowledge the help and support of others in getting their research published. This can be as innocuous as acknowledging the author's family or the publisher. However, an author may acknowledge prominent scholars or subject experts, staff at key research centers, people who curate important archival collections, or organizations that funded the research. In these particular cases, it may be worth noting these sources of support in your review, particularly if the funding organization is biased or its mission is to promote a particular agenda.
• Preface -- generally describes the genesis, purpose, limitations, and scope of the book and may include acknowledgments of indebtedness to people who have helped the author complete the study. Is the preface helpful in understanding the study? Does it provide an effective framework for understanding what's to follow?
• Chronology -- also may be found as back matter, a chronology is generally included to highlight key events related to the subject of the book. Do the entries contribute to the overall work? Is it detailed or very general?
• List of non-textual elements -- a book that contains numerous charts, photographs, maps, tables, etc. will often list these items after the table of contents in the order that they appear in the text. Is this useful?

Back matter that may be considered for evaluation when reviewing its overall quality:

• Afterword -- this is a short, reflective piece written by the author that takes the form of a concluding section, final commentary, or closing statement. It is worth mentioning in a review if it contributes information about the purpose of the book, gives a call to action, summarizes key recommendations or next steps, or asks the reader to consider key points made in the book.
• Appendix -- is the supplementary material in the appendix or appendices well organized? Do they relate to the contents or appear superfluous? Does it contain any essential information that would have been more appropriately integrated into the text?
• Index -- are there separate indexes for names and subjects or one integrated index. Is the indexing thorough and accurate? Are elements used, such as, bold or italic fonts to help identify specific places in the book? Does the index include "see also" references to direct you to related topics?
• Glossary of Terms -- are the definitions clearly written? Is the glossary comprehensive or are there key terms missing? Are any terms or concepts mentioned in the text not included that should have been?
• Endnotes -- examine any endnotes as you read from chapter to chapter. Do they provide important additional information? Do they clarify or extend points made in the body of the text? Should any notes have been better integrated into the text rather than separated? Do the same if the author uses footnotes.
• Bibliography/References/Further Readings -- review any bibliography, list of references to sources, and/or further readings the author may have included. What kinds of sources appear [e.g., primary or secondary, recent or old, scholarly or popular, etc.]? How does the author make use of them? Be sure to note important omissions of sources that you believe should have been utilized, including important digital resources or archival collections.

VI.  Summarize and Comment

State your general conclusions briefly and succinctly. Pay particular attention to the author's concluding chapter and/or afterword. Is the summary convincing? List the principal topics, and briefly summarize the author’s ideas about these topics, main points, and conclusions. If appropriate and to help clarify your overall evaluation, use specific references to text and quotations to support your statements. If your thesis has been well argued, the conclusion should follow naturally. It can include a final assessment or simply restate your thesis. Do not introduce new information in the conclusion. If you've compared the book to any other works or used other sources in writing the review, be sure to cite them at the end of your book review in the same writing style as your bibliographic heading of the book.

Book Reviews. Writing@CSU. Colorado State University; Book Reviews. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Gastel, Barbara. "Special Books Section: A Strategy for Reviewing Books for Journals." BioScience 41 (October 1991): 635-637; Hartley, James. "Reading and Writing Book Reviews Across the Disciplines." Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 57 (July 2006): 1194–1207; Lee, Alexander D., Bart N. Green, Claire D. Johnson, and Julie Nyquist. "How to Write a Scholarly Book Review for Publication in a Peer-reviewed Journal: A Review of the Literature." Journal of Chiropractic Education 24 (2010): 57-69; Nicolaisen, Jeppe. "The Scholarliness of Published Peer Reviews: A Bibliometric Study of Book Reviews in Selected Social Science Fields." Research Evaluation 11 (2002): 129-140;.Procter, Margaret. The Book Review or Article Critique. The Lab Report. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Reading a Book to Review It. The Writer’s Handbook. Writing Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Scarnecchia, David L. "Writing Book Reviews for the Journal Of Range Management and Rangelands." Rangeland Ecology and Management 57 (2004): 418-421; Simon, Linda. "The Pleasures of Book Reviewing." Journal of Scholarly Publishing 27 (1996): 240-241; Writing a Book Review. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Writing Book Reviews. Writing Tutorial Services, Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. Indiana University.

Writing Tip

Always Read the Foreword and/or the Preface

If they are included in the front matter, a good place for understanding a book's overall purpose, organization, contributions to further understanding of the research problem, and relationship to other studies is to read the preface and the foreword. The foreword may be written by someone other than the author or editor and can be a person who is famous or who has name recognition within the discipline. A foreword is often included to add credibility to the work.

The preface is usually an introductory essay written by the author or editor. It is intended to describe the book's overall purpose, arrangement, scope, and overall contributions to the literature. When reviewing the book, it can be useful to critically evaluate whether the goals set forth in the foreword and/or preface were actually achieved. At the very least, they can establish a foundation for understanding a study's scope and purpose as well as its significance in contributing new knowledge.

Distinguishing between a Foreword, a Preface, and an Introduction . Book Creation Learning Center. Greenleaf Book Group, 2019.

Locating Book Reviews

There are several databases the USC Libraries subscribes to that include the full-text or citations to book reviews. Short, descriptive reviews can also be found at book-related online sites such as Amazon , although it's not always obvious who has written them and may actually be created by the publisher. The following databases provide comprehensive access to scholarly, full-text book reviews:

• ProQuest [1983-present]
• Book Review Digest Retrospective [1905-1982]

Some Language for Evaluating Texts

It can be challenging to find the proper vocabulary from which to discuss and evaluate a book. Here is a list of some active verbs for referring to texts and ideas that you might find useful:

• account for
• demonstrate
• distinguish
• investigate

Examples of usage

• "The evidence indicates that..."
• "This work assesses the effect of..."
• "The author identifies three key reasons for..."
• "This book questions the view that..."
• "This work challenges assumptions about...."

Paquot, Magali. Academic Keyword List. Centre for English Corpus Linguistics. Université Catholique de Louvain.

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Book Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write a book review, a report or essay that offers a critical perspective on a text. It offers a process and suggests some strategies for writing book reviews.

What is a review?

A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles, entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies, exhibitions, performances, and many other forms. This handout will focus on book reviews. For a similar assignment, see our handout on literature reviews .

Above all, a review makes an argument. The most important element of a review is that it is a commentary, not merely a summary. It allows you to enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with other audiences. You can offer agreement or disagreement and identify where you find the work exemplary or deficient in its knowledge, judgments, or organization. You should clearly state your opinion of the work in question, and that statement will probably resemble other types of academic writing, with a thesis statement, supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Typically, reviews are brief. In newspapers and academic journals, they rarely exceed 1000 words, although you may encounter lengthier assignments and extended commentaries. In either case, reviews need to be succinct. While they vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features:

• First, a review gives the reader a concise summary of the content. This includes a relevant description of the topic as well as its overall perspective, argument, or purpose.
• Second, and more importantly, a review offers a critical assessment of the content. This involves your reactions to the work under review: what strikes you as noteworthy, whether or not it was effective or persuasive, and how it enhanced your understanding of the issues at hand.
• Finally, in addition to analyzing the work, a review often suggests whether or not the audience would appreciate it.

Becoming an expert reviewer: three short examples

Reviewing can be a daunting task. Someone has asked for your opinion about something that you may feel unqualified to evaluate. Who are you to criticize Toni Morrison’s new book if you’ve never written a novel yourself, much less won a Nobel Prize? The point is that someone—a professor, a journal editor, peers in a study group—wants to know what you think about a particular work. You may not be (or feel like) an expert, but you need to pretend to be one for your particular audience. Nobody expects you to be the intellectual equal of the work’s creator, but your careful observations can provide you with the raw material to make reasoned judgments. Tactfully voicing agreement and disagreement, praise and criticism, is a valuable, challenging skill, and like many forms of writing, reviews require you to provide concrete evidence for your assertions.

Consider the following brief book review written for a history course on medieval Europe by a student who is fascinated with beer:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, investigates how women used to brew and sell the majority of ale drunk in England. Historically, ale and beer (not milk, wine, or water) were important elements of the English diet. Ale brewing was low-skill and low status labor that was complimentary to women’s domestic responsibilities. In the early fifteenth century, brewers began to make ale with hops, and they called this new drink “beer.” This technique allowed brewers to produce their beverages at a lower cost and to sell it more easily, although women generally stopped brewing once the business became more profitable.

The student describes the subject of the book and provides an accurate summary of its contents. But the reader does not learn some key information expected from a review: the author’s argument, the student’s appraisal of the book and its argument, and whether or not the student would recommend the book. As a critical assessment, a book review should focus on opinions, not facts and details. Summary should be kept to a minimum, and specific details should serve to illustrate arguments.

Now consider a review of the same book written by a slightly more opinionated student:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 was a colossal disappointment. I wanted to know about the rituals surrounding drinking in medieval England: the songs, the games, the parties. Bennett provided none of that information. I liked how the book showed ale and beer brewing as an economic activity, but the reader gets lost in the details of prices and wages. I was more interested in the private lives of the women brewsters. The book was divided into eight long chapters, and I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to read it.

There’s no shortage of judgments in this review! But the student does not display a working knowledge of the book’s argument. The reader has a sense of what the student expected of the book, but no sense of what the author herself set out to prove. Although the student gives several reasons for the negative review, those examples do not clearly relate to each other as part of an overall evaluation—in other words, in support of a specific thesis. This review is indeed an assessment, but not a critical one.

Here is one final review of the same book:

One of feminism’s paradoxes—one that challenges many of its optimistic histories—is how patriarchy remains persistent over time. While Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 recognizes medieval women as historical actors through their ale brewing, it also shows that female agency had its limits with the advent of beer. I had assumed that those limits were religious and political, but Bennett shows how a “patriarchal equilibrium” shut women out of economic life as well. Her analysis of women’s wages in ale and beer production proves that a change in women’s work does not equate to a change in working women’s status. Contemporary feminists and historians alike should read Bennett’s book and think twice when they crack open their next brewsky.

This student’s review avoids the problems of the previous two examples. It combines balanced opinion and concrete example, a critical assessment based on an explicitly stated rationale, and a recommendation to a potential audience. The reader gets a sense of what the book’s author intended to demonstrate. Moreover, the student refers to an argument about feminist history in general that places the book in a specific genre and that reaches out to a general audience. The example of analyzing wages illustrates an argument, the analysis engages significant intellectual debates, and the reasons for the overall positive review are plainly visible. The review offers criteria, opinions, and support with which the reader can agree or disagree.

Developing an assessment: before you write

There is no definitive method to writing a review, although some critical thinking about the work at hand is necessary before you actually begin writing. Thus, writing a review is a two-step process: developing an argument about the work under consideration, and making that argument as you write an organized and well-supported draft. See our handout on argument .

What follows is a series of questions to focus your thinking as you dig into the work at hand. While the questions specifically consider book reviews, you can easily transpose them to an analysis of performances, exhibitions, and other review subjects. Don’t feel obligated to address each of the questions; some will be more relevant than others to the book in question.

• What is the thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world you know? What has the book accomplished?
• What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? What is the approach to the subject (topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive)?
• How does the author support their argument? What evidence do they use to prove their point? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author’s information (or conclusions) conflict with other books you’ve read, courses you’ve taken or just previous assumptions you had of the subject?
• How does the author structure their argument? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• How has this book helped you understand the subject? Would you recommend the book to your reader?

Beyond the internal workings of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the circumstances of the text’s production:

• Who is the author? Nationality, political persuasion, training, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the biographer was the subject’s best friend? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they write about?
• What is the book’s genre? Out of what field does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or literary standard on which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know. Keep in mind, though, that naming “firsts”—alongside naming “bests” and “onlys”—can be a risky business unless you’re absolutely certain.

Writing the review

Once you have made your observations and assessments of the work under review, carefully survey your notes and attempt to unify your impressions into a statement that will describe the purpose or thesis of your review. Check out our handout on thesis statements . Then, outline the arguments that support your thesis.

Your arguments should develop the thesis in a logical manner. That logic, unlike more standard academic writing, may initially emphasize the author’s argument while you develop your own in the course of the review. The relative emphasis depends on the nature of the review: if readers may be more interested in the work itself, you may want to make the work and the author more prominent; if you want the review to be about your perspective and opinions, then you may structure the review to privilege your observations over (but never separate from) those of the work under review. What follows is just one of many ways to organize a review.

Introduction

Since most reviews are brief, many writers begin with a catchy quip or anecdote that succinctly delivers their argument. But you can introduce your review differently depending on the argument and audience. The Writing Center’s handout on introductions can help you find an approach that works. In general, you should include:

• The name of the author and the book title and the main theme.
• Relevant details about who the author is and where they stand in the genre or field of inquiry. You could also link the title to the subject to show how the title explains the subject matter.
• The context of the book and/or your review. Placing your review in a framework that makes sense to your audience alerts readers to your “take” on the book. Perhaps you want to situate a book about the Cuban revolution in the context of Cold War rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union. Another reviewer might want to consider the book in the framework of Latin American social movements. Your choice of context informs your argument.
• The thesis of the book. If you are reviewing fiction, this may be difficult since novels, plays, and short stories rarely have explicit arguments. But identifying the book’s particular novelty, angle, or originality allows you to show what specific contribution the piece is trying to make.
• Your thesis about the book.

Summary of content

This should be brief, as analysis takes priority. In the course of making your assessment, you’ll hopefully be backing up your assertions with concrete evidence from the book, so some summary will be dispersed throughout other parts of the review.

The necessary amount of summary also depends on your audience. Graduate students, beware! If you are writing book reviews for colleagues—to prepare for comprehensive exams, for example—you may want to devote more attention to summarizing the book’s contents. If, on the other hand, your audience has already read the book—such as a class assignment on the same work—you may have more liberty to explore more subtle points and to emphasize your own argument. See our handout on summary for more tips.

Analysis and evaluation of the book

Your analysis and evaluation should be organized into paragraphs that deal with single aspects of your argument. This arrangement can be challenging when your purpose is to consider the book as a whole, but it can help you differentiate elements of your criticism and pair assertions with evidence more clearly. You do not necessarily need to work chronologically through the book as you discuss it. Given the argument you want to make, you can organize your paragraphs more usefully by themes, methods, or other elements of the book. If you find it useful to include comparisons to other books, keep them brief so that the book under review remains in the spotlight. Avoid excessive quotation and give a specific page reference in parentheses when you do quote. Remember that you can state many of the author’s points in your own words.

Sum up or restate your thesis or make the final judgment regarding the book. You should not introduce new evidence for your argument in the conclusion. You can, however, introduce new ideas that go beyond the book if they extend the logic of your own thesis. This paragraph needs to balance the book’s strengths and weaknesses in order to unify your evaluation. Did the body of your review have three negative paragraphs and one favorable one? What do they all add up to? The Writing Center’s handout on conclusions can help you make a final assessment.

Finally, a few general considerations:

• Review the book in front of you, not the book you wish the author had written. You can and should point out shortcomings or failures, but don’t criticize the book for not being something it was never intended to be.
• With any luck, the author of the book worked hard to find the right words to express her ideas. You should attempt to do the same. Precise language allows you to control the tone of your review.
• Never hesitate to challenge an assumption, approach, or argument. Be sure, however, to cite specific examples to back up your assertions carefully.
• Try to present a balanced argument about the value of the book for its audience. You’re entitled—and sometimes obligated—to voice strong agreement or disagreement. But keep in mind that a bad book takes as long to write as a good one, and every author deserves fair treatment. Harsh judgments are difficult to prove and can give readers the sense that you were unfair in your assessment.
• A great place to learn about book reviews is to look at examples. The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The New York Review of Books can show you how professional writers review books.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Drewry, John. 1974. Writing Book Reviews. Boston: Greenwood Press.

Hoge, James. 1987. Literary Reviewing. Charlottesville: University Virginia of Press.

Sova, Dawn, and Harry Teitelbaum. 2002. How to Write Book Reports , 4th ed. Lawrenceville, NY: Thomson/Arco.

Walford, A.J. 1986. Reviews and Reviewing: A Guide. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Book Reviews

A book review addresses the subject matter of a literary work, and assesses effectiveness and value. Book reviews keep publishers and the public aware of what is being thought and written in a wide range of subjects. When a new book is issued, copies are sent to reviewers; subsequent reviews appear in literary magazines, academic journals, newspapers, and other periodicals. People everywhere depend on book reviews to direct them in their reading; many readers buy what commentators give particular attention. Competent reviewers are the best counselors for readers attempting to keep up with intellectual and aesthetic developments in the literary arts.

Scope: What a Book Review Is and Is Not

Book reviews vary widely. A review does not simply summarize book material, and should not be substituted for the original book. The purpose of a book review is to make known what a literary work purports to do and be, as a publication for both general and specialized readers. Essential components to be taken into account include concerns of subject matter and style. A review is a critical essay, a report and an analysis. Whether favorable or unfavorable in its assessment, it should seem authoritative. The reviewer's competence must be convincing and satisfying. As with any form of writing, the writer of a book review is convincing through thorough study and understanding of the material, and opinions supported by sound reasoning; the reviewer achieves reader satisfaction upon by giving justice to the subject, the book being reviewed, and connecting it with vital human concerns. A review may be limited in its scope due to length requirements, whether those are set by an instructor or an editor. How thoroughly and with respect to what aspects a book is reviewed also depends on instructor or editor preferences, or simply the attitudes and qualifications of the reviewer.

Essential Objectives

A book review should address three issues:

• Contents, or what is said in the book.
• Style, or how it is said.
• Assessment, or analysis of how true and significant the book is.

