summary book review

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. 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 be improved? 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 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!

What is the difference between a book review and a report?

Who is the target audience for book reviews and book reports, how do book reviews and reports differ in length and content, can i write professional book reviews, what are the key aspects of writing professional book reviews, how can i enhance my book-reviewing skills to write professional reviews, what should be included in a good book review.

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How to Write a Book Review: The Complete Guide

by Sue Weems | 23 comments

If you've ever loved (or hated) a book, you may have been tempted to review it. Here's a complete guide to how to write a book review, so you can share your literary adventures with other readers more often! 

You finally reach the last page of a book that kept you up all night and close it with the afterglow of satisfaction and a tinge of regret that it’s over. If you enjoyed the book enough to stay up reading it way past your bedtime, consider writing a review. It is one of the best gifts you can give an author.

Regardless of how much you know about how to write a book review, the author will appreciate hearing how their words touched you.

But as you face the five shaded stars and empty box, a blank mind strikes. What do I say? I mean, is this a book really deserving of five stars? How did it compare to Dostoevsky or Angelou or Dickens?

Maybe there’s an easier way to write a book review.

Want to learn how to write a book from start to finish? Check out How to Write a Book: The Complete Guide .

The Fallacy of Book Reviews

Once you’ve decided to give a review, you are faced with the task of deciding how many stars to give a book.

When I first started writing book reviews, I made the mistake of trying to compare a book to ALL BOOKS OF ALL TIME. (Sorry for the all caps, but that’s how it felt, like a James Earl Jones voice was asking me where to put this book in the queue of all books.)

Other readers find themselves comparing new titles to their favorite books. It's a natural comparison. But is it fair?

This is honestly why I didn’t give reviews of books for a long time. How can I compare a modern romance or historical fiction war novel with Dostoevsky? I can’t, and I shouldn’t.

I realized my mistake one day as I was watching (of all things) a dog show. In the final round, they trotted out dogs of all shapes, colors, and sizes. I thought, “How can a Yorkshire Terrier compete with a Basset Hound?” As if he'd read my mind, the announcer explained that each is judged by the standards for its breed.

This was my “Aha!” moment. I have to take a book on its own terms. The question is not, “How does this book compare to all books I’ve read?” but “How well did this book deliver what it promised for the intended audience?”

A review is going to reflect my personal experience with the book, but I can help potential readers by taking a minute to consider what the author intended. Let me explain what I mean. 

How to Write a Book Review: Consider a Book’s Promise

A book makes a promise with its cover, blurb, and first pages. It begins to set expectations the minute a reader views the thumbnail or cover. Those things indicate the genre, tone, and likely the major themes.

If a book cover includes a lip-locked couple in flowing linen on a beach, and I open to the first page to read about a pimpled vampire in a trench coat speaking like Mr. Knightly about his plan for revenge on the entire human race, there’s been a breach of contract before I even get to page two. These are the books we put down immediately (unless a mixed-message beachy cover combined with an Austen vampire story is your thing).

But what if the cover, blurb, and first pages are cohesive and perk our interest enough to keep reading? Then we have to think about what the book has promised us, which revolves around one key idea: What is the core story question and how well is it resolved?

Sometimes genre expectations help us answer this question: a romance will end with a couple who finds their way, a murder mystery ends with a solved case, a thriller’s protagonist beats the clock and saves the country or planet.

The stories we love most do those expected things in a fresh or surprising way with characters we root for from the first page. Even (and especially!) when a book doesn’t fit neatly in a genre category, we need to consider what the book promises on those first pages and decide how well it succeeds on the terms it sets for itself.

When I Don’t Know What to Write

About a month ago, I realized I was overthinking how to write a book review. Here at the Write Practice we have a longstanding tradition of giving critiques using the Oreo method : point out something that was a strength, then something we wondered about or that confused us, followed by another positive.

We can use this same structure to write a simple review when we finish books. Consider this book review format: 

[Book Title] by [book author] is about ___[plot summary in a sentence—no spoilers!]___. I chose this book based on ________. I really enjoyed ________. I wondered how ___________. Anyone who likes ____ will love this book.

Following this basic template can help you write an honest review about most any book, and it will give the author or publisher good information about what worked (and possibly what didn’t). You might write about the characters, the conflict, the setting, or anything else that captured you and kept you reading.

As an added bonus, you will be a stronger reader when you are able to express why you enjoyed parts of a book (just like when you critique!). After you complete a few, you’ll find it gets easier, and you won’t need the template anymore.

What if I Didn’t Like It?

Like professional book reviewers, you will have to make the call about when to leave a negative review. If I can’t give a book at least three stars, I usually don’t review it. Why? If I don’t like a book after a couple chapters, I put it down. I don’t review anything that I haven’t read the entire book.

Also, it may be that I’m not the target audience. The book might be well-written and well-reviewed with a great cover, and it just doesn’t capture me. Or maybe it's a book that just isn't hitting me right now for reasons that have nothing to do with the book and everything to do with my own reading life and needs. Every book is not meant for every reader.

If a book kept me reading all the way to the end and I didn’t like the ending? I would probably still review it, since there had to be enough good things going on to keep me reading to the end. I might mention in my review that the ending was less satisfying than I hoped, but I would still end with a positive.

How to Write a Book Review: Your Turn

As writers, we know how difficult it is to put down the words day after day. We are typically voracious readers. Let’s send some love back out to our fellow writers this week and review the most recent title we enjoyed.

What was the last book you read or reviewed? Do you ever find it hard to review a book? Share in the comments .

Now it's your turn. Think of the last book you read. Then, take fifteen minutes to write a review of it based on the template above. When you're done, share your review in the Pro Practice Workshop . For bonus points, post it on the book's page on Amazon and Goodreads, too!

Don't forget to leave feedback for your fellow writers! What new reads will you discover in the comments?

Sue Weems is a writer, teacher, and traveler with an advanced degree in (mostly fictional) revenge. When she’s not rationalizing her love for parentheses (and dramatic asides), she follows a sailor around the globe with their four children, two dogs, and an impossibly tall stack of books to read. You can read more of her writing tips on her website .

23 Comments

The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin is about a girl that shows no emotion befriending a ice dragon.

I chose this book based on the cover that had a little girl riding a ice dragon, and wondered what is about.

I really enjoyed the interaction the little girl had with the dragon.

I wondered how how the girl’s bond with the dragon.

Anyone who likes a coming of age story set in a fantasy will love this book.

Thanks for sharing your practice, Azure!

You’re welcome.

A interesting, at times perplexing, subject! And one on my mind lately,as I’ve agreed to do a few. I do enjoy giving reviews and am delighted when I can say, “This was a great book!” Or even, “I enjoyed this book.” It gets perplexing when I agree to review a book — and simply don’t like it. Then what to say? I hate to disappoint the writer but I’ve promised to give my honest opinion.

I’ve found some books mediocre and yet I see a dozen other reviewers saying “A great story!” Tastes do vary. But when there are obvious flaws I tend to skip all the best-friend-and-cousin reviewers and find the first person who says, “This writer has a problem with…” Usually there’ll be a number of reviewers who spot the same problems I do.

I like upbeat main characters, but not aggressive, belligerent, and/or self-centered ones. I like to meet in a story the kind of people I’d like to meet in real life— not people I’d avoid if possible. I recently read a book where the main character came across as insipid and the story only mildly interesting. Other reviewers said it was great and I know for this specific audience — readers who want a certain slant to a story — it was quite suitable. So I tried to cut the book some slack. Everyone has their limit as to how much blood and gore, smooching and snuggling, they are willing to read about.

Once I agreed to review a book and would have tossed it after the first chapter — for several reasons. A lot of “writer inserting facts for reader’s benefit”; teach/preach paragraphs; excess of description; attitudes of MCs. Once it’s live on seller’s sites like Amazon, what can you say? The one thing good it had going for it was the story line or theme. With a pro editor’s help it could have been a great story.

As for a review, one book I read lately was “A Clue for the Puzzle Lady” by Parnell Hall. It’s one of those “Stayed up half the night to finish it” books; I think anyone who likes a compelling cozy mystery would probably like it. Downside: I didn’t care for the “Puzzle Lady.” She’s a lush, hangs out at the bar getting sloshed. The upside: her sensible niece has a starring role —trying to keep her aunt on the straight-and-narrow and the mystery keeps you guessing until the end.

Christine, Thanks for sharing your insight! It sounds like you are approached often to review new books. It does make it tricky if it’s a request, especially outside your own preferences. Thanks for chiming in about your process, as I’m sure others will appreciate the perspective too. I’ll have to take a look at the Puzzle Lady– I do enjoy cozy mysteries. Sue

Here’s another cozy mystery book review in case you’re interested. I’m not approached by writers that often, but there are the Story Cartel, Book Bub and Goodreads, all sites where authors ask for review volunteers.

