Tips for Writing a Book Review

Offering tips for writing a book review is hard. Advice can vary not only based on the book in question, but the style of review, the depth of analysis, and how much of the book will be directly summarised and mentioned within the review. All of these introduce or invert the dos and do nots of writing a review.

Here are something to keep in mind about the process if you intend to write book reviews.

1. Reading the Book

The first thing you should accept is this commitment. Reading online summaries and attempting to pinch from other reviews won’t cut it, nor will relying on A.I. to do most of the grunt work. You should be reading the book in full if you intend to respect your audience’s viewership.

My approach to reading a book is simple: I don’t think, and I don’t rush. I used to fall into both of these traps, but now I don’t. I refuse to pressure or stress myself out about reading or finishing a book within a deadline — and I form little to no opinion on it until I’m (close to) done with the entirety of the work.

Try not to concern yourself with figuring everything out whilst reading. You can always think back, read over some segments, or look up some details online after finishing your read through.

2. Pick Out Interesting Points

After completing the work and establishing how you feel about it, you should then begin to consider what you want to mention in your review, alongside how in-depth you want to be with each detail.

As a general rule of thumb, aim for three or so discussion points. Mentioning the quality of writing can sometimes be beneficial, but is more effective if the writing truly resonated with you or made you cringe uncontrollably.

Following this, you should have a rough idea of what is vital to your review and what isn’t. It’s better to be less in-depth for a review, as highly technical and almost pompous analysis are better reserved for an essay of sorts, not a review that is meant to offer an impression of the work to the audience.

3. Establish a Review Structure

Now that you’ve got your materials, it’s time to lay them out. A review structure determines the flow of your writing and how you will order your discussion of the book, so it’s important to give it some thought and not wing it all the way.

Using my own reviews as an example, readers of this website will know I typically follow this rough order (with some variation):

1. Name the book (and author when suited), establish opening opinions, then segue into the review
2. Summarise the premise of the book, offering some details about the characters and story
3. Gradually introduce analysis and views about the work, then lean harder into analysis and abandon further summarisation for spoilers’ sake
4. Feed into concluding paragraph(s) and close out by establishing a positive or negative tone about the work, possibly recommending it or not

Yours may vary, but I’ve found that most other reviews all revolve around this simple and effective format. Not only for books, but for other mediums (e.g. video games and films), too.

4. Proofread

Believe me, we are all guilty of ignoring this crucial step, but it really is imperative that you read over what you’re preparing to publish.

Try to fix, reorder, or omit sections that don’t seem to follow the flow of the review. It’s entirely perfectly normal to find that your initial draft may seem repetitive or unrefined (yes, that was a real edit I made whilst proofreading this).

Proofreading also benefits you going forward, as you become familiar with your habits. For example, you may realise you tend to favour using the word ‘like’ over and over, or perhaps you’ll realise that your points seem quite vapid and need some honing.

Read it as though you were your own audience, and ask if you’d be willing to accept your work as a competent review of a book people may adore and treasure. If you don’t feel it’s up to scratch, then rinse and repeat the reading and editing process until you feel satisfied.

5. Publish Your Review

Congrats, now it’s time to put your work out there. Whether you choose to post it on a personal website/blog, or maybe even release it on a social media platform like Instagram, is up to you.

Alternatively, you can post it in as many places as you please. It’s really up to you and whether you intend to draw audiences into one single location or not.

6. Attracting Attention

Don’t be afraid to tell others about your review, or even encourage family or friends to give you some feedback if they’re the reading type.

Do keep in mind that reviewing and blogging is a rather patient affair. It’s highly unlikely that your review will be showered with traffic and praise, but it may be a slow burn that consistent returns a few extra view each day.

7. Onto the Next Review

If you feel you enjoyed the experience, then the final step is to do it all over again for another book. I wish you all the best with that and encourage you to establish your own way of reviewing and looking at things, not to try to imitate everything you see online.