The most essential preparation for review writing is of course a complete, thoughtful reading of the book. After reading, the reviewer should have a sound, integrated idea of the book contents, and begin to develop attitudes toward style, purpose, and value. As the reviewer forms ideas for the review, certain influences and motives should be considered:

• The interests, general or special, of the readers: Are they looking to the review for an elementary, informational report? A more advanced, technical, scholarly address?
• The reviewer's own particular interests and purposes: Does the reviewer want to remain primarily a fact-finding reporter? Or are there more specialized ideas and principles of art and ideology the reviewer wants to advance?
• Contemporary social, economic, political, and aesthetic issues: Do one or more of these affect the aim or emphasis of the book review? How does the incorporation and interpretation of these issues in the book review further discussion of the book's contents and style?
• Required treatment and length requirements: What requirements for the review, emphasis and length, have been set by the instructor or editor?

Material for the Review

As the reviewer decides the scope and content of the review, there are various critical considerations to keep in mind. In addition to content and style, information about the publication and category of the book, and the author and author purpose, may be helpful with analysis. Not all material needs to be included in the final review, but the reviewer should be aware of any relevant issues.

Bibliographical Data

Bibliographical data includes the publisher, place and date of publication, and book price. This information is important for readers who want to buy the book. It may also raise questions: Is the book newly issued? Or is it being reissued? If reissued, is it only a new printing or has it been revised? If revised, what is the nature of the revision? Answers to these questions often can be found in a preface to the book by the author. Consult the front matter of the book, the title and copyright pages, for basic publication information. Often, price, publisher, and page count are listed separately at the beginning or end of a book review; this is the case with the example reviews accompanying this guide.

Classification

There are various categories, or genres, to which a book is assigned: fiction, poetry, travel and adventure, mystery, children's literature, biography, history, and contemporary thought, among others. A reviewer analyzes a book's conformity to a genre with attention to the author's approaches, methods, materials and coverage, and the outcomes of the book as to information, judgments, or interest value. For example, in her review of John D'Agata's Halls of Fame , Wendy Rawlings discusses how D'Agata experiments with the form of the essay: "If you're accustomed to reading essays organized around a clearly articulated theme and guided by a single narrative voice that signposts its intentions along the way, D'Agata's methods may frustrate. His essays are disjunctive agglomerations of excerpts from texts of all sorts (literary and otherwise), lists, transcripts from tape-recorded conversations, and, often, long passages of direct quotes from people he meets . . . Reading D'Agata's essays, I felt the strain of someone experimenting with the democratization of a form that, in America, has perhaps been colonized, or at least overpopulated by the ironic and the smug." Rawlings further compares and contrasts D'Agata's methods to those of David Foster Wallace, another contemporary writer of essays. When analyzing a writer's approach to form, some questions to consider are: How does the book differ from previous works in the same field? Has the author written previous books, in this genre or others? How has the author changed or developed? To what extent does the book being reviewed offer anything new its genre? How might it influence later works in the same genre?

Author and Author Purpose

Depending on the genre of the book, the background and purpose of the author may be relevant to the analysis of the book. Refer to the book jacket and biographical notes on the author. Further research may be helpful; read interviews, essays, and, if available, previously written biographies. In John Calderazzo's review of Ken Lamberton's Wilderness and Razor Wire , biographical data about Lamberton proves relevant: "Lamberton had an uncommon resume for someone doing serious jail time: no grinding poverty, no drugs or violence. He grew up in Arizona as an avid collector of wild things, a self-taught naturalist . . . He earned a bachelor's degree in biology, married Karen, a fellow lover of the wild, had kids, and decided to share his passions for science and nature in the public schools . . . He became infatuated with a student and, incredibly, ran off with her to Colorado. Soon someone from Mesa recognized them in Aspen and called the police." This background information provides the reason for Lamberton's incarceration as well as the basis for Calderazzo's discussion of the writer's "microscopically detailed prose" and "the single-mindedness of his gaze." The following is a list of possible biographical data about an author to reference in a review:

• Race, nationality, and origins-social, cultural, religious, economic, political, environmental.
• Training and affiliations-literary, scholastic, religious, political, etc.
• Schooling, travel, or other formative influences.
• Personal experiences-general or specific.
• Career and/or professional position.
• Other literary or scholastic works.
• Stimulus or occasion for writing.
• Special writing aids-illustrations, photographs, diagrams, etc.
• General attitude-objective/subjective, formal/informal, authoritative/speculative, etc.
• Purpose-as described in a preface or other formal statement, or in some key phrase.
• Audience-who the writer hopes will read the book.

Subject Matter

The subject of a book is what the book is about, an idea or ideas explored in the book's contents. In a nonfiction book, the subject should be fairly explicit, in the author's own words. With fiction, however, a reviewer must interpret the subject through analysis of character, setting, plot, and symbolism. A discussion of the subject of a book might begin with its title: From where did the author derive the title? What is the title's meaning or suggestiveness? Is the title an adequate heading for the contents of the book? Or is it ambiguous or false in some way? Other questions regarding the exploration of a book's subject by its author include: What areas of the subject are covered? (In fiction, areas of subject may be considered character concerns, setting, and plot.) What areas of the subject are left uncovered? Is this intentional, or the result of oversight or failure, on the author's part? To what degree is the author thorough or negligent in addressing the subject? In his review of Wilderness and Razor Wire , John Calderazzo comments that writer Ken Lamberton avoids discussion of personal motivation: "Perhaps to spare his wife further humiliation and pain, Lamberton has decided not to belabor his motive for his one act of insanity. He talks vaguely of immaturity, but that's about it . . . [T]he single-mindedness of his gaze [has] implications he either doesn't recognize or won't fully discuss . . . Fixating on the near at hand may be a necessary metaphor and an undeniable fact of prison life, a way to cope with an existence that certainly scares the hell out of me. Maybe, though, Lamberton's fierce gaze derives from something he'll always carry within him: this edgy and impulsive but obviously grateful husband who knows he's not free to teach again for a living . . ."

The contents of a book revolve around the subject, and develop one or more central ideas. For nonfiction, a reviewer analyzes how well the contents of a book address the central idea, the strength or weakness of supporting ideas, and the relevancy of collateral ideas or implications. In fiction, themes develop through character, setting, and plot; a reviewer evaluates the relative success or lack thereof of these fictional elements. Think about these questions: What is the setting, or place and time, of the story? Does the setting reflect or contrast with characters and plot? Are characters fully or minimally developed? Does character development increase or deteriorate as the action proceeds? Is the plot sequenced chronologically, or otherwise? Does tension build or deflate as the story progresses? Note how David Milofsky discusses the effectiveness of the contents of Reynolds Price's Noble Norfleet : "Although there are spots of lyricism-and for the first third of the book, Price's narrative has the drive and tension of some of his better work-overall, Noble Norfleet sags beneath its unlikely premise and even more unlikely hero . . . It seems likely that Price was trying to say something here about the relationship between sexuality and madness, about the necessity not only of nursing others but of caring for oneself, of showing Noble as some kind of paradigm, hence his name. But, sadly, the novel succeeds in none of these aims." Remember that details about the plot and characters in a book are revealed by the reviewer only to support the purpose of the review. Certainly, a review should not give away a book's ending, nor should it be a simple summary of events and characters. The reviewer's job is not only to report highlights but also to respond to the ideas and techniques evident in the book.

Style refers to how an author relates content through writing. This is an important aspect of a book to review. While initially reading the book, and in any subsequent reads, a reviewer should mark passages of particular resonance and reflection of the author's style. These passages help the reviewer form ideas as to whether or not the style is effective in conveying content, and pleasing to the reader. One or more of these passages may be cited within the review itself in order to both exemplify the author's style and provide basis for the reviewer's response. The following is excerpted from Wendy Rawlings' discussion of John D'Agata's poetic, associative essay-writing style in Halls of Fame: "Juxtaposing so many voices and kinds of language . . . can allow the reader to create exciting associative links between texts and ideas, but it can also, when overused, begin to feel somewhat arbitrary. In the book's title essay, for instance, single sentences and sentence fragments form choppy narratives composed of statements that seem, at times, cruelly separated from each other by the portentous silence of white space. This narrative strategy prevails throughout most of the twenty-four sections of the essay, and as a result, the sentences take on a stilted self-importance, like a poem written by someone as yet unschooled in enjambment." A passage from the essay follows this description. When responding to a literary work, consider these aspects of style:

• Logical and reasoned (objective), or imagined and emotional (subjective).
• Dramatic and gripping, or pedestrian and level.
• Epic and far-reaching, or lyrical and infused with personal poetic emotion.
• Solemn and serious, or comic and entertaining.
• Spiritual or vulgar or both.
• Formal, or familiar, informal.
• Simple, or complex.
• Broad, or specific.
• Abstract, or concrete.
• Direct, or implicational.
• Figurative, or literal.
• Use of detail, sense appeal-the look, sound, smell, taste, feel.
• Balance, parallelism, and contrast of exposition, scene, and dialogue.
• Allusions, quotations, aphorisms, etc.
• To the subject.
• To the purpose of the author.
• To the reader.

Form and Technique

An author carefully chooses the form and various writing techniques to use to develop ideas. A book reviewer decides whether or not these choices are appropriate and effective. Do certain techniques aid or impede the author's purpose? What passages from the book best exemplify these techniques?

Form and Technique in Nonfiction

• Use of source material and authority.
• Use of definition; illustrations and examples; comparison and contrast; cause and effect.
• Use of generalization and subsequent conclusions.
• Tone; authority; approach to subject and audience.
• Degree of convincingness.
• Worth of proposal; practicality; need.
• Comparison with other possible policies.
• Costs or difficulties involved.
• Ultimate promise, solution, or plan
• Methods of deduction or induction.
• Synthesis; formation of separate elements into a coherent whole.
• Syllogism; major premise, minor premise, and conclusion.
• Dialectics; arrival at truth through conversation involving question and answer.
• Casuistry; determination of right and wrong by applying generalized ethics principles.
• Fallacy; begging the question, ignoring the question, etc.

Form and Technique in Fiction

• Dominant impression; vividness of final impression.
• Selection of details to support a single effect.
• Appeal to sight, sound, smell, taste, and feel; imagery.
• Directness; implication and suggestion.
• Point of view; first, second, third; limited or omniscient.
• Establishment of setting.
• Smoothness of transitions in time sequence.
• Use of flashback.
• How presented or introduced.
• Motivations; sources for feeling and/or drives to action.
• How described; direct or implied; revealed through description or dialogue.
• Purposes; heroic or villainous; tragic inner flaws; revealing traits.
• How credible and consistent.
• Opening situation and/or conflict.
• Obstacles and complications.
• Tension and suspense.
• Turning point, or climax.
• Resolution.
• Degree of inventiveness and/or plausibility.
• Final philosophy or view of life derived from characters and action.

Depending on the author's purpose, a book's realism, or truth to life, may need assessment. If a book of fiction is meant to be realistic fiction-is it? Is it logical, natural, plausible? To what extent does the author rely on coincidence or accident to propel the plot? Is there adequate evidence of character motivation? Or a lack of sufficient urges and drives? Is the story infused with a quality of normalcy, or abnormality? Remember, if a book of fiction is to be successful according to a reviewer, it is not necessarily realistic fiction; a book's realism, or lack thereof, need be addressed by a reviewer only as it compares to the author's intention for the story. See here how David Milofsky addresses the realism of William Trevor's novel The Story of Lucy Gault : "It seems unlikely, to say the least, that longtime residents of a place (going back several generations, we're told) would cut off contact so completely as the Gaults do, but, of course, if this isn't the case there would be no novel. Similarly, it's hard to believe that the lawyer wouldn't be able to contrive a way to contact the absent parents . . . It's a tribute to Trevor's genius that these objections are largely overridden and storytelling takes over."

Form and Technique in Poetry

• Received (given) forms; sonnet, quatrain, villanelle, sestina, haiku, etc.
• Free verse forms.
• Lyric; narrative; dramatic; prose; ballad (folk, literary, popular).
• Point of view; persona or apparently personal.
• Dramatic monologue.
• Tone; irony, satire, etc.
• Intensity, atmosphere, mood.
• Concrete or abstract.
• Denotation, connotation, implication.
• Vulgar, colloquial/informal, formal.
• Syntax, or sentence structure.
• Amount and type of sensory detail.
• Metaphor; simile; personification; allusion.
• Synesthesia; describing a sense impression using words that normally describe another.
• Hyperbole or understatement.
• Metonymy; substituting one word/phrase for another, closely associated word/phrase.
• Synecdoche; using a part to refer to the whole, or the whole to refer to a part.
• Alliteration; repetition of an initial sound in two or more words of a phrase.
• Assonance (repetition of vowels) and/or consonance (repetition of consonants).
• Onomatopoeia; using a word that is defined through both its sound and meaning.
• Euphony (smooth, pleasant sound) vs. cacophony (rough, harsh sound).
• Rhythm (pattern of beats in a stream of sound)-appeals t
• The line; end-stopped (self-enclosed) or enjambed.
• Feet; iambs, trochees, anapests, dactylics, etc.
• Meter; mono-, di-, tri-, tetra-, penta-, hexa-, etc.
• Repetition.
• Rhyme (corresponding terminal sounds)-appeals t
• True; words sound nearly identical and rhyme on one stressed syllable.
• Slant (near/off); words do not exactly rhyme, but almost rhyme.
• End rhyme (at end of line) and/or internal rhyme (similar sounds within one line).
• Masculine (lines end w/ stressed syllable); feminine (lines end w/ unstressed syllable).

View of Life

It is common for an author to express a view of life through ideas and themes developed in a book. A reviewer identifies and comments on the author's stance. Does the book hold to and/or further develop views apparent in past works? Or make a new statement? Below is a list of popular attitudes, or schools of thought:

• Idealism-emphasis on enduring spirituality as opposed to transient values of materialism.
• Romanticism-focus on emotion and imagination as freedom from the strictly logical.
• Classicism-intellectuality; dominance of the whole over its parts, and form over impulse.
• Realism-adherence to actualities, the logistics of everyday life; objectivity.
• Impressionism-intuition; sense responses to aesthetic objects.
• Naturalism-humans as part of nature; adaption to external environment.

In response to Wilderness and Razor Wire , John Calderazzo discusses the importance of nature in Ken Lamberton's life and writing: "[I]n the prison of his days (to paraphrase W. H. Auden), Lamberton is helped . . . by nature, by the winds and dust and sweet-smelling raindrops that blow down from the nearby mountains, which he sees framed in barbed wire. This is nature unbound, not just out there beyond the walls but slipping in through the bars, swirling around his cell, penetrating even his skin . . . [Swallows] migrate, then return to raise new young in their mud-packed homes, lending solace-and spice-to the impossibly slow turning of the seasons . . . The swallows and many other break-ins from the natural world are also resources of rehabilitation, which Lamberton says is absent from all other aspects of prison life." If comparisons are to be made between a book being reviewed and its predecessors, a reviewer should be familiar with the basic forms and techniques prevalent in works expressing similar viewpoints. Further research and reading are necessary for the reviewer to form intelligent analysis of views of life expressed through writing.

Value and Significance

Often a book review comments on the significance of a new work. This value may be measured in relation to other books in the same genre, works addressing the same subject matter, past and contemporary authors with a similar style, and/or previous works by the same author. In his review of William Trevor's The Story of Lucy Gault , David Milofsky compares the novel to Trevor's past works, and comments on its place in literature in general: "[Trevor]'s been called the Irish Chekhov, but that's not really adequate, since Chekhov never really wrote novels. The truth is that Trevor is sui generis, in a class by himself. While his stories (collected a few years ago in an omnibus volume) are brilliant, novels like The Old Boys and Felicia's Journey are lasting contributions to our literature. He's a literary treasure and never less than interesting reading . . . The Story of Lucy Gault may not be the most accomplished novel of Trevor's distinguished career, but that still places it far beyond most of the fiction that will be written in English this year. It's highly recommended reading." Value is also determined by the universality of application-how and to whom the work applies. Are the book's contents of universal interest? Or does the subject matter limit the book's appeal to a narrow field of individuals? Determining the value and significance of a book depends largely on the knowledge and subjectivity of the reviewer; familiarity with comparable books and authors is required to draw conclusions of this nature.

A book's format, or physical make-up, reflects the ideas of both its author and its publisher. A book reviewer might mention characteristics of format, in relation to suitability and aesthetics. Is the book's size convenient? Is the binding durable? Is the print type legible? Do illustrations, diagrams, and maps, if any, aid the reader's understanding of the material? Is the index correct and complete? Are bibliographies and reference lists present? In response to artwork present in Ken Lamberton's Wilderness and Razor Wire , John Calderazzo comments on both the exactness of the drawings and the possible meaning of this detail-orientedness to Lamberton's life: "[J]ournal entries and small essays [are] complemented by drawings of tarantulas, conenose beetles, horned lizards, and other desert creatures in almost photo-realistic close-up. This is why I suggested that Lamberton may not find himself any closer to 'nature' when he's finally free. How can he get more intimate? . . . All of his drawings, in fact, are rendered in extreme close-up, like visual infatuations writ large. Nothing seems to exist in the distance, which makes me wonder if anything ever does for Lamberton, or ever will."

Planning and Writing

A book review should meet the requirements of any good composition. Clarity, correctness, readability, and interest are very important. A review should give its readers not only an understanding of the reviewer's intellectual response to a book but also an awareness of the basis for this response, through example and analysis. Specific passages from the book are used to exemplify the reviewer's points regarding elements of style, form, and technique. There is no strict pattern for writing book reviews. Guiding the book reviewer's writing process, however, are the three essential objectives of relating what is said in the book, how it is said, and how true and significant it is. As with the planning of a composition, make a list of possible material to use in the review-ideas, responses, information, examples. Study this material to decide what to include in the book review and what proves extraneous. Put the items to include in a suitable order-for instance, from greater to lesser importance. Once the material is organized, a controlling idea for the review emerges; this controlling idea may form the topic sentence of the review, and provides guidance for achieving coherence and focus throughout. Use the topic sentence, in varied forms, in the beginning and end of the review. Once the book reviewer has chosen the proper and adequate material, organized this material effectively, and decided on the main idea and focus to be developed, it is time to write the review.