Reel Estate Ripoff by Renee Pawlish

The detective Reed Ferguson is a fan of Humphry Bogart, movie memorabilia of that era, and fancies himself a bit of a Sam Slade. Though not your super-sleuth, rather inept at times, he’s a likeable character. Told in first person, the story has a Philip Marlowe tone to it, but much tamer. Dialogue and story line are well done, the story well plotted and believable. I’d gladly read more stories about this particular gumshoe.

If you like cozy mystery books, I’ll send you a list later, Sue. Love them too and I’ve met many authors who write in this genre. Back on topic– you inspire me again to add some reviews to my Blog. I have been reading and writing many middle grade mysteries for a project! My latest favorite: “The World’s Greatest Detective” by Caroline Carson (who I hope to meet tomorrow in Arlington, VA!) My 12 year old grandson borrowed it and finished it before I could. “It’s the best mystery I ever read, Grandma! You’ ll never guess the ending with unpredictable twists!” What better review could we read. The target audience and I both highly recommend this 2017 mystery.

Adding it to my stack, Beth. Thanks!

Not wanting to sound life an idiot, but willing to risk it here among friends: What exactly is a cozy mystery?

Glad you asked! It’s a subgenre of mystery. The best examples of cozy mysteries are those by Agatha Christie. They usually avoid profanity, excessive gore/ violence, and sex. They focus more on the puzzle, sleuth, and their smaller world. Hope that helps!

Thanks, Sue.

Wonderful article. The first I have read by you. It especially gets those of us who don’t feel we have the formula down for review writing to be introduced to a form we can build upon with experience. You’ve kept it simple but you have given us the main ingredients needed for a good review. I printed this one off to look at the next few times I write reviews. Thank you.

Glad you found it helpful. Thanks for reading and commenting!

I haven’t gone into all this. It’s a matter of time, Joe. I gad about all over the place, not knowing where I am or where I’m going. Within weeks, I’ll be 87. I’ve books of my own that I’d like to see reviewed. Even sorting them out, however, even finding where any of them are, would be a time burden. You see the fix?

Hi Dave, You aren’t alone in feeling the press of time for getting your stories out into the world. May I gently offer this: start with finding and sorting one. If you can’t find it, write it anew. You’ve probably grown in time and perspective since you wrote the first draft, which will make for a stronger story. Good luck. I’m cheering you on!

This is an article for me, because I am happy to receive a rating. I haven’t sold many books. But, at least some thinks that it was worth the time to read. That was refreshing. And, I think I wrote two reviews, so far. It was on Amazon.com. Thank you.

You’re welcome!

Hi, Sue. Thanks for the helpful advice. I did a review on Amazon for the first of a 7-part thriller titled ‘Mosh Pit (The Rose Garden Incident)’ by Michael Hiebert. [Here it is.]

“5.0 out of 5 stars Advance copy review. By A fellow author on September 18, 2016 Format: Kindle Edition I Recommend This Book Strongly

I enjoyed reading this first part of the thriller. The author’s opening chapter/prologue was fast paced, and set me in the middle of the inciting incident along with two of the main characters. After that thrilling opening, I felt the ensuing chapters moved at a more leisurely pace, and was about to grade them as less praiseworthy when I watched a lecture by Brandon Sanderson on YouTube about building three dimensional characters and realised Michael Hiebert had done exactly that by introducing the reader to the minutiae of other characters who had parts to play in the development of the story. So, instead of cardboard cutouts of bland stock characters, the author shows us real people with real concerns that the reader can relate to.and actually care about. I look forward to reading the rest of this intriguing thriller, and highly recommend it to all lovers of well-written, and well-crafted thrillers.”

I also reviewed Part 2 of the series, but that review is too long to post here.

Footnote: The author, Michael Hiebert, was so pleased with my reviews, he recently asked me to beta-read a short story collection he plans to publish in November.

Great review, John! I like how you shared a bit of your process as a reader too, in recognizing what the writer was doing with their characterization. Thanks!

Thank you, Sue.

Five out of five stars When I picked up a copy of “The Girl with All the Gifts,” by M R Carey, at the used book store, I somehow had it in my head that it was a YA dystopian novel along the lines of “Divergent” or “The Hunger Games.” While I would definitely say that I was not right about that, I wouldn’t say that I was completely wrong. I was, however, completely unprepared for a zombie novel–which is a good thing, cause I wouldn’t have read it, and I’m glad I did. Think “The Walking Dead” meets (why do I want to say ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night”?) “Peter Pan.” I really enjoyed seeing things from, the main character, Melanie’s point of view. Her limited knowledge of her own situation was intriguing, to say the least (and probably why I thought of “The Curious Incident”). I was a bit disappointed when the POV changed to another character’s, but, as the novel progressed, I found myself sympathizing with nearly all the characters–with one exception, and I’ll leave that for you to ponder when you read it. I wondered how much of the science was real, but not enough for me to research it myself. Although, based on other reviews, I guess most of the science about the fungus is real. I also wondered about the fate of the remaining ‘lost boys’ of the cities. If you liked…. well, I don’t know. I’m not typically a fan of things zombie, so I don’t have a comparison, but the book was somewhat similar to “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games” in that the main character goes through a hellluva time and comes out the other side with a plan for her future.

“Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom is a true story about how one man found meaning in life when his doctors gave him a death sentence. Morrie was a college professor who passed on his new found wisdom in the last year of his life to a favorite student, the author, who chronicled his professor’s perspectives on death and dying.

I chose this book because of its philosophical topic, and because it is so well written that the words just jump off the page.

Knowing we are all mortal beings, I especially liked the insights, the tidbits of wisdom imparted by the dying man. Death is a subject that few, if any of us, ever talk about seriously with friends and family. The subject of death is verboten. We deny its existence. And, if we are religious, we pretend we will not really die, but we deceive ourselves and think we will live on in some afterlife existence for all eternity. But the professor, Morrie, learns some valuable life lessons from his impending death, and Mitch Albom was gracious enough to capture them in this short but eminently readable book.

I really liked the book because it is timeless. This true story will impart serious life lessons for all future generations, and will help us gain perspectives on our lives and the relationships with those we love the most.

R. Allan Worrell

Sue, I’ve been meaning to come back since this was first posted to tell you thanks for a great article. I seldom review books for alllllll the reasons you listed. This is a perfect tool and I’ll surely use it. Cathy

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How to Write a Book Review: The Ultimate Guide

WHAT IS A BOOK REVIEW?

Traditionally, book reviews are evaluations of a recently published book in any genre. Usually, around the 500 to 700-word mark, they briefly describe a text’s main elements while appraising the work’s strengths and weaknesses. Published book reviews can appear in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. They provide the reader with an overview of the book itself and indicate whether or not the reviewer would recommend the book to the reader.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A BOOK REVIEW?

There was a time when book reviews were a regular appearance in every quality newspaper and many periodicals. They were essential elements in whether or not a book would sell well. A review from a heavyweight critic could often be the deciding factor in whether a book became a bestseller or a damp squib. In the last few decades, however, the book review’s influence has waned considerably, with many potential book buyers preferring to consult customer reviews on Amazon, or sites like Goodreads, before buying. As a result, book review’s appearance in newspapers, journals, and digital media has become less frequent.

WHY BOTHER TEACHING STUDENTS TO WRITE BOOK REVIEWS AT ALL?

Even in the heyday of the book review’s influence, few students who learned the craft of writing a book review became literary critics! The real value of crafting a well-written book review for a student does not lie in their ability to impact book sales. Understanding how to produce a well-written book review helps students to:

●     Engage critically with a text

●     Critically evaluate a text

●     Respond personally to a range of different writing genres

●     Improve their own reading, writing, and thinking skills.

Not to Be Confused with a Book Report!

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BOOK REVIEW AND A BOOK REPORT?

While the terms are often used interchangeably, there are clear differences in both the purpose and the format of the two genres. Generally speaking, book reports aim to give a more detailed outline of what occurs in a book. A book report on a work of fiction will tend to give a comprehensive account of the characters, major plot lines, and themes in the book. Book reports are usually written around the K-12 age range, while book reviews tend not to be undertaken by those at the younger end of this age range due to the need for the higher-level critical skills required in writing them. At their highest expression, book reviews are written at the college level and by professional critics.

Learn how to write a book review step by step with our complete guide for students and teachers by familiarizing yourself with the structure and features.

BOOK REVIEW STRUCTURE

ANALYZE Evaluate the book with a critical mind.

THOROUGHNESS The whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. Review the book as a WHOLE.

COMPARE Where appropriate compare to similar texts and genres.

THUMBS UP OR DOWN? You are going to have to inevitably recommend or reject this book to potential readers.

BE CONSISTENT Take a stance and stick with it throughout your review.

FEATURES OF A BOOK REVIEW

PAST TENSE You are writing about a book you have already read.

EMOTIVE LANGUAGE Whatever your stance or opinion be passionate about it. Your audience will thank you for it.

VOICE Both active and passive voice are used in recounts.