Like writing the introduction of a composition, there several possible strategies to use for beginning a book review. One type of strategic beginning is prompt definition-assigning meaning to terms in the title of the book, for example, or giving the scope of the review as it relates to the subject and the reviewer's response to the book. Another effective approach is to highlight the origins and past history of the subject treated in the book; this technique may also be used to introduce ideas about genre, style, or view of life, depending on what the reviewer has chosen as the focus of the review. A statement of exclusion shows what will not be addressed in a review and focuses attention on what really will be discussed. At the beginning of his review of Reynold Price's Noble Norfleet , David Milofsky uses a comparison between Price's newest novel and his previous works: "It would be nice to report that Reynolds Price, the distinguished author of more than thirty books, including A Long and Happy Life and Surface of Earth , has added significantly to his oeuvre with his new novel, but such is not the case. Not by a long shot." A reviewer might also quickly catch reader attention by appealing to human interest-perhaps a personal reference or brief anecdote. The anecdote should connect to or exemplify the main focus of the book review. Note the anecdotal technique Wendy Rawlings uses in the introduction of her review of John D'Agata's Halls of Fame : "While on a recent trip to England, I witnessed a cultural exchange that struck me as emblematic of John D'Agata's book of essays, Halls of Fame . An American friend who has spent the past year tolerating a chilly flat in a London suburb for the sake of his British fiancée wanted me to guess the height of the World's Largest Pencil. 'I don't know-eight, nine feet tall?' I said. 'See? See? I knew it!' my friend shouted. He explained that when asked the same question, an English friend had guessed the height of the world's largest pencil to be 'perhaps a foot high, or two.' His modest expectations compared to my great ones (I could not but visualize the World's Largest Pencil as at least a foot taller than an NBA All-Star) represented to my friend something essential about the differences between British and American sensibilities."

Development

The primary focus of a book review is supplied in the beginning paragraph. After this main idea is established, it needs to be developed and justified. Using an organized list of material, the reviewer details the reasons behind the response to the book. References to past history, causes and effects, comparisons and contrasts, and specific passages from the book help illustrate and exemplify this main idea. Personal philosophy and moralization should be kept to a minimum, if included at all; the reader of a book review is interested in unbiased, thoughtful, reasonable, and well-developed ideas pertaining to the book in question. The bulk of a review consists of the development of the reviewer's main idea, the response to the book and the reasons for it. In each of the example reviews that accompany this guide, the reviewers develop their ideas through references to comparable past and contemporary works, analysis of aspects of form and technique, and inclusion of notable passages from the books being reviewed.

Conclusions

The conclusion reflects the focus of the rest of the review, and leaves the reader with a clearly articulated, well-justified final assessment. A restatement of the topic sentence is better than a cursory inspection of less important matters like book format and mechanical make-up. Main emphasis should remain primarily on the qualities and materials of the book being reviewed. At the end of Wendy Rawlings' review of John D'Agata's Halls of Fame , Rawlings summarizes previously stated ideas: "When D'Agata doesn't find the balance, the lyricism borrowed from poetry seems not quite, yet, to fit. I don't wish for D'Agata to join the legions of the smug and ironic, but at certain moments, I begin to wish for authorial presence that will assert itself less forcefully in terms of the arrangement of words on the page, which are often blasted into squadrons separated by asterisks, white space, or unhelpful section headings, and more forcefully on the level of the sentence, as D'Agata does in 'Notes toward the making of a whole human being . . . ,' a five-page essay composed of a single, breathtakingly constructed sentence." The conclusion statement cements the reviewer's recommendation, or lack thereof, of the book. Clearly, this is David Milofsky's aim in the conclusion of his review of Reynold Price's Noble Norfleet : "Even with a failure, it is interesting to read as accomplished a writer as Price, but his new novel cannot be recommended on any other grounds." The final sentence of a review should be both memorable and thought-provoking to the reader. As at the end of John Calderazzo's review of Ken Lamberton's Wilderness and Razor Wire , this final thought might be put in the form of a question: "[R]eading about Lamberton's flawed but exhilarating life makes me wonder about temptation and impetuousness. In light of losing everything, how many of us are still tempted to pursue, just once, some nearby object of desire? And will this constant risk be the prison of all of our days, our lives a landscape of wilderness and razor wire?"

Reviewing Specific Types of Books

The type of book being reviewed raises special considerations as to how to approach the review. Information specific to the categories of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry can be found under the "Form and Technique" heading of this guide. Below are further questions to consider, based on a book's category:

• Does the book give a full-length picture of the subject? Focus on only a portion of life?
• What phases of the subject's life receive greatest space? Is there justification for this?
• What is the point of view of the author?
• Are idiosyncrasies and weaknesses omitted? Treated adequately? Overplayed?
• Does the author endeavor to get at hidden motives?
• What important new facts about the subject's life are revealed in the book?
• Is the subject of the biography still living?
• What source materials were used in the preparation of the book?
• What training has the author had for this kind of work?
• What particular historical period does the book address?
• Is the accound given in broad outline, or in detail?
• Is the style that of reportorial writing, or is there an effort at interpretation?
• Is emphasis on traditional matter, like wars, kings, etc.? Or is it a social history?
• Are dates used extensively and/or intelligently?
• Is the book likely to be out of date soon? Or is it intended to stand the test of time?
• Are maps, illustrations, charts, etc., helpful to the reader?
• o Who is the author, and what right does he/she have to be writing on the subject? o What contributions to knowledge and understanding are made by the book?
• Is the author credible? What is the author's purpose for writing the book?
• Does the book contribute to knowledge of geography, government, folklore, etc.?
• Does the book have news value?
• How effective are plot, pace, style, and characterization? Strengths? Weaknesses?
• Is the ending worthwhile? Predictable?
• o Children's Literature
• o What is the age/interest group for which the book is intended?
• o What is the overall experience/feeling of reading the book?
• o Is the book illustrated? How? By whom?

Publication

There is a good market for the newcomer in book reviewing. Many editors, including those of big-name magazines, do not like to use the same reviewer too often, and this means unknown, unpublished reviewers have good opportunities to break into the field. Send query letters to editors to find out what their publication needs are. Try smaller, special-interest publications first (ethnic, feminist, religious, etc.); if the reviewer has knowledge or affiliation relevant to the publication, it may increase the chances of a positive response from the editor. Stay current with new books, and read other book reviews. Once an assignment for a review is given, produce timely, quality work, specific to requirements set by the editor. Build publication credits with a variety of periodicals; pursue possibilities of starting a regular column for a single newspaper or magazine. Book reviewing is not generally a highly profitable venture, but money can be made, depending on a reviewer's qualifications, reputation, and dedication to the field.

Cress, Janell. (2003). Book Reviews. Writing@CSU . Colorado State University. https://writing.colostate.edu/guides/guide.cfm?guideid=49

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book review

Definition of book review

Word history.

1837, in the meaning defined at sense 1

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What is a Book Review?

Introduction: A book review serves as a literary compass, guiding readers through the vast landscape of literature and offering valuable insights into the nuances of a particular work. More than just a summary, a book review critically examines the author’s craftsmanship, thematic elements, and the overall impact of the narrative. Whether penned by professional critics or passionate readers, these reviews are pivotal in helping potential readers make informed choices. By delving into a book’s strengths, weaknesses, and unique qualities, a well-crafted review not only evaluates the literary merit of the work but also sparks conversations and reflections on the broader themes and ideas it explores.

1.1 What is a Book Review?

A book review is an analysis of a book, typically written by someone who has read the book and wants to share their thoughts and opinions about it with others. Book reviews can be found in newspapers, magazines, and online platforms, and they serve as a valuable tool for readers trying to decide whether or not to read a particular book.

When writing a book review, it’s important to consider a few key elements:

• Summary: Start the review with a brief book summary, including the title, author, and genre. Provide a general overview of the plot and main characters, careful not to give away any major spoilers.
• Analysis: After the summary, move on to your book analysis. Consider the author’s writing style, themes, and use of language, as well as any insights or ideas that the book may have sparked for you. Did you find the book engaging? Did it make you think? What did you like or dislike about it?
• Critique: Besides analyzing the book, it’s also important to critique it. What were the book’s strengths and weaknesses? Did it meet your expectations? Was it well-written and well-researched? Were there any areas where it fell short?
• Recommendation: Finally, provide a recommendation for the book. Would you recommend it to others? Who do you think would enjoy it? Be honest in your recommendation, but also consider the target audience for the book.

When writing a book review, it’s important to remember that the review is not just about the book but also about the reader’s personal experience. As such, it’s essential to be authentic and honest in your analysis and critique while respecting the author’s work. A good book review can help readers find new and exciting books while providing valuable feedback to authors and publishers.

1.2 Types of book review:

Book reviews come in various forms, each serving a specific purpose and catering to different audiences. Here are some common types of book reviews:

• Professional Reviews: Professional book reviews, crafted by seasoned literary critics and experts in the field, stand as authoritative and insightful evaluations of literary works. Published in respected outlets like literary journals, newspapers, and specialized review publications, these reviews go beyond mere summarization, offering a comprehensive analysis of a book’s thematic depth, narrative structure, and artistic merit. Drawing on a wealth of literary knowledge, professional reviewers provide nuanced perspectives on an author’s style, originality, and contribution to the broader literary landscape. The credibility of the reviewing platform enhances the impact of these assessments, influencing readership perceptions and potentially shaping the book’s reception in literary circles. Grounded in ethical considerations, professional book reviews contribute to the ongoing discourse in literature, guiding readers and fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of the written word.
• Reader Reviews: Readers’ book reviews, a vibrant and diverse tapestry of opinions, encapsulate the subjective experiences and personal reflections of individuals who have engaged with a literary work. Published on platforms such as Goodreads, Amazon, and personal blogs, these reviews offer a democratic lens through which readers share their unique perspectives. Varied in tone and depth, reader reviews delve into the emotional resonance, relatability, and individual connections forged with the characters and narrative. While inherently subjective, these reviews collectively contribute to a communal dialogue about literature, revealing the diverse ways in which a book can resonate with its audience. Reader reviews empower potential readers with insights into how a book might align with their preferences, making them an invaluable and democratic force in shaping the broader literary conversation.
• Academic Reviews: Academic book reviews serve as intellectual appraisals conducted by scholars and experts within specific fields of study. Published in scholarly journals and academic publications, these reviews extend beyond subjective evaluations to offer meticulous assessments of a book’s scholarly contribution, research methodology, and relevance within the academic discourse. With a focus on intellectual rigor and contextual significance, academic reviewers analyze the work’s theoretical underpinnings, the soundness of its research, and its potential impact on existing scholarship. These reviews provide a critical lens through which the academic community evaluates a book’s merit and scholarly value, influencing the reception of the work within academic circles and contributing to the ongoing development of knowledge within a particular discipline.
• Trade Reviews: Trade book reviews are assessments of literary works written by professionals within the publishing and book-selling industry. Authored by individuals such as publishers, booksellers, and librarians, these reviews focus on the commercial viability, market potential, and overall significance of a book within the broader industry landscape. Typically featured in trade publications, these reviews help inform industry professionals about noteworthy publications, influencing book stocking, distribution, and promotion decisions. While considering literary merit, trade reviews often prioritize aspects that impact the book’s reception in the marketplace, making them valuable tools for shaping the success of a book within the commercial book trade.
• Comparative Reviews: Comparative book reviews provide readers with a unique perspective by analyzing a particular work about other books, either by the same author or within the same genre. These reviews offer insights into how a book fits within a broader literary context, highlighting similarities, differences, and the evolution of an author’s style or themes over time. Comparative reviews not only guide readers in understanding the specific merits of a book but also contribute to a deeper appreciation of its place within a larger literary conversation. By drawing connections between different works, these reviews enhance readers’ comprehension and offer valuable context for those seeking to explore the thematic and stylistic intricacies of a particular author or genre.
• Critical Reviews: Critical book reviews are meticulous evaluations of literary works that go beyond surface-level analysis to delve into a book’s intellectual, social, or political implications. Authored by critics with a keen eye for detail, these reviews engage deeply with the book’s themes, characters, and narrative structure, providing a comprehensive and thought-provoking assessment. Critical reviewers explore the broader cultural or historical context of the book, offering readers insights into its impact on society or its representation of significant themes. These reviews often incorporate a nuanced understanding of literary theory and critique, fostering a sophisticated dialogue about the role of literature in reflecting and shaping our understanding of the world. Critical book reviews are instrumental in encouraging readers to engage with literature on a deeper level, challenging them to consider the complexities and nuances inherent in the narratives they encounter.
• Book Club Reviews: Book club reviews offer a unique and collective perspective on a literary work, emerging from the dynamic discussions within a group of readers. These reviews capture the diverse opinions, interpretations, and reflections during book club meetings, providing a multi-faceted understanding of the book. As book clubs bring together individuals with varied backgrounds and perspectives, their reviews often delve into the nuances of character motivations, plot intricacies, and thematic elements. The collective nature of book club reviews highlights the communal experience of reading, offering insights into the emotional and intellectual impact a book can have on different readers. Beyond individual preferences, book club reviews often explore a book’s suitability for group discussion, assessing its ability to provoke thoughtful conversations and engage diverse readers. These reviews contribute to a communal literary dialogue, showcasing the power of shared reading experiences in shaping perspectives on literature.

These varied book reviews cater to the diverse needs and preferences of readers, scholars, industry professionals, and casual enthusiasts, contributing to a comprehensive and multifaceted discussion surrounding literature.

1.3 The Necessity of Book Review:

Book reviews are indispensable pillars connecting authors and readers, shaping the dynamic landscape of storytelling and knowledge-sharing. Far more than subjective opinions on a book’s merits, reviews serve a multifaceted purpose, guiding readers in their literary exploration and providing authors with invaluable feedback. This article explores the profound necessity of book reviews, delving into their role in fostering a vibrant literary community, empowering readers, and contributing to the growth and evolution of authors and their works.

• The Reader’s Compass: Book reviews function as a compass for readers navigating the expansive world of literature. In an era where countless titles compete for attention, reviews offer valuable insights into a book’s content, writing style, and overall quality. Armed with this information, readers can make informed decisions tailored to their tastes and preferences. Reviews act as literary guides, helping readers discover works that resonate with them while steering clear of those that may not align with their interests.
• Fostering Community and Discussion: Beyond their informative function, book reviews create a sense of community among readers. Platforms like Goodreads, Amazon, and literary blogs serve as virtual meeting places where individuals can share their thoughts, interpretations, and emotional responses to a book. This communal engagement transforms the act of reading into a shared experience, fostering discussions that transcend geographical boundaries. Readers become part of a broader conversation, connecting with fellow book enthusiasts and gaining new perspectives on familiar narratives.
• Authors’ Crucible of Growth: For authors, book reviews represent a crucible of growth and development. Constructive criticism provided by reviewers offers valuable insights into aspects of storytelling, character development, and thematic exploration. This feedback becomes a roadmap for authors, guiding them in refining their craft and addressing potential areas of improvement. Positive reviews, conversely, serve as affirmations of an author’s skill and creativity, contributing to their recognition within the literary community.
• Visibility and Endorsement: Book reviews play a pivotal role in shaping an author’s visibility and reception. Positive reviews serve as endorsements and testimonials that can attract a broader readership. A book with glowing reviews is more likely to capture the attention of potential readers, establishing trust and credibility. In the crowded marketplace of literature, reviews become a means for authors to distinguish themselves and their works.

Book reviews are the threads that connect authors and readers, weaving together a community bound by a shared love for storytelling. The necessity of book reviews extends beyond individual opinions; they serve as bridges facilitating dialogue, empowering readers, and contributing to the growth of authors and the ongoing evolution of literature. As readers and authors continue to engage in this symbiotic relationship, the importance of book reviews remains steadfast, ensuring that the written word continues to captivate, inspire, and connect us all.

1.4 What should be considered when writing a good book review?

Writing a compelling book review is an art that combines literary analysis, personal reflection, and effective communication. Whether you’re a seasoned critic or a passionate reader eager to share your thoughts, specific considerations can elevate your review from a mere summary to a thoughtful exploration of a book’s merits. In this article, we delve into key aspects to consider when crafting a good book review, aiming to guide reviewers in providing valuable insights for potential readers and constructive feedback for authors.

• Understanding the Book: Before embarking on a book review, immerse yourself in the book’s world. Read the entire work carefully, taking note of essential elements such as themes, characters, and the author’s writing style. A solid book understanding is fundamental to offering an insightful and informed critique.
• Maintaining Objectivity: While a book review is inherently subjective, strive for objectivity in your assessment. Back your opinions with specific examples from the text, and avoid overly biased language. Constructive criticism is more valuable than extreme praise or harsh condemnation, contributing to a fair evaluation.
• Identifying the Target Audience: Consider the intended audience of the book. Assess how well the author caters to this demographic and whether the book effectively communicates its intended message. A children’s book, for instance, should be evaluated based on its appropriateness and engagement for the specified age group.
• Contextualizing the Book: Place the book within its broader context-literary, historical or cultural. Discuss how it relates to other works in the genre or period, and highlight any unique contributions to its significance. This contextualization aids readers in understanding the book’s place in the larger literary landscape.
• Balancing Summary and Analysis: Strike a delicate balance between summarizing the plot and offering critical analysis. While readers need a sense of the book’s content, the review should move beyond mere plot description to delve into the narrative’s themes, characters, and overall impact.
• Expressing Personal Response: Share your response to the book, including emotional reactions and reflections. Articulate what resonated with you and why, allowing readers to connect with your experience. However, acknowledge that individual responses may vary; your perspective is one of many.
• Considering Author’s Intentions: Reflect on the author’s intentions and evaluate how successfully these are realized. Consider the author’s writing goals, style choices, and whether the book achieves its intended purpose. Understanding the author’s objectives enhances the depth of your analysis.
• Discussing Style and Language: Comment on the author’s writing style and language. Assess whether the prose is engaging, the dialogue is well-crafted, and if the overall writing contributes positively to the reading experience. An exploration of style enriches your evaluation.
• Evaluating Character Development: Evaluate the depth and complexity of the characters. Consider their believability, motivations, and whether they undergo meaningful development throughout the story. A nuanced evaluation of characters adds depth to your critique.
• Highlighting Strengths and Weaknesses: Provide a balanced discussion of the book’s strengths and weaknesses. Acknowledge what the author does well, and be honest about any aspects that may have fallen short of expectations. A fair assessment provides valuable feedback for both readers and authors.
• Avoiding Spoilers: Avoid spoilers, especially when discussing key plot points or twists. If your review contains spoilers, clearly warn readers beforehand to preserve their experience of discovering the narrative.
• Formatting and Clarity: Ensure your review is well-structured and easy to follow. Use clear and concise language, and organize your thoughts logically. A well-organized review enhances readability and effectively communicates your insights.
• Citing Evidence: Support your statements with evidence from the book. Whether praising or critiquing, providing specific examples helps substantiate your points and gives readers a tangible sense of what to expect. Concrete evidence adds depth to your analysis.