A COMPLETE UNIT ON REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF TEXTS

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ELEMENTS OF A BOOK REVIEW

As with any of the writing genres we teach our students, a book review can be helpfully explained in terms of criteria. While there is much to the ‘art’ of writing, there is also, thankfully, a lot of the nuts and bolts that can be listed too. Have students consider the following elements before writing:

●     Title: Often, the title of the book review will correspond to the title of the text itself, but there may also be some examination of the title’s relevance. How does it fit into the purpose of the work as a whole? Does it convey a message or reveal larger themes explored within the work?

●     Author: Within the book review, there may be some discussion of who the author is and what they have written before, especially if it relates to the current work being reviewed. There may be some mention of the author’s style and what they are best known for. If the author has received any awards or prizes, this may also be mentioned within the body of the review.

●     Genre: A book review will identify the genre that the book belongs to, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry, romance, science-fiction, history etc. The genre will likely tie in, too with who the intended audience for the book is and what the overall purpose of the work is.

●     Book Jacket / Cover: Often, a book’s cover will contain artwork that is worthy of comment. It may contain interesting details related to the text that contribute to, or detract from, the work as a whole.

●     Structure: The book’s structure will often be heavily informed by its genre. Have students examine how the book is organized before writing their review. Does it contain a preface from a guest editor, for example? Is it written in sections or chapters? Does it have a table of contents, index, glossary etc.? While all these details may not make it into the review itself, looking at how the book is structured may reveal some interesting aspects.

●     Publisher and Price: A book review will usually contain details of who publishes the book and its cost. A review will often provide details of where the book is available too.

BOOK REVIEW KEY ELEMENTS

As students read and engage with the work they will review, they will develop a sense of the shape their review will take. This will begin with the summary. Encourage students to take notes during the reading of the work that will help them in writing the summary that will form an essential part of their review. Aspects of the book they may wish to take notes on in a work of fiction may include:

●     Characters: Who are the main characters? What are their motivations? Are they convincingly drawn? Or are they empathetic characters?

●     Themes: What are the main themes of the work? Are there recurring motifs in the work? Is the exploration of the themes deep or surface only?

●     Style: What are the key aspects of the writer’s style? How does it fit into the wider literary world?

●     Plot: What is the story’s main catalyst? What happens in the rising action? What are the story’s subplots? 

A book review will generally begin with a short summary of the work itself. However, it is important not to give too much away, remind students – no spoilers, please! For nonfiction works, this may be a summary of the main arguments of the work, again, without giving too much detail away. In a work of fiction, a book review will often summarise up to the rising action of the piece without going beyond to reveal too much!

The summary should also provide some orientation for the reader. Given the nature of the purpose of a review, it is important that students’ consider their intended audience in the writing of their review. Readers will most likely not have read the book in question and will require some orientation. This is often achieved through introductions to the main characters, themes, primary arguments etc. This will help the reader to gauge whether or not the book is of interest to them.

Once your student has summarized the work, it is time to ‘review’ in earnest. At this point, the student should begin to detail their own opinion of the book. To do this well they should:

i. Make It Personal

Often when teaching essay writing we will talk to our students about the importance of climbing up and down the ladder of abstraction. Just as it is helpful to explore large, more abstract concepts in an essay by bringing it down to Earth, in a book review, it is important that students can relate the characters, themes, ideas etc to their own lives.

Book reviews are meant to be subjective. They are opinion pieces, and opinions grow out of our experiences of life. Encourage students to link the work they are writing about to their own personal life within the body of the review. By making this personal connection to the work, students contextualize their opinions for the readers and help them to understand whether the book will be of interest to them or not in the process.

ii. Make It Universal

Just as it is important to climb down the ladder of abstraction to show how the work relates to individual life, it is important to climb upwards on the ladder too. Students should endeavor to show how the ideas explored in the book relate to the wider world. The may be in the form of the universality of the underlying themes in a work of fiction or, for example, the international implications for arguments expressed in a work of nonfiction.

iii. Support Opinions with Evidence

A book review is a subjective piece of writing by its very nature. However, just because it is subjective does not mean that opinions do not need to be justified. Make sure students understand how to back up their opinions with various forms of evidence, for example, quotations, statistics, and the use of primary and secondary sources.

EDIT AND REVISE YOUR BOOK REVIEW

As with any writing genre, encourage students to polish things up with review and revision at the end. Encourage them to proofread and check for accurate spelling throughout, with particular attention to the author’s name, character names, publisher etc. 

It is good practice too for students to double-check their use of evidence. Are statements supported? Are the statistics used correctly? Are the quotations from the text accurate? Mistakes such as these uncorrected can do great damage to the value of a book review as they can undermine the reader’s confidence in the writer’s judgement.

The discipline of writing book reviews offers students opportunities to develop their writing skills and exercise their critical faculties. Book reviews can be valuable standalone activities or serve as a part of a series of activities engaging with a central text. They can also serve as an effective springboard into later discussion work based on the ideas and issues explored in a particular book. Though the book review does not hold the sway it once did in the mind’s of the reading public, it still serves as an effective teaching tool in our classrooms today.

Teaching Resources

Use our resources and tools to improve your student’s writing skills through proven teaching strategies.

BOOK REVIEW GRAPHIC ORGANIZER (TEMPLATE)

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Book and Movie review writing examples (Student Writing Samples)

Below are a collection of student writing samples of book reviews.  Click on the image to enlarge and explore them in greater detail.  Please take a moment to both read the movie or book review in detail but also the teacher and student guides which highlight some of the key elements of writing a text review

Please understand these student writing samples are not intended to be perfect examples for each age or grade level but a piece of writing for students and teachers to explore together to critically analyze to improve student writing skills and deepen their understanding of book review writing.

We would recommend reading the example either a year above and below, as well as the grade you are currently working with to gain a broader appreciation of this text type .

BOOK REVIEW VIDEO TUTORIALS

OTHER GREAT ARTICLES RELATED TO BOOK REVIEWS

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How To Write A Book Review: 6 Steps To Take

Adiba Jaigirdar

Adiba Jaigirdar is an Irish-Bangladeshi writer, poet, and teacher. She resides in Dublin, Ireland and has an MA in postcolonial studies. She is currently working on her own postcolonial novel and hopes that someday it will see the light of day outside of her computer screen. Twitter:  @adiba_j

View All posts by Adiba Jaigirdar

Whether you’re a student, a novice blogger, or just someone looking to become a more active user of Goodreads, writing a book review is an important skill to have! Here are six steps for how to write a book review for school and beyond. 

1. Begin with a brief summary of the book

This is probably the best way to introduce any review because it gives context. But make sure to not go into too much detail. Keep it short and sweet since an official summary can be found through a quick google search!

2. Pick out the most important aspects of the book

I usually break this down with character, world-building, themes, and plot. But this might vary between books, genres, and your tastes!

Dedicate a paragraph to each of these important aspects, discussing how well the author dealt with it, along with what you enjoyed and what you didn’t enjoy.

3. Include brief quotes as examples

Including quotes is always a great idea, because it gives examples for everything that you’re saying! If your review talks about a character being particularly witty, a witty line from the character lets your readers see exactly what kind of witty character you’re dealing with here.

But be careful: lengthy quotes can take up big chunks of space and overpower your review. Short quotes will usually get your points across while letting your work shine through.

4. Write a conclusion that summarises everything

Like your introduction, keep your conclusion short and sweet! It should bring up the main points of your review, along with your overall opinion of the book.

5. Find similar books

A great way to wrap up a review is to find similar books to the one you’re reviewing. So you can say, “if you were a fan of X book, I think you’ll definitely like this one!”

You can also be more specific, looking at the exact things that might make two books similar. So you can suggest something like…“if you liked that the main character in X book was a kick-ass superhero, then you’ll love the main character of this book!”

6. Give it a star rating

A star rating is obviously encouraged in a lot of review sites, but they’re not necessary! If you do want to give a star rating, you can go the conventional “out of five/ten” route. You could also try something slightly less conventional, and break down your star-rating into different categories for character/plot/world-building, etc.

Now go forth and review! And share any tips you have for how to write a book review in the comments.

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Sheila Loves Books

This blog is about my passion for books

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Write a Book Review for Beginners

Writing a book review can be a rewarding and fulfilling experience for book lovers. It allows you to share your thoughts and opinions about a book while helping others make informed choices. it provides an opportunity to connect with a community of readers who share similar interests. Here are the steps to write a book review and some tips for writing an effective one.

Why Write a Book Review?

• Share Your Opinion: Writing a book review allows you to express your thoughts, feelings, and insights about a book.
• Help Others Make Informed Choices: Your review can assist potential readers in deciding whether a book aligns with their interests and preferences.
• Connect with a Community: Engaging in book reviews allows you to connect with fellow readers, exchange recommendations, and participate in meaningful discussions.