Crafting a good book review is a nuanced process that requires a delicate balance of subjective insights, objective analysis, and effective communication. By considering these key aspects, reviewers can contribute meaningfully to the literary discourse, guiding readers in their choices and offering constructive feedback to authors. In the world of literature, thoughtful reviews become a bridge between creators and consumers, enriching the reading experience for all.

References:

Davies, M. W., & Jardine, L. A. (2012). How to Write a Book Review. In How to Write a Paper (pp. 98–101). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118488713.ch15

Hammett, H. B. (1973). How to Write a Book Review. The Social Studies , 65 (6), 263–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1943.11019362

Hartley, J. (2006). Reading and writing book reviews across the disciplines. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology , 57 (9), 1194–1207. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20399

Lee, A. D., Green, B. N., Johnson, C. D., & Nyquist, J. (2010). How to Write a Scholarly Book Review for Publication in a Peer-Reviewed Journal: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Chiropractic Education , 24 (1), 57–69. https://doi.org/10.7899/1042-5055-24.1.57

Obeng, -Odoom Franklin. (n.d.). Why write book reviews? The Australian Universities’ Review , 56 (1), 78–82. https://doi.org/10.3316/ielapa.872975891967143

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17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.

It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?

As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!

In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.

Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

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What must a book review contain?

Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)

In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:

• A review will offer a concise plot summary of the book. 
• A book review will offer an evaluation of the work. 
• A book review will offer a recommendation for the audience. 

If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.

Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.

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Book review examples for fiction books

Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .

That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.

Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :

An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.

His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.

This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.

Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:

YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.

I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]

The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :

Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.

The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.

Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]

Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :

In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.

As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.

This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.

Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :

I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.

Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim.  To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :

♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.

In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.

♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]

The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :

Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.

Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.

“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]

James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!

This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.

The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.

Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :

This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.

Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.

Examples of genre fiction book reviews

Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:

4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.

I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.

The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.

I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.

Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:

“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”

Holy hell, what did I just read??

➽ A fantasy military school

➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history

➽ Shamans and gods

➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters

➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors

That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.

Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).

Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:

In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?

In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.

Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :

Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.

Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.

Book review examples for non-fiction books

Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.

Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!

The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :

The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”

Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.

All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]

Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.

The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.

Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]

Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :

Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.

In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.

To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]

Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

SUBJECT: 4/5

CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5

RELEVANCE: 3.5/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.

Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]

Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:

Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better idea of how to write a book review. You might be wondering how to put all of this knowledge into action now! Many book reviewers start out by setting up a book blog. If you don’t have time to research the intricacies of HTML, check out Reedsy Discovery — where you can read indie books for free and review them without going through the hassle of creating a blog. To register as a book reviewer , go here .

And if you’d like to see even more book review examples, simply go to this directory of book review blogs and click on any one of them to see a wealth of good book reviews. Beyond that, it's up to you to pick up a book and pen — and start reviewing!

Continue reading

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Book reviews Structure and language

Book reviews are sometimes used on undergraduate courses, and frequently appear in academic journals. This page considers what a book review is , how to structure one , and provides some language for writing a book review .

What is a book review?

A book review describes and critically evaluates a (usually recent) book. Like any kind of review, for example a review of a film or television programme, it will offer a description of the main points, consider the strengths and weaknesses, and give an overall evaluation, in order to allow the reader to decide whether or not it will be of interest to them and therefore a good investment of their time and money. Book reviews are sometimes used as assignments on undergraduate courses, and are a common component of academic journals. They are typically short pieces of work, around 500-750 words in length. They may sometimes be shorter or longer, but will rarely exceed 1000 words. A book review should not be confused with a book report, which is a relatively short and purely descriptive assignment, common in high school (rather than university) courses.

Structure of book reviews

A book review will usually begin with bibliographic information . This means details such as the name of the book, the name(s) of the author(s), and the publisher. Other details may be helpful, for example date and place of publication, format, edition, number of pages, price and ISBN.

The text of the review should begin with an introduction . As the review will be fairly brief, it is common to begin with an anecdote or quotation which captures the main idea of the book. The introduction will identify the author and title, specify the type of book, and state the book's subject matter. Further background detail to place the book in context may be given, for example previous work by the author in the same field, prior work by other writers in the same field, or information about the book series (if the book is part of a series). The thesis of the book, i.e. its specific contribution, may also be given, along with your own thesis, i.e. your initial appraisal of the work and key observations.

The main body of the review will provide description and critical evaluation of the text. These may be dealt with separately, with description first and evaluation next, or in combination. Although the evaluation is the more important part, the description may still take up half or two thirds of the content of the main body, in order to lay the foundation for the evaluation.

The description of the text will summarise the book. Evidence from the book, such as quotations, may be used to support the points. This part might give information on the following areas, which can later be used as criteria for evaluating the book:

• content of the book (possibly by chapter-by-chapter);
• the author's purpose;
• the intended audience;
• the author's arguments and themes;
• sources used in the book;
• how the book is organised or laid out.

The critical evaluation will present your reaction to the book. You might compare it to other (similar) books in the field, and consider its relative strengths and weaknesses. In this part you may respond to the areas above by considering key questions, as follows, to further highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the book.

• Content of the book . Is everything included? Is there too much information? Is anything essential left out?
• The author's purpose . Has the author succeeded in their purpose?
• The intended audience . Is the book appropriate for the intended audience? Why (not)? Who else might benefit from reading it?
• The author's arguments and themes . How valid or effective are the arguments and themes? Do you agree with the author's opinions? Why (not)?
• Sources used in the book . How strong are the sources? Are there enough?
• How the book is organised or laid out . Is it organised in a logical or useful way? Are there any problems? Is the layout clear and easy to use?

Finally, there should be a conclusion to the book review. This will sum up your thoughts on the book. This means summarising the book's strengths and weaknesses, indicating whether this is a useful book, whether it will make a lasting contribution to its field, whether you recommend it, and who will benefit from reading it.

Note that the above is the structure for a book review for a non-fiction work, which is the most common kind of review for university study. For a work of fiction, a similar approach can be used, though in place of the points for argument and sources, you would consider setting, plot, characters, use of language and voice when describing the book, and consider how effective each of these elements are when evaluating it.

Language for book reviews

It is important is to make sure that your views are distinct from the author's. This can be done by using the author's name, or referring to 'The author' or 'The book'.

The following phrases might be useful for summarising the contents of the book.

• The book is divided into the following parts.
• This text is divided into four main chapters focusing on...
• Section one of the book details...
• The opening chapter focuses on...
• The second section explores...
• Chapter three...
• The next chapter...
• The final chapter...

The following phrases can be used to highlight weaknesses.

• The book would benefit from...
• A nice addition to the book would be...
• The weakest area of the book is...
• The only/main/greatest weakness/drawback of the book is...

The following phrases can be used to indicate a suitable audience for the book.

• The book should appeal to those who...
• This book is applicable to...
• It would be an excellent resource for...
• The book is particularly interesting for...
• The book will be of interest to...
• This book is highly recommended to...
• ... are likely to find the book useful.
• ... would find it valuable.

The following adjectives can be used to give a positive review (negatives of these can be used for a negative review).

• informative
• interesting
• well-organised
• substantial
• comprehensive

Example review

An example book review, as well as exercises for book reviews, can be found in the book Academic Writing Genres: Essays, Reports & Other Genres , part of the EAP Foundation series of books. You can use the form below to download a sample of the book .

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Like the website? Try the books. Enter your email to receive a free sample from Academic Writing Genres .

Below is a checklist for book reviews. Use it to check your own writing, or get a peer (another student) to help you.

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Author: Sheldon Smith    ‖    Last modified: 27 December 2022.

Sheldon Smith is the founder and editor of EAPFoundation.com. He has been teaching English for Academic Purposes since 2004. Find out more about him in the about section and connect with him on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .

Compare & contrast essays examine the similarities of two or more objects, and the differences.

Cause & effect essays consider the reasons (or causes) for something, then discuss the results (or effects).

Discussion essays require you to examine both sides of a situation and to conclude by saying which side you favour.

Problem-solution essays are a sub-type of SPSE essays (Situation, Problem, Solution, Evaluation).

Transition signals are useful in achieving good cohesion and coherence in your writing.

Reporting verbs are used to link your in-text citations to the information cited.

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Do you love reading books? Do you want your fellow book nerds to know how much you loved the last book you read? Or do you hate the recent book you read and want to warn all bookworms from falling for its sexy book cover?

Writing a book review is just the thing you should be doing.

Or are you thinking of starting a book blog and understanding the work involved in writing book review posts for your book blog? Read on.

What is a book review? The definition

According to study.com, "A book review is an analysis of a book that includes its subject, strengths, weaknesses, and context.” As per Wikipedia, A book review is alternately called a book report or book critique too.

Reviews are indexed in a database like the Book Review Index or the Kirkus Reviews.

Writing a book review is summarizing, analyzing, and presenting a critical discussion of the book. Your analysis and opinion need to come out clearly with confidence without letting go of your personal touch and taste.

This is not an opportunity to brag about your intelligence or authority on writing skills. You have to express your reactions to whether the book achieved what it set out to do. You may agree or disagree with the author, but your discussion needs to be around what was written, not what you wanted to be written by the author.

Book review vs. Book summary

A book summary is the general description of the context of a book. It gives an overview of the story for the reader of what is expected in the story highlighting only the main points. There are no opinions or "I think" or "I love" here. It is never long.

A book review may consist of a book summary or synopsis and commentary of the book. It includes the reviewer's opinions analysis and critiques. It is meant to be lengthy, but a review beyond 1000 words is rare.

Why Book reviews? Are they Important?

Book reviews give books visibility. That, in turn, improves its chances of being found by readers. So as a book reviewer you become a guide for readers.

Book critiques are essential to authors, publishers, and readers.

For an author, a book is a business, and they need reviews for their product to establish credibility and popularity.

Reviews are so much more important to new authors/self-published authors because they're writing is yet unknown. Feedback about their writing is essential to new writers and old. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but you might be the one to have found the next new J.K.Rowling!

For publishers, book reviews give them easy marketing of the book they think has potential.

Readers having no knowledge of a book or its plot or author select a book based on its reviews. Reviews give the reader the push they need to purchase a book.

According to Submittable, a company specializing in collecting data and reviewing data, here are three trends that look encouraging for books in general.

One of the most exciting—and unexpected—trends over the last decade is the resurgence of independent bookstores across the US.

Audiobooks have become a rage. 

So what genres are making it big? Interestingly Poetry and Non-fiction are making headlines.

Self-Publishing is here in a big way.

So what, you say? Well, the trends we see today will dictate what jobs succeed tomorrow.

With an increasing number of books, whether self-published or commercially published, whether ebooks or Audio or paperbacks, whether fiction or poetry or non-fiction will need publicity and hence Reviews. That's where book reviewers come in. Got it!

In the US alone 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year . Imagine the choices for you as book reviewers. Impressed!

If you ask me, I picked up book reviewing because it gives me so many free books to read. Yay!

Convinced? So how do you become a book reviewer?

How to become a book reviewer?

1. First and foremost, read.

Tons and tons of books. As a reviewer being well-read is your essential qualification.

Also, you might have to work on deadlines. So until you master the art of reading like crazy, read. Your experience as a reader should come through your reviews. Reading many books also has the advantages of making you write better.

You could read bestsellers in your genre first to try and give you an idea as to what a book in your genre can be like. This may help you while reviewing other books in the same genre.

2. Specialize.

You may sharpen your focus to a particular genre or pick 2/3 to keep it interesting for you. I love the crime/thriller/mystery genre, the romance genre, and the self-help genre. I usually accept books in these genres alternately so that my reading doesn't get dull by reading three or four self-help books in a row.

3. Start reviewing books for free

Sites like Amazon or Goodreads make it so easy. Create a login account and review away. ( Amazon I think has a condition where you can write reviews if you've shopped on Amazon for at least $50 ) They are hugely popular among the bookworm community. And the reviews here don't have to be lengthy. Short 5 line reviews are most helpful. It will also give you good practice to be precise and concise.

Additionally, you could get chatty on Goodreads and join your favorite author's group or a group about your favorite genre. You also have the opportunity to look at other people's reviews and writing.

Did you know lately, social media fans even post book reviews to Instagram and Youtube? You post a picture of the book and the review in the caption area with the hashtag #bookstagram, and you are a bookstagrammer.

Or even more impressive, you record a video as you review your book and show it off and post the video to Youtube and hey, you are a BookTuber! More on BookTube and Bookstagram coming up later in this article. Keep reading.

4. Next, start looking for paid review opportunities

Kirkus reviews, OnlineBookClub.org, Publisher's weekly are places where you could get a small token for your services rendered along with a free book. But keep in mind that all of these sites have a guidelines system. Follow the guidelines to a 'T,' and you could see a small but regular income from these sites. I have also listed several websites that offer review opportunities paid and unpaid further in the article.

5. Host all your reviews in one place

Imagine applying for a paid position and telling the employer to go through 5 sites to sample your work. You don't want that. Start a book blog. It's easy, and if you join places like WordPress.com or Tumblr, it's free. Share just one link, and your entire portfolio is at one place to see.

6. Prepare a packet of your best work.

If you aim to join the big 5's in publishing as a reviewer, you will have to sample your best work, maybe one in each of your genres, and create a file that represents you to the best of your abilities. You may even add samples of indie book reviews to convince your employers of your taste for variety. Then you have to pitch into these publishers, and follow-up, politely. They may be getting hundreds of such emails. So be patient and positive. Once you've landed an excellent opportunity, make sure you sample this new work in your portfolio before pitching into more unique avenues.

7. Keep track of the upcoming

Keep abreast of the latest releases, the upcoming releases, and books that sell like hotcakes locally. Publishers usually have a catalog of their upcoming titles. Subscribe to it.

Did you know there is also a book critics community? National Book Critics Circle honors outstanding writing and encourages reading, criticism, and literature and has been in existence in 1974. The membership is $50 a year. If you can, subscribe to them. It reflects well on your portfolio, not to forget the immense amount of information and contacts you can get through this subscription.

Be persistent. Keep reading, and keep reviewing. Keep honing your skills. Opportunity is bound to knock your door sooner rather than later.

Fine, I convinced you the opportunity does have some merits right? But how do I go about writing the perfect analytical book review?

How to write a compelling book review?

Frankly, no set format needs to be followed. The writing needs to flow freely and should represent your view of the book. But for those who go by the book, I do share the steps.

The model also ensures I don't miss the must-haves in a review.

Here's a step-by-step tutorial on how to write a detailed book review that matters.

1. Select a story book

If it's your first time as a reviewer, I would recommend picking a book from your favorite genre. This will ensure the reviewing doesn't seem like a task. Your text will be easier to write when it’s fun. Psst… my favorites are in the Romance and Thriller genres. But I do love self-help books too.

Second, try to pick a shorter book. So you can spend more time working on the review. It's just a suggestion. Some readers would disagree, saying a lengthier book helps me write more about it. Whatever works for you? So, let's say you've picked that book!

2. Read the entire book

That's a no-brainer. But honestly, carefully and in full details. Even the part about the author. It may tell you about their background, where they live, what they do, and if it's their first book. It helps you understand their writing style.

Read the book twice if time permits. Because the second read often exposes us to aspects of the characters or story we missed the first time. Or even any grammar, typos or punctuation we may have missed the first time. Noting grammar is not necessary.

3. Take notes while reading

Notes help keep track of the characters, highlight essential messages in the story, or maintain the book's chronology. I even highlight quote-worthy sentences that inspire or motivate me.

Make notes of any grammatical errors you find along the way, typos, punctuation mistakes, or wrongly named characters. If you do find these, try sharing them with the author. He/She would be thankful for your considerable effort.

And just to emphasize once more, absolutely make sure you read the entire book. It's absolutely unfair and morally wrong if you tell an author you will review their writing and not even manage to read it.

To take notes in my Kindle App, it's effortless. Select the text, highlight in one of four colors. Add notes in the margin. At the end of the book, you can view all these highlighted texts together.

To take notes in a physical book, you can use a pencil to mark the text directly. Or type in Word or jot down in your journal. I pick the most natural way. Stick Post-It notes on the pages. Simple.

4. Start writing your review

Once you finish reading the book, get to write the review ASAP. That way, all the aspects of the story are still fresh in your mind. And you are aware of your general reaction after finishing the book. Do you feel happy, sad, calm, motivated, inspired, or just dissatisfied? It's just more comfortable when you still have the book in mind before moving on to other chores you may have.

You may start to write in Microsoft Word. Prepare a draft using these guidelines. Or the approach I use is to type first all that comes to mind regarding the book. Then on the second read, correct your review based on the format and fill any missing gaps.

Book review format an outline

• 1 Necessary information about the book. Heading/Title of the review. Must be eye-catching. Include keywords.Details of the book like no of pages, publisher, genre, author name, release date.Book cover or a picture of the book (with you holding it maybe) 
• 2 A plot summary. Introduction – The reader decides if he wants to read the whole thing here, so this section is essential.Summary of the book (no spoilers please) in about 100-200 words.
• 3 Your admiration and critical analysis of the book. What you liked best or disliked most. Did you find any grammatical errors, typos, or other errors in the book? How was the editing, did it distract from the reading?Give reasons for all your opinions. Justify.Give examples from the pages. Enlist quotes from the characters or motivational or inspiring messages
• 4 Your recommendation. Who would you recommend this book to? What kind of audience?
• 5 End with a rating. I follow a 5-star system. Yours could be a 3-star system.
• 6 Author information. The author is as principal as the book. Find out about the author (they usually have a website or at least one social media handle). Add a fact that seems interesting to the story. Provide a link to their social media handles.

To write a review in less than 500 words keep the summary restricted to 150 words. Enlist your analysis in the next 250 words. Conclude with a paragraph providing a rating and recommendations in under 150 words.

5. Recheck your draft

After you finish writing a draft, read it, reread it. Sleep over it and read again to fine-tune your writing.

Correct the grammar, punctuation, or errors, if any. Your review must be free of any errors. This is vital. You do not want your readers to get lost in typos. Incorrect grammar reflects poorly on your brand. Use Microsoft Words' spellcheck. Or an editor like Grammarly. I use both. Just to be extra sure. Or you could even hire an editor.

Publishers may have specific requirements regarding word count or adding a rating. Make sure you have taken care of the requirements.

And there, you have a book review ready to publish. Done.

To make sure your criticism is compelling, I have 7 tips as a bonus for you.

Seven tips for writing a compelling and concise book review.

Book review checklist.

• Write short sentences about 12-15 words.
• Write short paragraphs about 2 – 3 lines.
• Use simple and casual language. A fifth-grader should be able to understand what you mean. Write as if you were talking to your friend.
• Try and use the title of the book and the author's name at least once in your review. You can link these to your affiliate links or the author's website. It also keeps the writing focused and relevant.
• The total review must be must not be longer than 1000 words. That's just too much information. Most reviews are never more than 500 words.
• Even if you didn't like the book, make sure you read and try and point out the positives in the book first.
• If you loved the book, say so. If you hated it, say so. Your strong opinion gives a personal touch and makes it more relatable and realistic.

How not to write a book review

• Don't be mean. Or Rude. Or sarcastic. Or snide. The author probably spent years doing their research and then writing the book. Even if you don’t like the book be respectful. Give respect and earn respect.
• Don't compare titles with similar plots. It confuses the reader.
• Do not plagiarize. Do not just copy paragraphs from the books. It's ok to quote sentences. Do not copy content from other book reviewer's blogs.
• Do not give away spoilers.
• Don’t be personal. Be considerate to the author.
•  Don’t forget to edit out the grammar and punctuation. Abuse of the English language is disliked everywhere. Proofread.

How to write a negative book review

• First, state something positive you thought about the book, like if you picked it because you liked the cover or for the title or read other good books from this author.
• Clearly state the reasons you could not finish the book or were struggling through it. Give examples, justify why you think this book doesn’t deserve your recommendations.
• Avoid harsh words – Instead of “I hate the book,” try, “I found myself pushing hard to get through the book. I wasn’t hooked. I wouldn’t recommend this one because…”
• Don’t get personal. Your readers want to know if you recommend the book or not. Consider the perspective of the author.
• Don’t give away the ending. However bad you think the novel is some of your readers may still want to read it. So don’t say why you didn’t like how the hero was killed.
• Share a tip or two for the author that you as a reader think might make the book more interesting. Don’t completely change the plot. Just some tweaks. More engaging dialogues between the characters would’ve enhanced my reading experience.
• Consider a different audience for the book. The writing style of the story might better engage young readers than adults. 

B ook review template 

To make things easy for the beginners, I have a word template here that you can download. It has all the sectional headings of a review pre-filled. You need to enter your review as per the book you have selected. This template will ensure you do not miss anything critical in a book review. Once you get habituated to writing a review, you may no longer need to use the template. Download it at the end of this article.

Book review examples

To compare your reviews to other concise, precise, and compelling reviews, I have compiled a PDF that you can download to see how an actual review is written from some of the best in the industry. The links where you can find these reviews are also provided below the review. Download it at the end of this article.

Book review ideas

Who said book reviews have to be dull prose. If you have a book blog where you would like to get creative once in a while, you could follow these ideas for book reviews to make them attractive. But remember, doing too much of the different is also not a great idea.

• Create a vlog; instead of typing your review, record it as a video while showing off your bookish accessories. Post that video to Youtube and hashtag it as #booktube. BookTube is a collection of Youtube channels dedicated to talking about books and bookish things. That's the latest in the world of book reviewing. Try it.
• If you think you are shy in front of a camera, record your review in your voice and publish it as a podcast. Podcasts are popular too.
• If you still love the typing but want to write a short review, take a picture of the book and post both of them to Instagram. Hashtag as #bookstagram. Did you know this hashtag has 4 million followers? You might also get some other ideas to get creative with your books here. Trust me; it's a whole new world of beautiful books.
• Get Giffy. Use gifs to share your opinions of the book. Create a Gif story. It's fun to do one in a while. Create your gifs using Giphy.
• A table of pros and cons for the book as an idea for a review. When you just can't decide if you loved the book or hated it. List the plus’s and minus’s in a tabular format. Makes for an informative read.
•  Or you could create a list of reactions you had when reading a book. Important: Remember to take detailed notes while reading for this kind of post. Might work well on fiction books.

FAQs or Frequently asked questions about book critiques

Q. Where do I write book reviews? Book review sites.

Thankfully, there are plenty of avenues available.

For beginners, I suggest you create a profile on Amazon and Goodreads .

Once you've read a book, practice writing a review for them using the guidelines. But reviews on these sites are meant to be short. So try and squeeze your opinions to about 100 to 200 words.

Once you've gained enough confidence, you can start reviewing for other websites. All of the below sites offer a free book in return for your honest review. These free books are usually the coveted ARCs (Advanced reader copies).

OnlineB ookClub

Reedsy D iscovery

BookS irens

Bethan y House

BookBr owse

Like I already mentioned. If you already have books, you can also write book reviews at -

Once you've established yourself as a reviewer, you can apply to some websites where they offer paid opportunities as a reviewer. More on this in the next section. 

Q. Book Review jobs - Can I get paid to write book reviews? 

Short answer – Yes. How long does it take? Well, practice makes a man/woman perfect. Practice on easy sites. Once you get indications that you are doing well, progress to bigger avenues.

Five websites that pay to write book reviews.

OnlineBookClub - Online Book Club focuses on new authors who need exposure for themselves and their books. It pays $5 to $60 per review, depending on length, depth, and reviewer's expertise, so you'll likely be reading a lot from new authors.

Kirkus Reviews - Kirkus looks for freelancers to review its English and Spanish book titles for its book review section.It allows a review of up to 350 words and allows reviewers two weeks to submit it. Books are available in print and digital format.

Any Subject Books - Any Subject Books looks for book reviewers who are skilled in critical thinking and honest. If you're become a reviewer here, you'll get periodic suggestions for reviews from the website and can choose whether to accept it.

Women's Review of books  - Wellesley College's Women's Review of Books focuses on books that are written by, and about, women. The website accepts book reviews of women's publications.

Publisher's Weekly - Publisher's Weekly is a print and digital magazine dedicated to authors, publishers, and other writers. On its career page, the magazine will sometimes list openings for reviewers to review books for future issues.

Q. What are Other means to earn money by reading books?

If you have a book review blog, you could monetize it by signing up for Amazon Affiliate Program.

For every book that a reader buys on Amazon through clicking links on your website, you earn a commission. Even if you have a YouTube channel or are a social media influencer, you can monetize these marketing channels.

Sign up for freelance services of book reviewing through portals like Fiverr and Upwork. Create a reviewing gig on Fiverr and start connecting with prospective clients. Or apply to gigs on Upwork , which are like bids and submit necessary details like the cover page and answer questions by the client and earn a gig.

Tip: You can even apply or create gigs like designing book covers and editing and proofreading content for blogs.

Apply for book jobs through websites like BookJobs .com. The site hosts all types of jobs for book lovers around the world, even review jobs.

You can also find a lot of jobs for online book reviewers on this website https://jooble.org/jobs-online-book-reviewer .  

With the advent of Audio Books, if you have a rich voice and are fluent in English speaking, you can get paid to narrate Audio Books . Again try Fiverr or Upwork for selling these skills.

Q. Where do I found Bestselling books for free to review?

You don't have to buy books if you don't want to. You may already have some books lying around in your house. Reread them, now with writing a review in mind. Or borrow books from your friends or a neighbor. Or subscribe to a public book library near. These are inexpensive ways to get your hands on some good books. Other than that here’s a list of websites that offer books. But some of them only offer certain books for free for a certain period.

Google's eBookstore

Project Gutenberg – is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks. Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online.they also have an extensive catalog to help you easily find your pick.

Open Library - is an open, editable library catalog, building towards a web page for every book ever published. Read, borrow, and discover more than 3M books.

Free Ebooks.net - is the internet's #1 source for free eBook downloads, eBook resources & eBook authors. Read & download eBooks for Free: anytime!

Netgalley - is a site where book reviewers and other professional readers can read books before they are published, in e-galley or digital galley form.

OnlineBookClub – awesome site for readers. Get a book free in return for a review. The site is known for promoting indie authors.

Kindle Unlimited – Amazon’s subscription for milions of books that comes with a membership fee.

Storytel – Monthly Audio books subscription. You can read as many as you love and whatever’s available on their platform.

Q. What are some Book review apps

Apps that let you read and review books from your phone.

Buy books, read them, and review them. All in one place. Download the Kindle app for free and read so many titles for free.

If you are a book enthusiast, you know what Goodreads is. Just download the app for free, start adding books to your shelf, and discuss them with your friends.

Of course, you can't download or buy books here. But you can find what you want to read next. Buy it on Amazon or at your local bookstore. Click a picture and start writing away. Use Bookish hashtags, and you're good to go.

Project Gutenberg

Q. How did I write a review for Amazon or Goodreads?

For very short book critiques you can skip the summary altogether.

For example, for book reviews for sites like Amazon or Goodreads, the summary can be skipped because the synopsis or blurb is already displayed along with the book cover on the site.

Enter an interesting short title for your review that makes the reader want to go on reading. Directly write your first reaction to the book. Did you love it or hate it and why? Express your recommendations, enter your rating and done. 

Q.  How did I write a review for the first chapter or the sample of a book I read?

Again, this one falls in the short review category. There doesn’t need to be a summary of the book. Here you are trying to answer the question. After reading the first chapter, do I buy the book?

Mention what attracted you to the book. The cover or the title or the summary or some other review you read. What did you like best about the part you read? Did it seem professionally well-written?

And of course, your final take, will you but it or not?

About two paragraphs in 80 to 100 words should be enough.

Q. Is writing reviews for different genres different?

Reviewing a Fiction Novel

Reviewing a non-fiction book, reviewing a children’s book, q. how did i write a review for an audiobook.

The basic guidelines for writing the review remain the same. The extra element here is your review for the narrator of the book. There must be a separate paragraph in your review dedicated to the narrator. You need to write if you enjoyed listening to the book in their voice. Were they able to differentiate between the voices of different characters? Were they able to capture the right mood/theme of the book?

That’s it from me.

Although long, I hope this article has managed to answer all your questions regarding book reviews. In case you have any more questions regarding book reviews, please leave a comment or send me an email detailing your queries. I assure you, if not anything I will at least point you in the right direction.

If I have missed anything, your comments and queries will help me make this article more comprehensive and detailed and truly helpful to others. I will add in information that I think is truly important and reliable with due credits.

Happy reading & Reviewing!

A template that makes writing a book review " super simple " and " quick ".

Writing a Book Review has never been easier. The Ultimate Guidleine to write your review in 15 minutes flat. 

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What Is A Book Review – Why Book Reviews Are Important For Authors!

by Stefanie Newell | Mar 1, 2013 | Book Promotion | 3 comments

What is a book review?

A book review is an opinion, summary, or scholarly review of an author’s literary work. Books are reviewed for newspapers, magazines, blogs, and websites or even just for family and friends. If you’re a writer and wondering the best way to get your book in front of a group of avid readers, book reviews are the way to go!

What is a book review to an author? Book reviews are considered publicity for a writer. It links a writer directly to an audience of avid book readers who are passionate about literature and eager to spread news of a good book.

Developing relationships with book clubs, review blogs and the like will give you access to groups of people that support your writing. This isn’t you talking about your own book. These are avid book readers eager to tell their audience how great your book is. Book reviewers are also great beta readers. Instead of running to a friend with plot ideas, try a book reviewer instead.

Book reviews span all genres, so do your research and find a reviewer best suited for your book. Here are a few things you should pay attention to:

– Genres reviewed. – Number of days it takes to review. – Number of book copies requested. Do they accept electronic versions? – Determine whether they accept self-published books (not all do). – Determine whether they post reviews to their own website, social media, and Amazon. – Determine whether they require your book be available through a certain site (i.e., Amazon.) – Determine whether they require your book to be professionally edited. – Determine how many reviews your book will need.

Once you know exactly what the reviewer you choose requires, remember that first impressions are key. Present yourself and your book as if you were presenting it directly to your audience. In your package include promotional items like: business cards, bookmarks and flyers. And don’t forget your biography and a press release!

Remember, it’s not unusual to feel anxious while waiting for your review, but allow your reviewer the allotted time they’ve requested. This ensures your book gets the proper attention it deserves. Once reviewed, be gracious and thank them for reviewing your book.

Please note: When you submit your book for review you are requesting an honest review. All reviews won’t be five star reviews. A book reviewer’s obligation is to the reader and not the author. So be practical in your thinking; not everyone will love your book.

However, positive book reviews can:

– Increase sales. – Increase visibility. – Grow your newsletter. – Create increased engagement on social media. – And so much more!

Good advice!

Thanks Norm!

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Book Review

Book reviews are documents that people see in different fields, including educational institutions and professional roles in an industry or organization, centering on providing feedback. Use book reviews to help middle school kids to college students construct proper formats for their next activity or project in literature , writing according to APA styles.

Book Review Definition & Meaning

What is a book review, 10 types of book reviews, fiction book review.

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Book Review Uses, Purpose, Importance

Understand the readers’ desires, increase book sales, engage with readers, improve writing skills, build an author’s brand, what’s in a book review parts, introduction, content summary, book analysis and evaluation, how to design a book review, book review vs. summary, what’s the difference between a book review, essay, & review, book review sizes.

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What are the three elements of a book review, what makes a good book review, what are the phases of writing a book review, what is the aim of a book review, how does the book review begin, is a book review the same as a summary, what do you understand by book review, what are the criteria for reviewing a book, what are the two guidelines for writing a book review, more in documents, review blog graphic template, simple book review template, fire log book template, transport and logistics financial forecast review template, tenure review bio template, baby book template, story book template, minibook template, address book template, comic book template.

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book review

• a critical description, evaluation, or analysis of a book, especially one published in a newspaper or magazine.
• a section or page of a newspaper or magazine devoted to such material.

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Other words from.

• book reviewer noun
• book reviewing noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of book review 1

Example Sentences

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Director Peter Bogdanovich wrote in the New York Times Book Review that John Wayne is “authoritative and thoroughly engaging.”

In an interview with The New York Times Book Review, she was asked to “name one book that made you who you are today.”

Charles McGrath is a former editor of The New York Times Book Review and before that deputy editor at The New Yorker.

One big difference in the Book Review now compared to a decade ago is the presence on the bestseller list of e-books.

The Book Review has done a good job of staying on top of things.

The comparison of a review to a portrait fixes attention on one essential quality of a book-review.

His father came out and stretched in a wicker chair with the Times book-review section.

A book review (written by a woman) which I have at hand contains some generalizations which bear on the subject.

Such banquets are spread for the frugal, not one of whom would swap that immortal cook-book review for a dinner with Lucullus.

There was a book-review in it a few days ago that I—I liked very much.'

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Book Review

14 July 2023

last updated

A book review is a written work on specific ideas from the defined source. In particular, people read books and write reviews on the strengths or weakness of some aspects of the work. Since writing requires the understanding of the source and claims of the author or authors, people should know about the main characteristics, style, and structure of the paper. Basically, the book review must be a well-written and well-organized paper that analyzes the source and helps the readers to understand the ideas. Then, the style must be formal and academic to be clear with the readers. Moreover, the structure of the paper must represent the logical work on the source. Therefore, the book review is the work that provides new highlights to the specific source based on the logical representation of the strengths and weaknesses.

What Is the Book Review?

Book reviews are important aspects in shaping academic knowledge and ability to learn the opinions of others. Although some people may find it challenging of how to write a book review , this assignment is common in academic writing like movie reviews . Basically, the book review is the analysis, personal opinion, or critics of the author or authors of the written work. Moreover, the book review does not mean the summary of the work since these types of papers are different in essence. In most cases, summaries represent the source without the analysis, repeating and paraphrasing the information. On the other hand, reviews on claims or ideas of the author or author help to understand what the person wants to say to the reader. Hence, the book review starts from the reading of the written source, the definition of the main points, claims, or ideas, and a final paper that describes all of it.

What Are the Characteristics of the Book Review?

Main characteristics of the book review can be divided into several aspects, such as the representation of the plot of the written work and its details, attraction of the people’s attention, and choice to help them to make their own decision. Firstly, the representation of the plot of the book and its details must be done because not all of the readers may be familiar with the work. Then, since people who read the book review must understand the author, the paper must be written in a coherent, interesting, and academic style. Finally, after reading the paper, people need to define their own position on the words and ideas that they get from it. Therefore, the characteristics of the book review include the explanation of the plot and its points, correct writing style, and offering a choice to make a position on the issue.