Steps to Write a Book Review:

• Read the Book Carefully: Take your time to read the book thoroughly, paying attention to its themes, plot, characters, and writing style.
• Take Notes and Highlight Key Points: Make note of important ideas, memorable quotes, and significant moments that stand out to you while reading.
• Structure Your Review: Organize your review into sections such as introduction, summary, plot analysis, writing style evaluation, personal thoughts, and conclusion.
• Begin with an Engaging Introduction: Capture the reader’s attention by providing a brief overview of the book and its significance.
• Provide a Brief Summary: Summarize the main plot and introduce the central characters without giving away any major spoilers.
• Discuss the Plot and Characters: Analyze the plot’s development, pacing, and twists. Evaluate the strength of the characters and their impact on the story.
• Evaluate the Writing Style and Organization: Assess the author’s writing style, use of language, and overall organization of the book.
• Share your Personal Thoughts and Opinions: Express your likes, dislikes, and thoughts on the book’s themes, messages, and overall impact.
• Give Examples and Supporting Evidence: Support your opinions with specific examples from the book, such as quotes or scenes, to strengthen your arguments.
• Write a Clear and Concise Conclusion: Sum up your review in a concise manner and provide a final verdict on whether you recommend the book or not.

Tips for Writing an Effective Book Review:

• Be Honest and Balanced: Present both the strengths and weaknesses of the book in a fair and balanced manner.
• Avoid Spoilers: Be mindful of not revealing major plot twists or giving away the ending to preserve the reader’s experience.
• Use Clear and Concise Language: Write in a clear, concise, and engaging manner to keep the reader’s attention.
• Provide Context: Include relevant background information about the author, genre, or any historical context that may enhance the reader’s understanding.
• Support Your Opinions with Evidence: Back up your opinions with examples, quotes, and references from the book to add credibility to your review.
• Consider the Target Audience: Keep in mind the book’s intended audience and tailor your review accordingly to address their interests and expectations.

By following these steps and tips, you can confidently write a comprehensive and insightful book review that will help readers make informed choices and engage in meaningful discussions within the reading community.

Table of Contents

Key takeaways:

• Writing a book review allows you to share your opinion, help others make informed choices, and connect with a community of readers.
• To write an effective book review, carefully read the book, take notes, structure your review, and provide a brief summary, character and plot analysis, and evaluation of the writing style.
• When writing a book review, be honest and balanced, avoid spoilers, use clear and concise language, provide context, support your opinions with evidence, and consider the target audience.

Why write a book review? It’s more than just sharing your opinion on a page-turner. It’s a chance to help others make informed choices, connect with a community of book lovers, and take notes on key points that truly resonated. So, grab that pen and paper, and unleash your creativity! From an engaging introduction to a clear and concise conclusion, we’ll explore the structure, plot, characters, writing style, and more. Get ready to dive into the exciting world of book reviews!

Share Your Opinion

To effectively share your opinion in a book review, there are several key factors to consider. Firstly, it’s important to be honest and balanced in your assessment of the book. Providing a fair evaluation will give readers a trustworthy perspective. Additionally, avoiding spoilers is crucial as it allows readers to discover the plot themselves, enhancing their reading experience.

To ensure your opinion is well-understood, it is essential to use clear and concise language. This will help convey your thoughts effectively and prevent any confusion. In addition, providing context by discussing the genre, themes , and target audience of the book will enrich your review. This allows readers to better understand the book’s intended audience and purpose.

To strengthen your opinion, supporting it with evidence is vital. Incorporate specific examples from the book to back up your arguments. This will demonstrate that your opinions are well-grounded and thoughtful.

Lastly, keep in mind the target audience when expressing your thoughts and opinions. Tailoring your review to match the interests and preferences of the intended readership will make your opinion more relevant and valuable to them.

By considering these guidelines, you can craft a book review that effectively shares your opinion while providing valuable insights for potential readers.

Help Others Make Informed Choices

Writing a book review can help others make informed choices when deciding what books to read. Here are some reasons why writing a book review is important:

• Share your opinion: Your review can give readers an insight into your thoughts and feelings about the book.
• Help others make informed choices : By sharing your evaluation of the book, you can help others make informed choices if it’s the right book for them.
• Connect with a community: Book lovers can connect and engage in conversations about books through reviews.

By writing a comprehensive and well-structured review, you can provide valuable information to potential readers, guiding them in their book selection process. So, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and help others make informed choices!

Connect with a Community

Connecting with a community is one of the benefits of writing a book review. It allows you to connect with a community and share your thoughts and opinions with others who have similar interests. By engaging in discussions with fellow readers , you can connect with a community, gain new insights, recommendations , and perspectives. Writing a book review provides an opportunity to connect with a community of readers and establish meaningful connections. So, whether it’s joining a book club , participating in online forums , or attending literary events , connecting with a community is a great way to enhance your reading experience.

Pro-tip : Join online book communities or social media groups dedicated to book discussions to connect with a larger community of readers and discover new books.

Read the Book Carefully

When writing a book review, it is essential to thoroughly read the book in order to provide a meticulous and thoughtful analysis. Pay close attention to the plot , characters , writing style , and themes that are explored in the book. Take detailed notes while reading to ensure you remember the important details and impactful quotes. By comprehensively understanding the book, you will be able to offer a well-informed review that provides valuable insights to potential readers. Remember to take your time and fully immerse yourself in the book to grasp its nuances and appreciate the author’s craftsmanship .

Take Notes and Highlight Key Points

Taking comprehensive notes and highlighting key points while reading a book is crucial for writing an effective book review. Noting down significant details, memorable quotes , and important themes is essential for providing a comprehensive analysis of the book. Here’s how to efficiently take notes:

By taking comprehensive notes and highlighting key points, you’ll have a solid foundation for writing an insightful book review. Keep in mind that the purpose of a review is not only to summarize the book but also to provide your personal analysis and evaluation.

Structure Your Review

• Structure Your Review by reading the book carefully to have a thorough understanding of its content.
• Take notes and highlight key points that you want to discuss in your review in order to effectively Structure Your Review .
• To Structure Your Review effectively, begin with an engaging introduction that grabs the reader’s attention.
• Provide a brief summary of the book to give readers an overview and help Structure Your Review .
• Discuss the plot and characters , exploring their development and impact on the story, as part of the process to Structure Your Review .
• Evaluate the writing style and organization , commenting on the author’s technique and how well the book flows to Structure Your Review .
• Share your personal thoughts and opinions, expressing what worked or didn’t work for you, as this is crucial to Structure Your Review .
• Give examples and supporting evidence from the book to strengthen your review and further Structure Your Review with concrete evidence.
• Write a clear and concise conclusion that summarizes your main points and final thoughts to Structure Your Review effectively.

Remember to be honest, avoid spoilers, use clear language, provide context, support your opinions with evidence, and consider the target audience. Have fun writing your book review!

Begin with an Engaging Introduction

When writing a book review, it is crucial to begin with an engaging introduction that grabs the reader’s attention. This introduction sets the tone for your review and piques the curiosity of your audience. You can start by providing a brief but captivating summary of the book, highlighting its main themes or unique aspects. Additionally, you can share your initial impressions or explain why you chose to read the book. However, it is important to avoid giving away any spoilers . By starting with an engaging introduction, you will hook your readers and leave them eager to continue reading your review.

In the realm of ancient literature , the art of storytelling has always held a special place in the hearts of readers. From Homer’s epic poems to Shakespeare’s masterful plays, the power of a well-crafted narrative has transcended time. Through the magic of literature , tales of triumph, tragedy, and everything in between have been passed down and cherished by countless generations. Therefore, when embarking on the task of writing a book review, it is essential to begin with an engaging introduction that draws readers into the enchanting world of words.

Provide a Brief Summary

A well-crafted book review includes the provision of a brief summary. It is essential to capture the main points of the book while avoiding excessive details or spoilers. The summary serves the purpose of giving readers a general understanding of the book’s content and what they can expect from it. A concise and clear summary emphasizes the crucial aspects of the plot, setting , and characters. By providing this brief overview, readers can quickly assess if the book matches their interests and make a decision regarding whether to read it. A noteworthy fact is that a skillfully written summary has the potential to entice readers to explore the book further, thereby increasing their interest and engagement.

Discuss the Plot and Characters

When writing a book review, it is crucial to thoroughly discuss the plot and characters in an insightful and detailed manner. Take the time to analyze the storyline , examining how the plot unfolds and develops, and evaluate how the characters contribute to the overall narrative. It is also important to assess the believability and depth of the characters, as well as explore their motivations and relationships . In addition, discuss whether the characters experience personal growth or remain stagnant throughout the book. Enhance your analysis by providing examples and specific evidence from the text to support your points. By delving into both the plot and characters, you will offer readers a comprehensive understanding of the book, allowing them to make an informed decision.

Evaluate the Writing Style and Organization

Evaluating the writing style and organization of a book is essential when writing a review. When analyzing a book’s qualities, it is important to consider the following factors:

• Clarity: Is the writing clear and easily understandable?
• Flow: Does the book transition smoothly between ideas, or are there sudden shifts?
• Structure: Does the book have a well-organized structure, including a clear beginning, middle, and end?
• Pacing: Does the book maintain an appropriate pace, or does it feel either too slow or rushed?
• Character development: Are the characters well-developed and believable?
• Plot progression: Does the plot progress logically, or are there any inconsistencies?