Style of Writing

The choice of writing styles in the book review is simple. Basically, the paper must have a formal and academic tone. For example, if the paper does not have logical connections between sentences, paragraphs, or ideas, this work will be not accepted by the readers. Unfortunately, the author does not care about the style in this case. In turn, if the writer organizes the paper in the logical order with specific aspects from the written source, then this work will be easy to read and understand. Moreover, another important aspect of writing the book review is the use of personal points of view. Particularly, readers can get ideas from the author of the paper on the strengths or weaknesses of the book. Therefore, the writer should give causes for reflections.

Book Review’s Structure

In book reviews, the structure of the paper must not be complex or chaotic when people write a review or organizing an advertisement review . Although some people may think that writing whatever they want is appropriate for reviews, they are wrong since readers can miss the flow of ideas because of the weak structure. In this case, the paper must start from the introduction, explaining the topic, hook to get the reader’s attention, key aspects, the title of the source with the author or authors, and the final claim. Moreover, this last sentence must be in the form of a thesis statement by referring to the title of the book with the author or authors. By considering body paragraphs, these parts of the paper must expand the introduction part with cited evidence from the book. As for the conclusion part, this paragraph must be a summary of the discussed points, covering the strengths or weaknesses of the book. Besides, students should consider rules on how to start a summary .

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The power and importance of book reviews, by barnes & noble press /, october 2, 2023 at 9:15 am.

There are countless books competing for readers’ attention, which is why the power and importance of book reviews cannot be overstated. They serve as gateways to a book’s world. And offer potential readers insight into what they can expect.

Plus, book reviews are crucial for discoverability, marketing, and boosting sales. Let’s dive into why book reviews are so important, especially for indie authors, as well as explore valuable tips on how to use and solicit book reviews effectively.

The Significance of Book Reviews

1. discoverability.

In today’s digital age, discoverability is a major challenge for self-published and indie authors. With millions of books available online, how does a new book find its way into the hands of readers? This is where book reviews can play a pivotal role.

When a book receives reviews, it gains visibility. Readers searching for their next read often rely on reviews to make informed decisions. Reviews can highlight the unique qualities of a book, its genre, and its target audience. This information helps potential readers find books that align with their interests and preferences.

Furthermore, books with a substantial number of positive reviews are more likely to be recommended by algorithms on online retailers like BN.com, making them more discoverable to a wider audience.

2. Marketing

Book reviews are invaluable marketing tools. They serve as social proof of a book’s quality and worthiness. Positive reviews provide validation to potential readers that the book is worth their time and money. Authors and publishers can leverage these reviews in various marketing strategies such as:

Book Blurbs: Excerpts from positive reviews can be used as book blurbs on the cover and inside pages of a book. A compelling blurb can capture a reader’s attention and encourage them to explore the book further.

Author Websites and Social Media: Authors can showcase reviews on their websites and social media profiles. Sharing positive feedback from readers creates a positive online presence and fosters a sense of trust with potential readers.

Email Marketing: Book reviews can be featured in email newsletters to subscribers. This keeps the audience engaged and informed about the book’s reception.

Book Trailers and Promotional Videos: Reviews can be incorporated into book trailers and promotional videos to highlight the book’s appeal and encourage viewers to make a purchase.

3. Boosting Sales

Ultimately, the end goal of reviews is to boost sales. Positive reviews not only increase a book’s visibility and credibility but also serve as persuasive tools. When readers see that others have enjoyed a book, they are more likely to purchase it. Reviews contribute to the snowball effect of book sales, as more reviews attract more readers, which in turn leads to more reviews.

Tips for Using and Soliciting Book Reviews

1.leverage existing platforms.

There are numerous platforms where authors and publishers can encourage readers to leave reviews. Some of the most popular ones include Kirkus and the app Likewise. Be active on these platforms, engage with readers, and kindly ask for reviews when appropriate. Make sure to provide direct links to the review pages to simplify the process for readers.

2.Build Relationships with Bloggers and Reviewers

Book bloggers and professional reviewers can be powerful allies in the quest for reviews. Reach out to them, introduce your book, and politely inquire if they would be interested in reviewing it. Be respectful of their time and preferences and provide a copy of your book in a format they prefer (e.g., physical copy, eBook, audiobook).

3. Create an Advance Review Team

Before your book’s official release, assemble a group of dedicated readers who are willing to provide early reviews. This advanced review team can help generate initial buzz and establish credibility for your book. Offer them free copies and express your gratitude for their support.

4. Engage with Your Readers

Interact with your readers through social media, email newsletters, and author events. Encourage them to share their thoughts and reviews on the different online platforms and social channels. Engaging with your audience not only builds a loyal fan base but also increases the likelihood of receiving reviews.

5. Offer Incentives Responsibly

While it’s generally discouraged to offer incentives for reviews, there are ethical ways to encourage honest feedback. Consider running giveaways or contests where participants can enter by leaving a review – maybe even for a NOOK GlowLight! Always ensure that your approach aligns with the guidelines of the platform you’re using.

6. Be Patient and Gracious

Not every reader will leave a review, and not every review will be positive. It’s essential to be patient and gracious in your interactions with readers. Avoid engaging in arguments or disputes over negative reviews; instead, focus on positive feedback and use constructive criticism to improve your future work.

Truly, book reviews are indispensable for authors and publishers looking to enhance discoverability, boost marketing efforts, and increase sales. Positive reviews provide much-needed validation and visibility in an increasingly competitive literary landscape. By strategically using and soliciting reviews, authors can connect with their target audience, build their brand, and create a buzz that propels their books to success. So, if you’re a self-published author or indie publisher, don’t underestimate the power of book reviews—it’s the key to unlocking your book’s potential!

More Industry Tips & Tricks:

• How to Overcome Writer’s Block in 5 Ways
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• Why Authors Should Self-Publish Audiobooks
• How to Boost Your NOOK Readership with the Free B&N NOOK App
• 3 Tips to Tailor Your Metadata for B&N Readers
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A Friendship Forged in Wartime Casts a Long Shadow

What happens when two American women attempt to help the people of Saigon? In Alice McDermott’s new novel, the answer is complicated.

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By Jennifer Egan

• Oct. 27, 2023
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ABSOLUTION, by Alice McDermott

Alice McDermott is rightly celebrated for her granular, nuanced portraits of mid-20th-century life, with a particular focus on Irish Americans. Her fans may be startled, then, to find themselves plunged into 1963 Saigon at the start of her enveloping new novel, “Absolution,” whose lofty title belies its sensory, gritty humanity.

McDermott’s contextual leap is not as great as it might seem. The primary narrator of “Absolution,” Patricia Kelly, and her husband, Peter, a Navy intelligence officer, are Irish American New Yorkers who might easily be part of the same family tree as Billy Lynch from McDermott’s 1998 National Book Award winner , “ Charming Billy ”; Marie from “ Someone ”; the Daileys from “ At Weddings and Wakes ”; or the Keanes from “ After This ,” my personal favorite. Indeed, Peter Kelly’s sense of mission in Vietnam is bound up with his Catholicism; President Kennedy, a Catholic, initially supported the Catholic president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, in part through the efforts of a Central Intelligence Agency that was jokingly referred to as the “Catholic Intelligence Agency.”

Although she opens with an epigraph from “ The Quiet American ,” Graham Greene’s 1955 indictment of catastrophic American blundering in post-colonial Vietnam, McDermott asserts her revisionist focus in the novel’s third sentence: “You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women, I mean. The wives.” She then delves into the lives and activities of the blunderers’ wives during the last era in American life in which being a husband’s “helpmeet” was widely seen as a worthy fulfillment of feminine ambition.

Shortly after their arrival in Saigon, shy, 23-year-old Patricia, newly wed and in awe of Peter, meets Charlene, a WASP who is rich, potty-mouthed, pill-popping and lawbreaking — all things Patricia decidedly is not. A bossy insider and mother of three, Charlene masterminds a “cabal” of charitable military-industrial wives bent on helping poor and ailing Vietnamese. Their work consists of channeling black-market profits into buying trinkets and candy to distribute to hospitalized children (some of whom may be recovering from war wounds) and their impoverished families.

In passive Patricia (whom she immediately nicknames Tricia), the aggressive, polarizing Charlene finds a perfect foil for her escalating charitable schemes. Their alliance — more than a partnership and less than a friendship — results, first, in the marketing of “Saigon Barbies” outfitted in Vietnamese attire, and later, in orchestrating the tailoring of exquisite outfits for residents of a leper colony.

Patricia immediately recognizes Charlene as a type — rich and entitled — yet acknowledges, “It was another inborn talent of these privileged girls; they were irresistible, much as you hated them.” Charlene’s magnetism pulls in the reader thanks to McDermott’s eye for the contradictions and complexities that elevate anyone, living or literary, from a generic type (always a measure of our distance from them) into a specific individual. Though brimming with self-regard, Charlene also bites her nails to nubs and is plagued by night terrors. When Patricia, who is desperate for a child, miscarries, Charlene baptizes the embryo and ritualizes the loss in a way that honors its magnitude. Her wish to “do good,” dismissed by the men around her as the irrelevant scurrying of a “dynamo,” is genuine, even spiritual. Of her night terrors, Charlene says: “They’re telling me something. About myself, I suppose. … I mean to see what I was meant to see.”

The story is told in retrospect, from a distance of decades, in the form of letters between an older, widowed Patricia and Charlene’s daughter, Rainey, long after Charlene’s early death. Retrospect amplifies McDermott’s narrative approach; her work lives in its shimmering details (she’s especially good with smells and descriptions of light), and nostalgia imbues even simple observations with suggestiveness. When Patricia arrives at Charlene’s home for lunch, “the ladies were drinking manhattans. I’d never had one … would have preferred something cool and bubbly — maybe a tall Coke. Although the amber liquid in the small triangular glass looked elegant. The shadowy cherry.”

The shift in time allows Patricia to comment upon her young self, and the events of 1963, from a salty perspective informed by disillusioning history. At the luncheon, after detailing her husband’s meteoric rise, Patricia reflects: “I told Peter’s story, which was my own, and felt, what else to call it but patriotic pride. Saw that the three women felt it, too. Bright young men and their pretty little wives rising, rising, immigrant roots and working-class backgrounds be damned. Spine-straightening, tear-inducing, vaguely orgasmic — the manhattan had its effect (I hope you’re laughing) — patriotic pride in an American romance. God, what a country.”

The debacle of America’s involvement in Vietnam might easily have overdetermined McDermott’s story, and it is a measure of her skill that “Absolution” maintains an oblique relationship to the war. McDermott’s subject is not intervention per se but the altruistic impulse — particularly as practiced by those whose privilege lets them anoint themselves to heal what Charlene calls Vietnam’s “wretchedness.” She’s one of many characters who are trying to “do good,” and they range from the greedy and presumptuous to the genuinely selfless.

One of the latter, a young Catholic medic named Dominic who visits the leper colony with Charlene and Patricia, winds up living next door to Charlene’s middle-aged daughter, Rainey, without either of them realizing that they’re linked through Charlene — a coincidence likely to strain some readers’ credulity. The brief section of “Absolution” where Rainey details for Patricia the tragic events of her friendship with Dominic and his adopted son is less compelling; sinners make more engrossing reading than saints, and Charlene’s absence from the narrative leaves a vacuum. Rainey’s voice is hard to distinguish from Patricia’s (both use the word “sunstruck”); and because Rainey and Dominic play minor parts in the Saigon story, refocusing on them three-quarters of the way through the novel is a challenge.

It is satisfying, then, to return to Saigon for a final dispatch from Patricia to Rainey in which the callous wrongheadedness of Charlene’s interventions is decisively exposed. The chasm between Charlene and Patricia reasserts itself, and the reader is left with a sense of how unlikely, even otherworldly, their collaboration was. Yet as American wives overseas in 1963, they had a great deal in common: a near-total lack of agency or power; a choice between parroting their husbands’ opinions or operating independently in the margins, to limited and uncertain effect. What difference might it have made, for everyone, if those wives had been given a choice in the decision-making? Without posing this question directly, “Absolution” leaves the reader in its provocative shadow.

Jennifer Egan’s most recent novel is “The Candy House.”

ABSOLUTION | By Alice McDermott | Farrar, Straus & Giroux | 336 pp. | $28

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Your Guide to 33 Useful Book Terms and Acronyms

E very subculture has its own fun lingo, and the book community is no exception. If you've ever scrolled through BookTok or reviews for books on Goodreads , you've probably come across all kinds of literary slang, puns and acronyms that had you scratching your head and feeling out of the loop. Readers often use specific terms as a shorthand—after all, less typing means getting to read more books —to talk about the books they're reading, want to read or don't plan on finishing. If you Google "TBR meaning" or "What does TBR mean," for example, you might be surprised to find it's used to describe books "to be read" and not, in fact, the first hit on Google: Tennessee Board of Regents!

That's why we've created a handy guide that will help you understand the most useful book slang, as well as some made-up terms that may not be real—but really should be. So the next time you're writing a review about the  best books  you've just read or your favorite romance novels , or talking with fellow bookworms in your online book club , make sure to add the following to your vocab list.

Reading terms

Have you ever struggled to come up with a term that captured the exact feeling of something you want to say? That's what this list is here for. These commonly used reading terms help define the universal reading experience, as well as explain some literary tropes that avid readers like you may recognize.

Binge-read: Arguably the healthiest of binges, binge-reading is the act of blasting through a good chunk of a single book or even multiple books in a short period of time. It's especially fun and easy to binge-read short books .

Reading slump: When you lose interest in reading for a while and either avoid reading books altogether or can't get into any new books you pick up. This is perfectly normal, especially after reading an especially riveting book—and then all other books seem to pale in comparison.

Book hangover: When your emotional and mental state is so greatly affected by a book, whether in a positive or negative way, that you need time to process it before moving on to another one. You'll find this is very common after reading more serious reads like books about race relations in America or dystopian books . Here's how to recover from a book hangover if you have one.

Book haul: The act of showing off books you just bought or borrowed at the library.

Auto-buy author: A beloved author whose books you will always instantaneously pre-order or pick up as soon as possible.

Insta-love: A trope where characters instantly fall in love with each other—oftentimes without fully getting to know each other yet.

Spoiler: This is a disclaimer that will warn you if a book review will reveal something about the plot or ending that you may not want to know before you start reading it. Pro tip: You especially want to keep an eye out for spoiler alerts in reviews for mystery books !

Mary Sue: A character who is inexplicably and unrealistically perfect in every way.

Ship: A shortened version of "relationship," this is when you support a romantic pairing between two characters, even if the author may not have intended it, and it's all in your head.

Second lead syndrome: Commonly used in the Korean drama community, the second lead syndrome is when you support the secondary love interest, even though you suspect they won't end up with the main character ... or will they?

Shelfie: This is a pic of a bookshelf that shows off a book collection or a selfie with books in the background. It's a fun way to see how BookTokkers organize their bookshelves !

Mood reader: A person who changes the book genres they read depending on their mood.

Bookish acronyms

Gone are the simple days when only "LOL" and "BRB" filled our AOL chats. Every year, there are more and more fun acronyms to express certain feelings or ideas. And while the following are technically bookish initialisms—acronyms are specifically abbreviations formed from the first letters of a longer term or phrase, which  can be said as its own word (think "NASA" or "NATO")—you'll find yourself using all these in your literary circles before you know it.

TBR: To Be Read. These days, BookTokkers, Bookstagrammers and book reviewers alike use the term TBR, meaning good books to be read. When you can't wait for an upcoming publication date for your favorite author—or you get a book recommendation from a trusty source—make sure to add it to your TBR list.

CR: Currently Reading. Once you start a new book, you can move it from your TBR list to your CR list. Many bookworms proudly display their CR book on their social media accounts.

DNF: Did Not Finish. The DNF meaning is a useful one, and you'll see it come up a lot in online book reviews. Life is short, and you should dedicate your precious time to finishing books you actually enjoy. Don't like a book or aren't a fan of the subject matter? Add it to your DNF list and release yourself from the guilt.

MC: Main Character. No, your book club member isn't referring to an emcee, aka master of ceremonies, when they're talking about this kind of MC. In the book community, MC refers to the beloved protagonist of the book.

POV: Point of View. While this one may seem a bit more obvious, POV is often used in book reviews or book discussions to refer to the narrator of the story. This is especially handy if a book has chapters that switch between the perspectives of more than one character.

OTP: One True Pairing. You know that perfect fictional couple—whether it's the original romantic pairing written by the author or one that fans conjured up—that makes you squeal with delight? That's your OTP.

• M/M or F/F: Male/Male or Female/Female. This shorthand is used to describe same-sex romantic pairings. And it isn't just limited to LGBTQ+ books . The fiction world is expanding its representation of all different kinds of love.

FTB: Fade to Black. FTB is a fun acronym that's getting more traction to describe scenes where the author suggests intimacy between love interests, but skips the explicit details—or even the steamy scene altogether. It's akin to a tame PG-13 movie rather than one that's rated R.

TW/CW: Trigger Warning/Content Warning. Typically used interchangeably, TW and CW are becoming more commonplace as we become more mindful of sensitive topics that may disturb some readers. You'll see this heads-up about upsetting subject matter in the book review or a book itself, so readers can steer clear if they wish.

HEA: Happily Ever After. While the term "happy" is rather subjective, an HEA ending is when the main character achieves what they wanted, or when they're emotionally satisfied at the end of the book. For example, a HEA romance novel may mean the OTP get married and have adorable babies.

HFN: Happy For Now. HFN is slightly different from HEA: It implies an optimistic outcome, but it's more realistic than a sappy happy ending where all the conflicts are resolved and tied neatly with a bow. You'll see HFN endings more often in the best book series to keep you coming back for more.

More great books for your TBR pile

Fun words to describe the reading experience.

The following portmanteaus and book terms haven't officially been adopted by the book community—yet. However, they're words that describe universal reading experiences that all book lovers can relate to, and if readers can Google "TBR meaning," we figure they'll be open to these! After all, if Shakespeare made up words, why can't we?

Anticippointment: The warring feelings of anticipation of a book's exciting climax and disappointment that the book is going to end soon.

Book-option fatigue: The decision-fatigue you experience when facing a nearly endless option of book choices. With a long enough TBR list or a packed enough bookshelf, it can be hard to settle on what you want to read next. Check out these BookTok books that are actually worth the hype.

Bookspressions: The expressions you make while reading, sometimes mirroring the characters' feelings. (Let's be honest. You totally give a slanted grin along with the love interest and crook an eyebrow when the villain does.)

Litjock: Someone who is super enthusiastic about reading and makes it a big, wonderful part of their identity.

Coverfished: When you get tricked into reading a lower quality book by its beautiful and enticing book cover. You'll typically add these to your DNF list.

Litultery: The act of committing adultery with your CR list, i.e. reading more than one book at a time. This is an especially apt term if you're taking breaks from more challenging and highbrow classic books to indulge in an easy beach read.

Wazthawerd: Words or names that you don't have a clue how to pronounce or define.

Scintisensational: A book that wakes you up to the cultures of everyday people, whether it be their home or ethnicity. Check out these books by Black authors , books by Latinx authors , Asian American books , and feminist books .

Tears Blur-turner: A sad book that has you barely making out the blurry words through your tears, but you can't stop reading. These books can often be recognized by teardrop stains on their pages.

Serial reader: A lit lover with a big appetite for books who picks up a new story immediately after finishing a book. Forget downtime! Serial readers kill it when it comes to reading nonstop.

Now that you know the meaning of TBR and these other book terms, put these thrillers , sci-fi books and autobiographies on your TBR list.

The post Your Guide to 33 Useful Book Terms and Acronyms appeared first on Reader's Digest .

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Apeirogon by Colum McCann review – a beautifully observed masterpiece

Based on the true-life friendship of two men whose daughters were killed in the Middle East, this novel buoys the heart

I n his 1985 Jerusalem prize acceptance speech, Milan Kundera spoke about the novel’s ability to transcend binaries, using Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to illustrate his point. “The novel is the imaginary paradise of individuals,” he said. “It is the territory where no one possesses the truth, neither Anna nor Karenin, but where everyone has the right to be understood, both Anna and Karenin.” In an age of certainty, the novel is the home of doubt, of ambiguity, of multiple truths.

Colum McCann has written something he calls a “hybrid novel,” in which the form’s mutability, its stance on both sides and neither, is used to address the entrenched positions of the Middle East. The title is taken from the mathematical term for an object of an “observably infinite number of sides”, a shape that serves as a model for a new way of thinking about a conflict that is too often reduced to simple, opposed positions.

It’s a strange time for a novel as full-hearted as Apeirogon . It feels as if the situation in the Middle East is always a reflection of its age. In the optimistic 90s we had the Oslo Accords and a real sense that some solution to the conflict could be found through diplomatic channels. Now each side has retreated into belligerent isolation, with Donald Trump gleefully fanning the flames of discord. But perhaps that’s the point – the desperation of the situation has brought forth a work of art whose beauty, intelligence and compassion may go some way to changing things. Is it absurd to suggest that a novel might succeed where generations of politicians have failed? Perhaps, but then Apeirogon is the kind of book that comes along only once in a generation.

This is McCann’s seventh novel. In 2009, he published the wildly successful Let the Great World Spin , which won a National Book award and the Impac prize and was translated into 40 languages.

Apeirogon takes its inspiration from the real-life friendship between a Palestinian, Bassam Aramin, and an Israeli, Rami Elhanan: “An Israeli, against the occupation. A Palestinian, studying the Holocaust.” The men are united in their grief – they lost their daughters: Smadar, turned into “a scattered human jigsaw” at the age of 13 by a suicide bomber, and Abir, assassinated aged 10 by a trigger-happy member of the Israeli army. Both men join the Parents Circle , a group of the fellow-bereaved who unite in their sorrow to press for a peaceful resolution to the conflict: “This became their jobs: to tell the story of what had happened to their girls.”

Apeirogon is structured as 1,001 individual chapters, some as short as a sentence, some comprising Sebald-like photographs, some merely blank spaces (a reflection of one of the mathematical theorems that underlie the novel). The central chapters of the novel are deeply moving interviews with each of the protagonists: “elsewhere in this book,” McCann says in an author’s note, “Bassam and Rami have allowed me to shape and reshape their words and worlds”.

The number of chapters is a reference to the 1,001 Arabian Nights – “a ruse for life in the face of death”. The novel pivots on a single day in 2016, when the two men travel to a meeting of the Parents Circle in a Cremisan monastery in Beit Jala. The bereaved parents are there to do what we do as we read the book: “to listen to the stories of Bassam and Rami, and to find within their stories another story, a song of songs … remembering, while listening, all of those stories that are yet to be told.”

You don’t read Apeirogon so much as feel it, as the particular tragedies of Bassam and Rami are lived out in an ever-present moment of loss. The deaths of Smadar and Abir are interlaced with a host of other tales that enter into a strange and powerful dialogue with the stories of these two girls who had barely begun to live yet. We read of Bassam’s epiphany in prison as a young man watching a documentary about the Holocaust; we read of the Israeli soldiers who came to build a playground in memory of Abir, despite the risk this posed to their lives; we read of the tragedy of divided geography and shared history; we wander off down seemingly unrelated tangents about François Mitterrand’s last meal, about the high-wire walker who crossed from Palestine to Israel, about a mad missionary, about birds, about Borges and Darwish and a vast chorus of others who comment, however obliquely, on the situation in Palestine.

For all its grief, Apeirogon is a novel that buoys the heart. The friendship of Bassam and Rami is a thing of great and sustaining beauty. There’s a picture of the two of them, asleep together on a train in Germany, travelling from one speaking engagement to the next. They lean against each another, Rami – the older man – supporting the smaller Bassam as he sleeps. This, the novel suggests, is the solution to the conflict: something as simple and easy as friendship, as the acknowledgement of a shared experience, as love. I kept thinking as I read it about all the ways that Apeirogon could have failed, about the ammunition it might have provided to all of those who claim that no one should write a novel that reaches beyond their own particular experience. It could have been maudlin, tawdry, exploitative, trite.

Instead, it’s a masterpiece, a novel that will change the world, and you don’t hear that very often.

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Netflix’s ‘baby reindeer’ is an incredibly bizarre, brilliantly told true story.

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Richard Gadd bares his soul in the Netflix series 'Baby Reindeer.'

Regardless of a series or film’s genre fluidity, I can usually find a way to describe why I love it and why it’s worth the binge. With Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer , I am at equal turns fascinated, horrified, and flummoxed. I am also unable to stop watching and ruminating over its meaning. I may even go back for a rewatch.

Where to begin…The seven-episode series, which debuted on April 11, is based on Gadd’s award-winning Edinburgh Fringe one-man play. His writing is phenomenal and in the television version of his life story, he portrays Donny Dunn, a struggling comedian-slash-bartender who is being stalked by an insane woman named Martha (portrayed by a brilliant Jessica Gunning) with whom he just might resonate more than anyone else. Their relationship is positively warped beyond hope for repair and the stalking, at times, goes both ways. He seems simultaneously repulsed and intrigued by her.

The situation is like a cancer that spreads into each facet of his life, slowly destroying and infecting every aspect of who he is. The how and why he got into this mess and why he cannot seem to get away from his tormenter forces him to finally face past trauma.

This is a true story and it goes along with the “couldn't-make-this-up” variety in shocking and perplexing ways. The series also makes one wonder about the meaning of connection. What does it mean to feel seen by someone? Martha regularly asks Donny who hurt him. Maybe no one has bothered to pay enough attention to him before to even notice that he’s in pain. Maybe he’s buried his agony for so long and become so used to its sting that he’s even forgotten it’s there to begin with.

Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning in 'Baby Reindeer' on Netflix.

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In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum , Gadd explained why he created this series and why he wanted to share his complicated and tragic story with the world. “Sometimes in the pit of despair, inspiration emerges. I was now in the fourth year of being stalked, by a woman, whose only skill greater than her ability to harass was her ability to evade the law,” said Gadd. “ She had somehow just obtained my mobile number and I was in the peak of my career at that point, having just come back from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where I had won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Monkey See Monkey Do .” His show tackled the sexual abuse he suffered early in his career.

He goes on to say how important it was for him to face his past after years of suffering in silence. “But any good feeling in the Fringe’s aftermath was tempered by my phone ringing every single minute of every day where I was met with a whole gamut of Martha’s emotions from hurled insults to deep expressions of love and longing. It was too much for anyone to bear.”

He was meticulous in keeping track of every voicemail and message. He just wanted it to end. “In the height of it all, I would go to bed at night and still hear her in my ears. Her voice swirling around my head. Her words leaping around my eyelids as I tried to sleep. Sometimes it was like she was there in the room with me. In the bed beside me, even.”

He then came up with the idea of turning his nightmare into a show. “What an opening, it might be, to layer the voicemails on top of one another and shoot them around a stage in a wash of projected light. A cacophony of oscillating words and sounds bending and mutating along with her different emotional states. Mirroring her madness. Mirroring my madness. I mean…what better way to start a show than to plunge the audience straight inside the horror of it all?”

Richard Gadd shares his story of stalking in 'Baby Reindeer' on Netflix.

In 2019, Gadd debuted Baby Reindeer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which would be commissioned by Netflix in April 2021. He’d been free of Martha for two years at that point and was ready to face the truth of what had happened. In the show, he admitted to the role he played and the mistakes he made. “The foolish flirting. The cowardly excuses as to why we could not be together. Not to mention the themes of internalized prejudice and sexual shame that underpinned it all. The graphic details of the drugging, grooming, and sexual violence I had experienced only a few years before.”

Gadd’s show sold out that month and he was performing two shows a day to keep up with demand. “People came up to me at the end and would tell me things like, ‘I didn’t know whether to punch you or hug you,’ and ‘I felt sorry for you, then I hated her, then I hated you and I felt sorry for her,’ and to me that was the biggest compliment the show could get. All I ever wanted to do was capture something complicated about the human condition. That we all make mistakes. That no person is ever good or bad. That we are all lost souls looking for love in our own weird way.”

His goal, he added, was to delve into the moral quandaries that make us human. Sharing such raw pain is brave. If viewers binge-watch this one, many might even find a way to relate to Gadd. We do not always understand why we do things and if we are honest with ourselves, we all have or have had unhealthy patterns. Breaking those, understanding our why, and forgiving ourselves and others leads to healing.

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By Shi En Kim

April 16, 2024 at 9:00 am

Get the Picture Bianca Bosker Viking, $29

If you’re like me, perhaps you’ve visited a contemporary art installation, seen a painting of a single plain square or a giant sculpture of a fork, and wondered, how on Earth is this art? I’ll bet you didn’t dare ask this out loud, for fear of looking gauche. Luckily for us, journalist Bianca Bosker is willing to ask the age-old question — What is art? — and go to great lengths, fish-out-of-water style, to find the answer. The result is her latest book, Get the Picture , a participatory dive into the art world and the spiritual sustenance that art itself provides.

An art book probably isn’t what you’d expect Science News to review. But Bosker wields many tools, including scientific research, to understand humankind’s primal desire for art (SN: 1/13/21) .

She sets out to develop what art disciples call an “Eye,” a discerning ability to separate the “good” art from the “bad.” The only way to do that, she decides, is to embed herself among members of the trade. This is no easy task; the art world is secretive, closed and judgmental. Acolytes are as obsessed about art as they are about maintaining an aura of exclusivity. When Bosker finally penetrates fine art circles, what she finds isn’t pretty. The art world often excludes those who can’t afford to go to art school or the luxury of creating vanity projects. Practitioners often take on multiple jobs to make ends meet; many eventually quit from burnout. On top of that, there’s a culture of top-down bullying.

But as much as Bosker’s experiences might destroy your faith in art, she relentlessly digs deeper until she redeems it, by discovering the fundamental joy that art can bring to both those who create it and view it.

Bosker works as a gallery assistant, art-fair seller, studio helper and museum security guard to examine art from different angles. Each role provides a fascinating vignette into how the art machine operates, and you can’t help but admire Bosker’s willingness to suffer fools. Her can-do attitude puts her in bizarre situations — she lets a performance artist sit on her face in the name of art — making for a hilarious exposé about the art industry.

While entertaining, the recounting of her exploits means it takes a while for the book to get to the meaning of art. But once it does, science provides several clues. Some experts theorize that prehistoric humans were compelled to paint on cave walls because it showed off the artist’s skills and potential fitness as a mate. One anthropologist has argued that art bound communities together toward common survival.

In today’s world, art’s utility has expanded. Here too, science can help us understand how. Bosker introduces readers to the growing field of neuroaesthetics, the application of neuroscience to study the perception of art. Researchers have demonstrated that seeing is often secondary to believing — a “filter of expectation” in our brains distorts the raw data stream of light that hits our eyes. This filter allows us to take mental shortcuts and dismiss certain visual details to rapidly process our chaotic environment. This is why we know a white vase next to the window is still white, even as natural light transforms its exact hue to sunset golden or moonlight gray throughout the day.

One function of art, Bosker writes, is to yank off this filter to reexamine the world with renewed wonder. Art has a therapeutic quality, a fact that’s seized upon by doctors who prescribe patients visits to art museums and the pleasure of hanging wall art. Removing that filter can also help doctors themselves. Over two dozen medical schools require students to study paintings to avert the habit of snap judgment. Studies have shown that trainees who take an art-based visual literacy course perform more holistic physical examinations and read human facial expressions better than those who don’t.

The most scintillating aspect of the book is Bosker herself — the narrator, the why-person, the self-acknowledged philistine and, most importantly, the reader’s friend. Instead of lecturing from an authoritative vantage point, Bosker lets readers witness at eye level her growing clarity of art’s function. She’s also witty, self-deprecating and isn’t afraid to call out snobbery. In her trips to galleries, she writes, “pretension hung in the air like an unacknowledged fart.”

In the end, readers don’t get a complete answer for humankind’s compulsion toward art. Bosker instead offers her own interpretation: Art is a way to find beauty and heighten our appreciation for life. In debunking the infallibility of an “Eye,” Bosker argues that art is everywhere and can be anything, as long as we’re open to letting what we see move us. By the last page, you’ll be compelled to revisit that fork sculpture and behold the artwork with fresh eyes.

Buy Get the Picture from Bookshop.org. Science News is a Bookshop.org affiliate and will earn a commission on purchases made from links in this article.

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Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poetry

By Amanda Petrusich

In the past several months, Taylor Swift has become culturally ubiquitous in a way that feels nearly terrifying. Superstardom tends to turn normal people into cartoons, projections, gods, monsters. Swift has been inching toward some sort of tipping point for a while. The most recent catalyst was, in part, love: in the midst of her record-breaking Eras Tour , Swift, who is thirty-four, began dating Travis Kelce , a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Whenever Swift appeared at one of Kelce’s games, the broadcasters whipped their extra-high-definition cameras toward her, sending legions of amateur lip-readers scrambling for their phones. I’m paid to give legibility to such things, and even I couldn’t help but think that we were crossing some sort of Rubicon with regard to our collective sanity. Swift was everywhere, beheld by everyone. She is one of the most streamed artists of all time on Spotify; Billboard reported that, at one point, she accounted for seven per cent of all vinyl sales in the U.S. Swift is a capable and hugely savvy businesswoman (a billionaire, in fact), yet I began to worry about her in a nearly maternal way: How could anyone survive that sort of scrutiny and retain her humanity? Detaching from reality can be lethal for a pop star, particularly one known for her Everygirl candor. I thought of the oft-memed bit from “Arrested Development,” in which Lucille Bluth, the oblivious matriarch, asks, “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael—what could it cost? Ten dollars?”

This month, Swift released “The Tortured Poets Department,” her eleventh studio album. She has now reached a level of virtuosity within her genre that feels nearly immutable—she’s too practiced, too masterly, to swing and really miss. But “The Tortured Poets Department” suffers from being too long (two hours after it was released, Swift announced a second disk, bringing the total number of tracks to thirty-one) and too familiar. Swift co-wrote most of the record with Jack Antonoff and with Aaron Dessner. (The two producers have oppositional melodic sensibilities: Antonoff sharpens Swift; Dessner softens her.) The new songs suggest that, after a decade, her partnership with Antonoff has perhaps run its course. The tracks written with Dessner are gentler, more tender, and more surprising. The raw and stirring “Robin” seems to address a child—either a very young Swift (the album contains several references to her hijacked youth, including “The Manuscript,” a sombre song about a relationship with an older man), or maybe a future son or daughter.

“The Tortured Poets Department” was released following the end of Swift’s six-year relationship with the actor Joe Alwyn, and the album is mostly about the utter unreliability of love—how bonkers it is that we build our entire lives around a feeling that can simply dissipate. “You said I’m the love of your life / About a million times,” Swift sings on “Loml,” a wrenching piano ballad. “You shit-talked me under the table, talking rings and talking cradles.” Shortly after Swift and Alwyn split, she reportedly had a fling with Matty Healy , the front man for the British rock band the 1975. (“I took the miracle move-on drug / The effects were temporary,” she sings on “Fortnight.”) Healy is a provocateur, prone to making loutish jokes; onstage, he smokes, eats raw steak, and makes out with strangers. The rumored relationship sent Swifties into spasms of outrage, and revealed the unusual extent to which Swift is beholden to her fans. She has encouraged and nurtured a parasocial affection (at times she nearly demanded it: inviting fans to her home, baking them cookies), and she now has to contend with their sense of ownership over her life. On “But Daddy I Love Him,” she scornfully chastises the “judgmental creeps” who relentlessly hounded her about her love life: “I’d rather burn my whole life down / Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning.” (She saves the nastiest barb for the final verse: “All the wine moms are still holding out.”) Regardless, things with Healy ended fast, and, a few months later, she did the most wholesome thing possible: she started dating a football player whose team would go on to win the Super Bowl.