By evaluating both the writing style and organization, you can provide readers with valuable insights to guide them in determining if the book suits their preferences. It is worth noting that a well-written book with strong organization has the potential to enhance the reading experience and captivate its audience.

Share your Personal Thoughts and Opinions

When writing a book review, it is crucial to share your personal thoughts and opinions . By doing this, you allow readers to comprehend your perspective and assist them in making well-informed choices . It is important to incorporate specific examples and evidence from the book to substantiate your viewpoints. Additionally, strive to maintain honesty and balance in your assessment by presenting both positive and negative aspects of the book. Using clear and concise language is also essential in effectively conveying your thoughts. Furthermore, always bear in mind the target audience of the book and tailor your opinions accordingly. By openly expressing your personal thoughts and opinions, you can actively contribute to a dynamic and captivating book review community .

Give Examples and Supporting Evidence

When writing a book review, it is crucial to provide examples and supporting evidence to substantiate your opinions. By furnishing specific examples from the book, you can effectively demonstrate your points and aid readers in comprehending your perspective. For instance, if you discovered the characterization in the book to be robust , you could present examples of well-developed and relatable characters. Similarly, if you sensed that the plot was feeble , you could provide particular instances where the story lacked tension or resolution. Incorporating supporting evidence bolsters your review and enhances its persuasiveness to others.

Write a Clear and Concise Conclusion

• Summarize your main points: Briefly recap the key aspects of the book, including the plot, characters , and writing style .
• Evaluate the overall impact: Share your overall assessment of the book . Did it meet your expectations? Did it fulfill its purpose?
• Offer a recommendation: Based on your review, recommend whether or not others should read the book . Provide a concise reason for your recommendation.

A pro-tip for writing a conclusion: Keep it concise and impactful . Your conclusion should leave a lasting impression and encourage readers to take action, whether that’s picking up the book or skipping it.

Tips for Writing an Effective Book Review

Looking to write an effective book review? Look no further as we dive into some valuable tips that will elevate your review game. From being honest and balanced to avoiding spoilers, using clear and concise language, and providing context, we’ll cover it all. We’ll explore the importance of supporting your opinions with evidence and considering the target audience. With these guidelines, you’ll be equipped to write book reviews that captivate readers and offer valuable insights. So grab your pen and let’s get started!

Be Honest and Balanced

• To write an effective book review, it is crucial to be honest and balanced in your assessment.
• When evaluating the book , make sure to provide an objective and impartial evaluation, highlighting both its strengths and weaknesses .
• Avoid allowing personal biases or preferences to overly influence your review, and give credit where it is due.
• Consider different perspectives and think about the potential audience for the book.
• Present a well-rounded viewpoint by acknowledging any flaws or shortcomings in the book alongside its positive aspects .
• Support your opinions with evidence from the book, such as specific examples or quotes .
• Communicate your thoughts using clear and concise language, without resorting to excessive praise or criticism.

Avoid Spoilers

When writing a book review, it’s crucial to avoid spoilers in order to preserve the suspense and surprise for other readers. Here are some tips to help you steer clear of spoilers when crafting your review:

• Emphasize the overarching themes and impressions of the book rather than divulging specific plot twists or endings.
• Steer clear of discussing significant character developments or surprises that may impact the reader’s experience.
• Instead of revealing specific details, delve into the author’s writing style, the pacing of the story, or the effectiveness of the narrative structure.
• Provide enough information to give readers an idea of what to expect without giving away crucial plot points.
• Consider using vague statements or generalizations to explore important aspects of the story without spoiling the specifics.

In a similar vein, when recounting a true historical event , it’s vital to gradually reveal the details in order to preserve the suspense and intrigue for the audience. By gradually unveiling the facts, it enables the reader or listener to engage with the event in a more captivating and profound manner.

Use Clear and Concise Language

When writing a book review , it’s crucial to incorporate the use of clear and concise language. This is important to effectively communicate your thoughts and opinions to the reader . Avoid the use of unnecessary jargon or complex vocabulary that may confuse the reader. Instead, focus on using straightforward sentences and expressing your ideas in a concise manner. Aim to be clear and direct in your language, getting straight to the point . By incorporating the use of clear and concise language, you can ensure that your book review is easily understandable and engaging for the reader. Always remember, simplicity is key in conveying your thoughts effectively.

Provide Context

To effectively provide context in a book review, it is of utmost importance to tactfully present readers with a brief background on the author , the genre , and any relevant historical or cultural context. This approach helps readers grasp the book’s significance and fully appreciate it within its specific context. For instance, when analyzing a historical fiction novel, mentioning the specific time period in which it is set, as well as any pertinent historical events that contribute to the story, becomes crucial. By incorporating context, readers gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the book’s themes, characters, and plot. As a result, they are empowered to make well-informed decisions about whether the book aligns with their interests and preferences.

In a similar vein, a true story serves as a powerful exemplification of the profound impact of providing context. A book reviewer shared their initial confusion and lack of interest in a classic novel. However, after delving deeper into the historical context surrounding the book’s creation and the personal experiences of the author, they found a newfound appreciation for the story and its underlying themes. This anecdote beautifully underscores how the inclusion of context can significantly augment readers’ understanding and enjoyment of a book.

Support Your Opinions with Evidence

To write an effective book review, it is vital to support your opinions with evidence. Here are some ways to accomplish that:

• Present specific examples from the book to validate your arguments and opinions.
• Show references to quotes or passages that stood out to you and explain why they carried significance.
• Explore the author’s implementation of literary devices, such as symbolism or foreshadowing , and discuss how they influenced the story.
• Analyze the development of characters and provide instances of their actions or dialogue that illustrate your points.
• Draw comparisons between the book and other works by the same author or within the same genre to offer context and back your evaluation.

By incorporating evidence from the book, you can enhance your review and assist readers in making informed decisions about whether to read the book or not.

Consider the Target Audience

Considering the target audience is crucial when writing a book review . It is important to consider the target audience to ensure that your review is tailored to their specific needs and interests. By taking into account the age group , genre preferences , reading level , and cultural background of the readers, you can provide a more insightful and valuable review.

By considering the target audience , you can provide a more insightful and valuable review that caters to their specific needs and interests.

Some Facts About How to Write a Book Review:

• ✅ A book review should offer a critical perspective and engage in dialogue with the work’s creator and other audiences. (Source: UNC Writing Center)
• ✅ Reviews are typically brief and rarely exceed 1000 words. (Source: UNC Writing Center)
• ✅ A book review should provide a concise summary of the content, offer a critical assessment of the work, and suggest whether the audience would appreciate it. (Source: UNC Writing Center)
• ✅ Writing a book review can be daunting as it requires expressing opinions and making judgments. However, it is encouraged to provide concrete evidence for assertions and voice agreement or disagreement tactfully. (Source: UNC Writing Center)
• ✅ A good book review should be concise, avoid repetition, be supported by evidence from the book, and be proofread before submission. (Source: Grammarly)

Frequently Asked Questions

Faqs on how to write a book review, 1. how can i write a concise summary of a book in my review.

A concise summary of a book in your review can be written by focusing on the main ideas, key events, and central themes of the book. Include a brief description of the plot or contents, highlighting the significant aspects without getting into excessive detail.

2. How should I analyze a book in my review?

To analyze a book in your review, pay attention to its literary elements, such as themes, characters, dialogue, and the author’s style. Discuss how these elements contribute to the overall message or impact of the book. It’s also helpful to consider the book’s historical, social, or cultural context.

3. What are some key steps for writing an effective introduction paragraph?

When writing the introduction paragraph of your book review, start with a captivating opening sentence that grabs the reader’s attention. Provide a brief overview of the book, including its title, author, and a short summary of its content. Finally, state your thesis statement, which outlines your main argument or evaluation of the book.

4. How can I offer a critical assessment of the book in my review?

To offer a critical assessment of the book in your review, carefully evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. Discuss what aspects of the book worked well and what could have been improved. Support your assessment with specific examples, evidence from the book, and comparisons to relevant sources or similar works.

5. How do I write a conclusion paragraph for a book review?

The conclusion paragraph of your book review should summarize your main points and restate your thesis statement. You can also provide a final evaluation or recommendation for the book, explaining whether you would recommend it to others and why. Avoid introducing new ideas in the conclusion.

6. Where can I find additional resources to enhance my book review writing skills?

To enhance your book review writing skills, consider exploring academic journals, professional works, and recently written books in your field of interest. These sources can help you deepen your analytical skills and learn from expert reviewers. Additionally, online writing guides and resources provided by writing centers or universities can be valuable in improving your academic writing abilities.