Quite a few of the album’s lyrics seem to evoke Healy: “You’re not Dylan Thomas / I’m not Patti Smith / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel / We’re modern idiots,” Swift sings on the title track, a shimmering song about broken people clinging to each other. I like that line—it suggests self-awareness—but it’s followed by one of the weirdest verses of Swift’s career: “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep / Like a tattooed golden retriever.” Other lyrics lack Swift’s signature precision: “At dinner you take my ring off my middle finger and put it on the one people put wedding rings on,” she sings. Even the greatest poets whiff a phrase now and then, but a lot of the language on the record is either incoherent (“I was a functioning alcoholic till nobody noticed my new aesthetic”) or just generally bewildering (“Florida is one hell of a drug”). My favorite lyrics are the simplest, and are delivered with a kind of exhausted calm. On “Down Bad,” a woozy song about feeling like shit, Swift admits defeat: “Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym / Everything comes out teen-age petulance / Fuck it if I can’t have him.” Feel you, dude.

Each of Swift’s records has a distinct visual component—this is more or less the premise of the Eras Tour . “The Tortured Poets Department” is preoccupied with writerly accoutrements, but the vibe is ultimately more high-end stationery store than musty rare-books room. Initially, the title seemed as if it might be a smirking reference to Joe Alwyn (he once joked about being part of a WhatsApp group called the Tortured Man Club). But I find that the phrase works well as a summation of Swift’s entire self-conception. She has always made a big deal about her pain being generative. “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on the page,” she wrote on Instagram. She has talked about this album as if the songs were mere monuments to her suffering: “Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.”

An unusual number of Swift’s songs portray love as combative, perhaps because she is so prone to working from a place of wounded longing. On “Better Than Revenge,” a song she wrote at eighteen, Swift sings about art as a useful weapon, a way to punish anyone who does her dirty: “She thinks I’m psycho / ’Cause I like to rhyme her name with things.” It’s a funny lyric, but, by Swift’s current age, most people understand that love isn’t about winning. (Art isn’t, either.) Yet in Swift’s universe, love is often a battlefield. On “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” she catalogues the ways in which fame can pervert and destroy a person: “I was tame, I was gentle, till the circus life made me mean,” she sings. She is paranoid, wild-eyed: “Tell me everything is not about me / But what if it is ?” (After the year Swift has had, she’s not wrong to ask.) The song itself is so tightly produced that it doesn’t sound dangerous. But midway through, her voice briefly goes feral. I found the moment thrilling, which is maybe part of the problem.

In the weeks before “The Tortured Poets Department” was released, it seemed as though a backlash was inevitable. Swift’s lyrics are often focussed on her perseverance against all odds, but, these days, she is too omnipresent and powerful to make a very convincing underdog. Still, interest in Swift has yet to diminish or fully sour. She announced the album at the Grammys, in February, as she was accepting the award for Best Pop Vocal Album, for her previous record, “Midnights.” I found her speech so profoundly mercenary it was sort of funny. “I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years, which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19th,” Swift said. “I’m gonna go and post the cover.”

As I’ve grown older, I’ve mostly stopped thinking about art and commerce as being fundamentally at odds. But there are times when the rapaciousness of our current pop stars seems grasping and ugly. I’m not saying that pop music needs to be ideologically pure—it wouldn’t be much fun if it were—but maybe it’s time to cool it a little with the commercials? A couple of days before the album’s release, Swift unveiled a library-esque display at the Grove, a shopping mall in Los Angeles. It included several pages of typewritten lyrics on faux-aged paper, arranged as though they had recently been tugged from the platen of a Smith Corona. (The word “talisman” was misspelled on one, to the delight of the haters.) The Spotify logo was featured prominently at the bottom of each page. Once again, I laughed. What is the point of all that money if it doesn’t buy you freedom from corporate branding? For a million reasons—her adoption of the “poet” persona; her already unprecedented streaming numbers—such an egregious display of sponsorship was worse than just incongruous. It was, as they say, cringe.

Among the other clues Swift doled out were five exclusive playlists for Apple Music (sorry, Spotify!), comprising her own songs and organized according to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. At first, I thought the playlists were just another bit of overwrought marketing, but the more I listened to “The Tortured Poets Department,” the more germane the concept felt. Anyone who has grieved knows that these categories are not a ladder you climb toward peace: it is possible, instead, to feel all of them at once, briefly or forever. Each stage is evident on “The Tortured Poets Department.” Sometimes they oppose one another: Swift is cocky and self-loathing, tough and vulnerable, totally fine and completely destroyed. She is free, but trapped. Dominant, powerless. She wants this, but she doesn’t. Those sorts of contradictions can be dizzying, but, in the end, they’re also the last things keeping her human. ♦

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Music Review: Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ is great sad pop, meditative theater

Taylor Swift fans took over the Grove in Los Angeles on Tuesday to celebrate Swift’s upcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” An installation organized by Spotify hid clues about lyrics contained on the record. (April 17)

This cover image released by Republic Records show “The Tortured Poets Department” by Taylor Swift. (Republic Records via AP)

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Who knew what Taylor Swift’s latest era would bring? Or even what it would sound like? Would it build off the moodiness of “Midnights” or the folk of “evermore” ? The country or the ‘80s pop of her latest re-records? Or its two predecessors in black-and-white covers: the revenge-pop of “Reputation” and the literary Americana of “folklore” ?

“The Tortured Poets Department,” here Friday, is an amalgamation of all of the above, reflecting the artist who — at the peak of her powers — has spent the last few years re-recording her life’s work and touring its material, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured considerations.

In moments, her 11th album feels like a bloodletting: A cathartic purge after a major heartbreak delivered through an ascendant vocal run, an elegiac verse, or mobile, synthesized productions that underscore the powers of Swift’s storytelling.

And there are surprises. The lead single and opener “Fortnight” is “1989” grown up — and features Post Malone . It might seem like a funny pairing, but it’s a long time coming: Since at least 2018, Swift’s fans have known of her love for Malone’s “Better Now.”

Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is here.

• In her review, AP Music Writer Maria Sherman calls it “an amalgamation of an artist who has spent the last few years re-recording her life’s work and touring its material , filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured subject matter.”
• Swift announced a surprise two hours after the album release: 15 additional tracks.
• The project is Swift’s first original album since her record-breaking Eras Tour kicked off last year.

“But Daddy I Love Him” is the return of country Taylor, in some ways — fairytale songwriting, a full band chorus, a plucky acoustic guitar riff, and a cheeky lyrical reversal: “But Daddy I love him / I’m having his baby / No, I’m not / But you should see your faces.” (Babies appear on “Florida!!!” and the bonus track “The Manuscript” as well.)

The fictitious “Fresh Out The Slammer” begins with a really pretty psych guitar tone that disappears beneath wind-blown production; the new wave-adjacent “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” brings back “Barbie” : “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens / ‘Cause he took me out of my box.”

Even before Florence Welch kicks off her verse in “Florida!!!,” the chorus’ explosive repetition of the song title hits hard with nostalgic 2010s indie rock, perhaps an alt-universe Swiftian take on Sufjan Stevens’ “Illinois.”

As another title states, “So Long, London,” indeed.

It would be a disservice to read Swift’s songs as purely diaristic, but that track — the fifth on this album, which her fans typically peg as the most devastating slot on each album — evokes striking parallels to her relationship with a certain English actor she split with in 2023. Place it next to a sleepy love ode like “The Alchemy,” with its references to “touchdown” and cutting someone “from the team” and well ... art imitates life .

Revenge is still a pervasive theme. But where the reprisal anthems on “Midnights” were vindictive, on “The Tortured Poets Department,” there are new complexities: “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” combines the musical ambitiousness of “evermore” and “folklore” — and adds a resounding bass on the bridge — with sensibilities ripped from the weapons-drawn, obstinate “Reputation.” But here, Swift mostly trades victimhood for self-assurance, warts and all.

“Who’s afraid of little old me?” she sings. “You should be,” she responds.

And yet, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” may be her most biting song to date: “You didn’t measure up in any measure of a man,” she sings atop propulsive piano. “I’ll forget you, but I won’t ever forgive,” she describes her target, likely the same “tattooed golden retriever,” a jejune description, mentioned in the title track.

Missteps are few, found in other mawkish lyrics and songs like “Down Bad” and “Guilty as Sin?” that falter when placed next to the album’s more meditative pop moments.

Elsewhere, Swift holds up a mirror to her melodrama and melancholy — she’s crying at the gym, don’t tell her about “sad,” is she allowed to cry? She died inside, she thinks you might want her dead; she thinks she might just die. She listens to the voices that tell her “Lights, camera, bitch, smile / Even when you want to die,” as she sings on “I Can Do It with a Broken Heart,” a song about her own performances — onstage and as a public figure.

“I’m miserable and nobody even knows!” she laughs at the end of the song before sighing, “Try and come for my job.”

“Clara Bow” enters the pantheon of great final tracks on a Swift album. The title refers to the 1920s silent film star who burned fast and bright — an early “It girl” and Hollywood sex symbol subject to vitriolic gossip, a victim of easy, everyday misogyny amplified by celebrity. Once Bow’s harsh Brooklyn accent was heard in the talkies, it was rumored, her career was over.

A glimpse of Clara Bow’s life in photos

Actress Clara Bow shown on Sept. 3, 1932. (AP Photo, File)

This 1930 photo shows Clara Bow, the original “It” girl. (AP Photo, File)

This early 1930s file photo shows actress Clara Bow in New York. (AP Photo/File)

In life, Bow later attempted suicide and was sent to an asylum — the same institution that appears on “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” “Clara Bow” works as an allegory and a cautionary tale for Swift, the same way Stevie Nicks’ “Mabel Normand” — another tragic silent film star — functioned for the Fleetwood Mac star.

Nicks appears in “Clara Bow,” too: “You look like Stevie Nicks in ’75 / The hair and lips / Crowd goes wild.”

Later, Swift turns the camera inward, and the song ends with her singing, “You look like Taylor Swift in this light / We’re loving it / You’ve got edge / She never did.” The album ends there, on what could be read as self-deprecation but stings more like frustrating self-awareness.

Swift sings about a tortured poet, but she is one, too. And isn’t it great that she’s allowed herself the creative license?

Screen Rant

Shogun episode 9 ending explained: why lady mariko did that.

Shōgun episode 9 sees the emotional culmination of Lady Mariko’s character arc and sets the stage for an intense, high-stakes series finale.

WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for Shōgun episode 9.

• Lady Mariko dies heroically to expose Ishido's crimes, setting up a high-stakes series finale.
• Yabushige betrayed Mariko to save himself, orchestrating the attack on Osaka castle.
• Mariko's death may give Toranaga the opportunity to reduce Ishido's power and finally attack Osaka.

Lady Mariko dies at the end of Shōgun episode 9 in what was by far the saddest and most tragic chapter of the show so far, setting up a high-stakes series finale. Lord Toranaga’s mission to Lady Mariko, which was teased in Shōgun episode 8 , was to go to Osaka and essentially make herself into a prisoner. Mariko was to prove that Ishido was keeping hostages by becoming one herself , which would put Ishido in check and force him to either expose himself or free the hostages. Unfortunately, Ishido would rather kill dozens than let his power be threatened.

Although Ishido allowed Mariko to leave the Osaka castle when she was about to commit seppuku, he was never going to let her leave Osaka alive. Lady Mariko saw herself trapped in a room with other ladies and Blackthorne during the attack on the castle and chose to put herself in front of the door before it was blown up by the shinobi. The fact that Mariko went back on her decision to commit seppuku just to die a few hours later during the attack makes Shōgun episode 9 even more tragic, but her sacrifice will not be for nothing.

Lady Mariko’s Death In Shōgun Episode 9 Explained

Mariko died after an explosion.

Lady Mariko died at the end of Shōgun episode 9 after a surprise attack on the Osaka castle. Several shinobi invaded the castle and, with the help of Yabushige, began to kill some of the hostages and their guards. Mariko, Blackthorne, Kiri-no-taka, and a few others managed to escape the assassins and locked themselves in a room. However, the invaders were ready to blow up the door and kill everyone inside, which is why Mariko chose to sacrifice herself and give some meaning to her death by denouncing Ishido’s crimes first.

Lady Mariko’s death in Shōgun episode 9 is fairly similar to what happened in the 1980 Shōgun miniseries as well as the original novel.

While it is unclear what would have happened had Mariko run away from the door like the Anjin asked, the fact is that the initial explosion does not seem to have affected Blackthorne and the others. Mariko realized that those shinobis were there to kill her so that she would never leave the castle, which was hardly a surprise for her. Lady Mariko was ready to die if it meant exposing that Ishido was keeping hostages in Osaka, as seen with her seppuku ritual that almost happened earlier in the episode.

It is safe to say the attack on the castle was going to continue until Mariko was dead , and even if she had Blackthorne’s assistance, it would have been virtually impossible for her to flee Osaka without at least causing dozens of casualties in the process. All those close to Mariko would have become a target, whereas her sacrifice might have helped denounce that Ishido is keeping daimyos and their families as hostages. Lady Mariko’s death in Shōgun episode 9 is fairly similar to what happened in the 1980 Shōgun miniseries as well as the original novel.

Who Ordered The Attack On The Osaka Castle In Shōgun Episode 9

Yabushige allowed assassins to enter the castle.

The attack on the Osaka castle happened on the same night in which Lady Mariko and the other hostages were allowed to leave and return to their homes. As perceived by Mariko as soon as the shinobis appeared, this attack was happening on Ishido's orders. Ishido would never let Mariko leave the castle and rejoin Lord Toranaga in Edo, which is why he orchestrated the attack. The one who put it in motion, however, was Yabushige. The Lord of Izo killed the guards and opened the doors of the castle to the shinobi.

Why Yabushige Betrayed Mariko & Blackthorne

Yabushige accepted ishido’s offer to avoid being killed.

Yabushige’s allegiances in Shōgun have been confusing since the beginning of the show, but episode 9 made it clear that there is nothing he would not do for his own benefit. After failing to negotiate a peaceful surrender with Ishido by offering to sail on his behalf alongside the Anjin, Yabushige believed he would soon be sentenced to death. Instead, Ishido offered him a deal. In exchange for his life, Yabushige was going to orchestrate the attack on the castle. Yabushige did not hesitate to betray the anjin and Mariko.

Why Ishido Wanted Mariko Dead (Despite Authorizing Her To Leave)

Ishido never intended to let mariko leave the castle.

Just as Mariko was about to commit seppuku with Blackthorne as her second, Ishido arrived and granted her permission to leave the castle. In theory, this should prove that neither Mariko nor anyone else was a hostage and that they were all free to go. However, Ishido knew that as soon as they all left Osaka, any leverage he and Ochiba-no-kata had would be gone. At the same time, if they kept Mariko and the others there against their will, the rest of the realm was going to know that Ishido was keeping hostages.

Why Lord Toranaga Calls Blackthorne & Yabushige “Goshawks” In Shogun Episode 8

This is why Ishido pretended to grant Mariko’s safe passage when in reality, he was planning on having her killed that same night. An attack on the castle that could not be traced back to Ishido would solve all of his problems – Mariko would never return to Edo, and there would not be any proof that hostages were being kept in Osaka. While Ishido’s plan partially succeeded, Lady Mariko’s sacrifice means that the other hostages now have a chance of escaping the castle and denouncing what Ishido has done.

What Lady Mariko’s Death Means For Lord Toranaga’s Plan

Mariko’s sacrifice means she has completed her mission.

Lady Mariko’s mission in Shōgun episode 9 was to either free all the hostages and reduce Ishido’s leverage or expose what was happening in Osaka so that other daimyos would turn against him. As tragic as Mariko’s death was, she may have completed her mission. If any of the hostages Mariko helped protect escape the castle and reveal what happened, the whole country will know what Ishido and Ochiba-no-kata are doing. This will reduce their power and cost them allies, finally giving Lord Toranaga a chance to attack without causing much bloodshed.

How Lady Mariko’s Death Will Affect John Blackthorne In Shōgun

Blackthorne had finally confessed his love to mariko.

Mariko’s death may have been heroic and part of a larger mission, but John Blackthorne will surely not take it well. Earlier in the episode, Blackthorne begged Mariko not to commit seppuku , thus finally confessing his feelings for her. They were also spending the night together before the attack. The Anjin even asked Mariko to stay away from the door, but she had already made her decision. Blackthorne will be particularly furious if he finds out that Yabushige, whom he somewhat respected, was involved in the attack that caused Mariko’s death.

How Shōgun Episode 9 Sets Up The Series Finale

Lord toranaga's crimson sky can finally happen.

Lord Toranaga was completely absent from Shōgun episode 9 , which doesn’t mean his presence wasn’t felt. While Mariko’s actions tied into her past and her relationship with Oshiba, she was acting on Toranaga’s behalf the whole time. The stability Ishido had in Osaka is gone, and now his power will be both questioned and reduced. Assuming some of the hostages will escape, and that a few other daimyos will no longer support Ishido, Lord Toranaga might finally have the numbers to take over Osaka. Shōgun episode 10 will be the culmination of everything the show has been building up to.

Shōgun releases new episodes Tuesdays on FX and Hulu.

Stream on Hulu

Shogun is an FX original mini-series set in 17th Century Japan. Shogun follows John Blackthorne, who becomes a samurai warrior but is unknowingly a pawn in Yoshii Toranaga's plan to become Shogun. The series stars Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne and Hiroyuki Sanada as Yoshii Toranaga, along with Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano, and Yûki Kedôin.