This is Writing

How to Write a Book Review

By Kara Hutchings

A great book review is one that helps a reader decide whether they will pick up the book and read it. This article will provide guidance on how to write a book review. It will answer the question ‘what is a book review’, help you choose which book to review and explore the key elements that form a successful review.

Whether you’re a seasoned professional, student, or brand new to book reviewing, here’s our strategies and suggestions for writing an effective book review.

What you’ll learn in this article

The purpose of this article is to teach you how to write a book review. By reading this article you will learn the following: 

What is a book review?

• How to choose a book to review
• How to critically analyse a book
• The key elements of a book review
• Rating a book
• FAQs about book reviewing

Before you even pick up the book, it’s important to understand exactly what a book review is. 

A book review describes, analyzes and evaluates a book based on elements including writing style, plot, characters, significance, impact and fitness for purpose. The criteria for evaluating a book are explored in more detail below.

The most important part of a book review is the analysis and evaluation. A book review requires a critical evaluation meaning you must form an opinion about the book and support your opinion with evidence. Evidence from the book can include direct quotes, writing techniques, themes and character dialogue.

To ensure you are critically evaluating a book, it’s important to avoid falling into the trap of simply describing the plot and characters. Your opinion must be clearly stated, whether it’s positive or negative. The following is an example of a simple description, without any analysis or evaluation:

“The unnamed narrator, a woman writer, lives in Vienna with a man named Malina who works at a military museum, and she is conducting an affair with a Hungarian man named Ivan, who lives nearby and has two young children.” [1]

Book reviews can vary in tone and style, depending on the author of the review (i.e. whether you’re an academic writing a scholarly review, a journalist, or an amateur reviewer, etc) and the book you are reviewing. 

However, there are key elements that should always be addressed in order to create an effective book review. These include:

• a summary of the book,
• a critical assessment, and;
• a conclusion, including whether or not you would recommend the book to your audience.

You can read more about the key elements of a book review below. 

Choosing a book to review

The first and probably most important step of writing a book review is choosing the book you would like to review.

If you’re considering writing a book review then you most likely already have a book in mind. But if not, a good place to start is by thinking about your favourite author, or genre, and finding books in this area.

Don’t be afraid to choose a book from an author you love. Some people can feel intimidated by well-respected or famous authors and hence avoid being overly critical of them. But it’s important to choose a book that you’re actually interested in. 

Reviewing a book you don’t really want to read will feel too much like a school project.

If you’re truly interested in the book before you, you’ll find the time to properly research, carefully read, and form ideas about the book – all elements of a good book review.

If you’re hoping to get your review published online, it’s also best to select a recently published book. A newer book is less likely to have already been reviewed by another book reviewer and therefore more likely to get published.

Writing the book review

Now the fun part begins. Getting your opinion out there for the world to see. But there’s much more to a book review than simply writing. A sound structure, supported by thorough research, will ensure your book review gets the credibility it deserves.

Here’s how to get started:

Before you start writing

Before you jump into writing, it’s important that you do your research. It’s easy to know whether you do or don’t like a book. But why you have that opinion needs to be supported by research and evidence (i.e. the elements that inform your critical evaluation ).

• Download sample book reviews

A great place to start, particularly if this is your very first book review, is to read other reviews. Most of the reviews you read will follow a similar structure and touch on similar points, so use others as a guide for how you should be setting out your work. If you come across a book review that you find really engaging, ask yourself why it was so impactful and try to reproduce those elements in your own work. Because if the review was persuasive enough to encourage (or dissuade) you to read the book, it’s a successful book review.

You can browse professional book reviews from writers all around the world on websites including:

• The Telegraph (UK) website
• The New York Times Sunday Book Review
• The New York Review of Books
• National Library of Australia website
• The Australian newspaper website
• Kirkus Book Reviews
• This Is Writing

As you’re reading through the book reviews make sure to take notes on factors that will form the basis of your review

• What are the common elements of the book reviews you have read? 
• What do you like about the reviews? 
• Do you prefer reviews with controversial opinions? 
• Do you like when a serious tone is used, or do you prefer a more casual review? 
• What could you do better? 

2. Do your research

A good book review is one supported by thorough research.

Understanding the context in which a novel was written will help you form an opinion later when you start writing.

It’s difficult to form an argument about the author’s choice of language, for example, if you don’t understand the time period in which the novel was composed. If you’re reading a vampire mystery book, how can you evaluate the structure of the storyline if you don’t understand the elements of that genre?

There are a number of complex and competing elements that will influence the choices an author has made, so it’s crucial to understand the reasons behind their choices in order to form an opinion about things like style, tone, character development, plot and language. Here is a great example of a book review which considers the historical context in which the novel was composed.

To help you with your contextual research, use the below template as a starting point: 

In addition to the above criteria, you should also be reading actively and critically. As you’re reading, ask yourself questions like;

• how did the author structure their argument and how did they support it?
• has the book helped you understand the topic?
• And most importantly, would you recommend this book to others? 

We will explore how to form an opinion and making recommendations more in-depth below.

How long should a book review be?

The length of your book review depends on why you are writing the review and who it is for. Is it simply to provide your opinion to your social media followers, or are you trying to get published online? Is it for an academic purpose? Perhaps it is a university assignment.

Generally, book reviews are around 500 words. However, professional and academic book reviews can be thousands of words in length. If you’re interested in writing a professional book review, check out example book reviews on The Guardian online to get an idea of length. Ultimately, the more words you use, the more thorough your analysis can be. But always be conscious of keeping your writing concise and to the point.

If you are opting for a longer review (around the 1,000 word mark), you can break up long paragraphs of text by using headings and sub-headings. This helps make the content more digestible for the reader.

The elements of a book review

Now that you’ve finished reading the book, made extensive notes, and completed your research, it’s time to begin writing.

Any writer would know that a high-quality piece of writing is well structured. Your arguments should be developed in a logical manner, beginning with the context of the novel and a general overview of the plot, followed by an exploration of the author’s argument, your own opinions about the book, and ending with a conclusion – what rating do you give the book and would you recommend it to others.

The three key elements that you should include in your book review are:

• A summary of the content – including the plot, context, author’s argument, etc. (i.e. all the information you gathered in your initial research).
• A critical assessment of the book – your reaction to the book and whether or not it was effective in meeting its purpose.
• A recommendation – whether or not the audience you are writing for would appreciate the book.

Here’s a breakdown of each point:

1. Introduction

Your book review should begin with a captivating introduction to draw your reader in and make them want to continue reading. Generally, it’ll be around one sentence in length and give a quick overview of the main theme of the book. Here are two examples of short and snappy introductions that hook the reader in:

 “For every child kidnapped, another must be taken. Otherwise The Chain will be broken.” [2]

“Throughout college, Evvie, Maggie, and Topher were the best of friends. But time and the mistakes that come with simply being human may strain their love to the breaking point.” [3]

While trying to keep your introduction short, it’s important to also be concise. A complicated introduction can turn your reader away before they’ve even gotten to your analysis.

By trying to contain the introduction to a single, lengthy sentence , the below opening line is complicated and overloaded with commas, making it difficult to read:

The English nature writer Robert Macfarlane’s new book, “Underland: A Deep Time Journey,” has a title that evokes a burrowing theme park ride or an IMAX movie, and indeed, like Alice in Wonderland or Orpheus in the underworld, down we go. [4]

2. Describe the plot

Your introduction should lead into a description of the plot. In a few sentences, Include a description of the book’s setting, the main characters, and a loose summary of the plot. An outline of the storyline will help your audience decide whether or not they’re interested in reading the book.

However, make sure your introduction doesn’t give everything away. There should be just enough details to make the reader want to pick up the book, without giving away the whole story.

Not only do you want to touch on the plot of the book in your introduction, but you will also need to set the context. What is the historical, political, and/or social context in which the novel was written? What is the author’s background? What genre is the book written in? These questions set the scene for your critical assessment. Whether the author was successful in meeting their intended purpose will be informed by the reasons behind writing the novel.

3. Avoid spoilers

It almost goes without saying. Don’t spoil the book!

While your readers will want to know what the book is about, don’t rob them of experiencing genuine emotional reactions to the shocks and plot twists of the book. For example, if the main character dies at the end of the book, keep those details to yourself. There’ll be no point in your audience reading the book if they already know what happens.

It can be really tempting to reveal spoilers in your book review, because more often than not, the big shocks of the book are those that you want to talk about. When forming an opinion of the book’s effectiveness, your emotional reaction to surprising details are likely to be the evidence you need to prove the book’s effectiveness.

But it is possible to review a book without completely revealing the details if you choose your words carefully. After all, the purpose of your book review is to encourage others (or discourage if you didn’t enjoy the book) to read the book, and no-one is going to want to read the book if you’ve already told them the ending.

For example, ‘I Let You Go’ by Clare Mackintosh is renowned for having two ‘absolute stunner’ plot twist , however, this review on The New York Times only alludes to the twist enough to entice the reader to want to pick up the book, without completely  giving it away:

“The big plot twist in Clare Mackintosh’s first novel, I LET YOU GO, is genuinely shocking. The jolts that follow, right up until the last page, are pretty good too. And if you’re the kind of genre geek who jumps back to the ­beginning of a book to work out how you’ve been hoodwinked, you’ll find that the author has played fair and square.”[5]

4. Form an opinion

By far the most important part of writing a book review is forming an opinion. As we touched on earlier, your critical evaluation is what takes your writing from a simple summary of a book, to a review.

Keep in mind your critique doesn’t have to be all negative or all praise. A well-balanced book review would explore both sides so that the reader of your review gets the whole picture. A one-sided book review can give your audience the impression that your critique is an unfair assessment. Remember, a bad book takes just as long to write as a good one and every author deserves fair treatment. Even if you hated the book, you’ll be able to find some positives. And ultimately, make sure you are reviewing the book you read, not the book you wished the author had written.

Think back to the list you wrote when you were first reading the book. Here’s where those considerations come into play – the author’s background, the genre, the purpose of the book and the main thesis of the work are all elements that inform your opinion. Whether you did or did not enjoy the book can be supported by opinions based on factors such as whether the author effectively subverted traditional elements of the genre, or whether the author’s thesis didn’t challenge your way of thinking.

This review of the novel ‘Malina’ provides an example of the reviewer evaluating how the author’s academic experience influences her language style and the overall readability of the novel:

“Taken in bites, Bachmann’s prose is often lucid and powerful, enlivened by her poetic gifts. At length, she can be tough chewing. She wrote a doctoral dissertation on Heidegger and was a devoted reader of Wittgenstein’s “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” though she’s nowhere near that tough. For every aphoristic dart she throws at the human condition (“the world is sick and doesn’t want a healthy force to prevail”), there is a sentence or meaning that remains tightly knotted, and a general lack of clear orientation prevails. Whatever verifiable facts about the plot and characters might exist beneath the novel’s psychological static, you can imagine Bachmann insisting, are none of your business.”[6]

Your book review will include multiple different arguments, so aim to break them down into separate paragraphs that each deal with individual aspects. And each paragraph should contain an evaluation with an example from the book to support it.

The following criteria can be used to help you form an evaluation: 

• objectivity
• thoroughness
• usefulness for intended purpose.

5. Include your favourite quotes

When making an argument you need examples to support your opinion. The easiest way to do this is by directly quoting the book.

For example, one of the key themes of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird , is prejudice and the following quote directly illustrates this theme:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” [7]

The main thing to consider when quoting the book is to keep the quotes short. A lengthy quote will take up too many words and potentially overpower your review. A short quote will help to get your point across while still letting your work shine through. The purpose of including quotes is to simply bring your argument to light.

6. Provide recommendations to your audience

Would you recommend the book to your audience?

In order to recommend the book, you need to determine who your audience is. Who are you writing the book review for? Not every book is suited to every reader. For example, a book written under the magical realism genre, wouldn’t be recommended to an audience that enjoy non-fiction.

This goes back to the point above, it’s important to remember that your individual tastes don’t necessarily reflect those of your readers. Even if you didn’t enjoy the book, there may be readers out there who it would appeal to so make sure you consider diverse tastes when making a book recommendation.

If you’re reviewing children, teenage or young adult books, it’s a good idea to give an ‘age-appropriateness’ recommendation. It can be tricky for parents when buying books for their children to know whether the book would be appropriate or not, so do the hard work for them. Check out Common Sense Media for ideas on how to give an age-appropriateness rating – this site rates books by age and learning value.

A captivating way to make a recommendation is to also compare the book to other similar ones. If the book you are reviewing has similar themes, characters, writing style, or is even composed by the same author, you will be able to make a recommendation based on how it compares to other work. You might write something along the lines of ‘If loved XXX book, you will love this one’. If your audience has already read the other book, they will be able to get a good idea of whether they will also like your book based on this comparison.

7. Rate the book

You might wonder if you’ve already expressed your opinion about the book throughout your review, why give it a rating as well?

Attaching a rating to your book review is a great way to give your audience an immediate sense of how you felt about the book. Before they even begin reading your review, they already know whether you’re recommending it or not.

The simplest way to rate a book is using a star rating. Goodreads uses a 5-star book rating system.

You can see the most popular books published in 2018 here based on the star rating. If you intend for your book review to be published on a website such as this, you will need to use the rating system provided by the site.

But if you’re self-publishing the review, you can choose whatever rating system that works best for you. You could break your rating system down into categories – maybe the book deserves four stars out of five for writing style, but only two stars for the plot development. It’s up to you.

8. Write a conclusion

The conclusion to your book review is the last thing your audience will read so you want to make sure it leaves them with a lasting impression. A reader has most likely come to your review to decide whether they will or won’t read the book, so if you want them to read the book, make it clear.

Your conclusion should follow general conclusion writing guidelines. The University of Melbourne suggests a conclusion should :

• Summaries the key points made in reaching your position; and
• Make a final comment on the topic.

While summarising the key points you should aim to balance the strengths and weakness of the book. What did the author do well? What could be improved upon? And remember, no new information should be included in the conclusion. Any interesting points you want to make about the book should be included in the body of your text.

This review of Laura Lippman’s ‘Lady in the Lake’ wraps up the book in the following short and sweet sentence:

The racism, classism, and sexism of 50 years ago wrapped up in a stylish, sexy, suspenseful period drama about a newsroom and the city it covers. [8]

9. Bibliographical details

A professional book review will also include a bibliographic citation of the book. Check out some examples on Kirkus Reviews to get an idea on how you can format your citation.

Here are the bibliographic details you should include in your review:

• Title: Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices)
• Author: Cassandra Clare
• Place of Publication: USA
• Date of Publication: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Date of publication edition: August 31, 2010
• Number of pages: 496
• ISBN number*: 978-1416975861

*ISBN or ‘International Standard Book Number’ is a unique identifier for books . It is used by publishers, booksellers, libraries, internet retailers and other suppliers for ordering, listing, sales records and stock control purposes. It identifies the registrant as well as the title, edition and format of the book.

10. Editing

After you’ve completed the first draft of your book review, it’s time to start the editing process. Step away from your work for at least an hour to give your brain a rest. When you come back to review your work with fresh eyes, look out for the following:

• Is the paper well-organised?
• Are the transitions between paragraphs smooth?
• Have you backed up each point with evidence?
• Is there an introduction and a conclusion?
• Have you cited all your references?

Take the time to rewrite your work and make any changes necessary to improve it.

There are also some great tools that can assist in editing such as the Hemingway App . Copy and paste your work into the app and it will give you a readability score as well as highlight sentences that are too long and complicated.

Another useful tool is Grammarly . Grammarly is a handy application that detects spelling, punctuation, grammar, word choice, plagiarism and style, and suggests corrections. It’s also available as an app for both iOS and Android.

11. Proofread

The best way to undermine your credibility as a book reviewer is with spelling mistakes. To critique the work of another writer with a piece of writing that is littered with typos and incorrect punctuation tells your audience you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Before publishing your work, read over it a few times to catch any spelling or grammar errors, as well as double-checking your facts – including double-checking that the quotes and character names you referenced from the book are accurate, as well as the facts you’ve included about the author’s background.

If you’re not feeling confident in your proofreading skills, test yourself by reading this article from The Writing Centre . It contains seven errors (two punctuation errors, two grammatical errors and three spelling errors). See if you can spot them, then refer to this handout with the errors marked in red .

It might even be worthwhile also having another person proofread your work. Once you’ve read over your own work a few times it can be easy to miss things, so a fresh set of eyes could be useful in picking up any errors you haven’t. 

12. Have fun!

While it might seem like there are a lot of rules that go into writing a high-quality book review, the most important thing is that you enjoy what you’re doing! Your passion for the book you are reviewing will shine through in your writing.

If you have been book reviewing for some time and begin to feel burned out, take a break and remind yourself why you started writing book reviews in the first place – to share your love of reading with your fellow readers all over the world.

What is the objective of a book review?

The main purpose of a book review is to help a reader device whether to read the book themselves. For this reason, a book review should include a brief summary of the book’s content, characters and setting, as well as a critical evaluation on the success or effectiveness of the book.

Book reviews save other readers time and offer them a chance to connect with the book before they even pick it up. They help validate the worthiness of a book – if someone else enjoyed the book, I might enjoy it too .

Book reviews are also very important to authors . They give a book greater visibility and a higher chance of being found by readers whether it’s online, in bookstores, among book clubs or blogging communities. A book review is a great opportunity for an author to expand their reach, as well as a platform for other books written in a similar style or from the same genre to be found.

Can you use ‘I’ in a book review?

Whether or not you use first person to write your book review will ultimately come down to why you are writing the review.

An academic piece of writing, for example, would not use first person. So if you’re writing your review for a school, university/college assignment or to be published in an academic journal or magazine (for example, the Oxford Academic Journal of Communication ), avoid using first person.

If you’re writing the review for your personal blog or website, or writing customer reviews online, then it’s okay to be a little more casual. Depending on your writing style and the purpose of your website, first-person can make your review more personal and relatable for your audience. It’s easier to give an opinion about how you felt about a book when writing in the first person, for example – ‘I loved the way the author used XYZ to ABC’.

Where can I get my book review published?

If you’re looking to get your book review published, here’s a step-by-step guide on how to:

• Identify where you want your book review to be published

There are a number of journals devoted to book reviews if you’re interested in having your book review published in a scholarly journal like the Oxford Academic Journal of Communication , Cambridge University’s Historical Journal , or the Australian Book Review .

If you’re not interested in going down the academic route, there are a host of websites where you can publish your book review, including This is Writing. A quick Google search will help you find websites where you could potentially have your review published, or check out our list of ‘Book Blogs and Review Websites for Book Lovers ’.

Otherwise, you can self-publish your book review on your own website or blog.

• Reach out to the editor Once you’ve decided where you’d like your book review to be published, get in contact with the journal or website. Your email to the editor or website owner should include a brief introduction about yourself, the book you intend on reviewing and why you’d like to write a review for the publication.It’s important to do your homework before contacting the editor or website owner. If you have a book in mind, do a quick search of the journal or website to make sure the book hasn’t already been reviewed by someone else. It’s recommended to select a book that has been published in the last two years, as anything earlier has likely already been claimed by another reviewer.And above all else, be confident! Even if you’re brand new to book reviewing, it’s perfectly alright to reach out to editors to ask them to publish your work. Conta c t us at This is Writing to have your book review featured.
• Read the book and write the review Once the editor or website owner has accepted your proposal to write a review for their publication, it’s time to get started. Refer to our recommendations on how to structure your book review above. If you’re writing for a journal you might even be lucky enough to be sent a free copy of the book.
• Submit and wait After you’ve completed the final proofread of your work it’s time to submit it to the editor or website owner. Be sure to read the journal or website submission guidelines thoroughly. Each publisher will have unique submission guidelines relating to criteria such as spelling and grammar, and offensive content, etc. Most book review journals and websites will receive a large number of submissions, so if yours doesn’t meet the guidelines it’s not likely to be considered for publishing.If you haven’t heard back after a month, it’s worthwhile following up. Send a second email asking the editor or website owner if they’ve received your submission and tell them you’re looking forward to hearing from them. The most important thing is to keep it polite and respectful. And make sure to check the website’s submission guidelines first to see if there’s a general timeline for feedback before you start harassing them after only a few days!

Can I get paid to write book reviews?

Yes. There are a number of websites that will pay writers to create book reviews for their website.

If you’re just getting started and looking for a bit of unpaid book reviewing experience, a great place to start is by writing customer reviews on websites that sell books, such as Amazon . These websites allow customers to give a star rating for the product as well as leave a comment. On Amazon, others can then mark your review as ‘helpful’ so you’ll be able to get a good idea on how people feel about your reviewing. Interacting with other book lovers and reviewers can also help improve your own reviewing style and build an audience.

You can also share your book reviews via your social media platforms, or start your own website or blog to publish your book reviews. Check out these tips on how to create a website from the Queensland Government.

The book I have chosen to review is not the first book of the series, does it matter?

No. As mentioned earlier in this article , if you want your book review to be published, you should be aiming to review a recently released book. The newer the book, the less likely it has already been reviewed by another review. If the first book of a series was released five years ago, and the second book released this year, review the second book. Chances are, the first book has already been reviewed to death. Reviewing book two is a chance to create brand new content for your audience.

Despite this, it’s still worthwhile touching on the storyline of the novels that have come before your book in the series as this provides context on the effectiveness of the book. Was book two a good sequel to the first book? What was different? What was the same? If the reader of your review has already read the first book, a comparison between the two will help them decide if they want to read the next book of the series.

[1] John Williams. “ A Postwar Love Triangle in Which One Partner May Be Pure Fantasy ”. The New York Times . July 24, 2019. Viewed 25 July 2019.

[2] “ The Chain ”. Kirkus Review. Viewed 29 July 2019.

[3] “ The Friends We Keep ”. Kirkus Review . Viewed 29 July 2019.

[4] Dwight Garner. “ ‘Underland’ Offers Excellent Nature Writing From Deep, Dark Places ”. The New York Times . Viewed 29 July 2019,

[5] Clare Mackintosh. “ Clare Mackintosh’s ‘I Let You Go’, and More ”. The New York Times . Viewed 25 July 2019.

[6] John Williams. “ A Postwar Love Triangle in Which One Partner May Be Pure Fantasy ”. The New York Times . July 24, 2019. Viewed 25 July 2019.

[7] Harper Lee. “To Kill a Mockingbird”. J. B. Lippincott & Co . Chapter 3.

[8] “ Lady in the Lake ”. Kirkus Review . Viewed 27 July 2019.

Scott Mullins

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

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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The only book review templates you'll ever need.

Whether you’re trying to become a book reviewer , writing a book report for school, or analyzing a book, it’s nice to follow a book review template to make sure that your thoughts are clearly presented. 

A quality template provides guidance to keep your mind sharp and your thoughts organized so that you can write the best book review possible. On Reedsy Discovery , we read and share a lot of book reviews, which helps us develop quite a clear idea what makes up a good one. With that in mind, we’ve put together some trustworthy book review templates that you can download, along with a quick run-through of all the parts that make up an outstanding review — all in this post! 

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:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

Book review templates for every type of review

With the rapid growth of the book community on Instagram, Youtube, and even TikTok, the world of book commentary has evolved far beyond your classic review. There are now many ways you can structure a book review. Some popular formats include:

• Book reports — often done for school assignments; 
• Commentary articles — think in-depth reviews in magazines and newspapers; 
• Book blog reviews — short personal essays about the book; and
• Instagram reviews — one or two-paragraph reviews captioned under a nice photo. 

But while the text in all these review styles can be organized in different ways, there are certain boxes that all good book reviews tick. So, instead of giving you various templates to use for different occasions, we’ve condensed it down to just two book review templates (one for fiction and one for nonfiction) that can guide your thoughts and help you nail just about any review. 

⭐ Download our free fiction book review template  

⭐ Download our free nonfiction book review template  

All you need to do is answer the questions in the template regarding the book you’re reading and you’ve got the content of your review covered. Once that’s done, you can easily put this content into its appropriate format. 

Now, if you’re curious about what constitutes a good book review template, we’ll explain it in the following section! 

Elements of a book review template

Say you want to build your own book review template, or you want to customize our templates — here are the elements you’ll want to consider. 

We’ve divided our breakdown of the elements into two categories: the essentials and the fun additions that’ll add some color to your book reviews.

What are the three main parts of a book review?

We covered this in detail (with the help of some stellar examples) in our post on how to write a book review , but basically, these are the three crucial elements you should know: 

The summary covers the premise of the book and its main theme, so readers are able to understand what you’re referring to in the rest of your review. This means that, if a person hasn’t read the book, they can go through the summary to get a quick idea of what it’s about. (As such, there should be no spoilers!) 

The analysis is where, if it’s a fiction book, you talk more about the book, its plot, theme, and characters. If it’s nonfiction, you have to consider whether the book effectively achieves what it set out to do. 

The recommendation is where your personal opinion comes in the strongest, and you give a verdict as to who you think might enjoy this book. 

You can choose to be brief or detailed, depending on the kind of review you’re writing, but you should always aim to cover these three points. If you’re needing some inspiration, check out these 17 book review examples as seen in magazines, blogs, and review communities like Reedsy Discovery for a little variation. 

Which review community should you join?

Find out which review community is best for your style. Takes 30 seconds!

Which additional details can you include?

Once you’ve nailed down the basics, you can jazz things up a little and add some personal flavor to your book review by considering some of these elements:

• A star-rating (the default is five stars but you can create your own scales); 
• A bullet-point pros and cons list; 
• Your favorite quotation from the book; 
• Commentary on the format you read (i.e., ebook, print, or audiobook);
• Fun facts about the book or author; 
• Other titles you think are similar.

This is where you can really be creative and tailor your review to suit your purpose and audience. A formal review written for a magazine, for instance, will likely benefit from contextual information about the author and the book, along with some comment on how that might have affected the reading (or even writing) process.

Meanwhile, if you’re reviewing a book on social media, you might find bullet points more effective at capturing the fleeting attention of Internet users. You can also make videos, take creative pictures, or even add your own illustrations for more personal touches. The floor is yours at this point, so go ahead and take the spotlight! 

That said, we hope that our templates can provide you with a strong foundation for even your most adventurous reviews. And if you’re interested in writing editorial reviews for up-and-coming indie titles, register as a reviewer on Reedsy Discovery !

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How to Write a Book Review Tips

Book reviews are like guiding lights in the world of literature, helping readers navigate through countless stories. But writing a good review isn't just about summarizing a book – it's about making your thoughts resonate with the audience. 

Whether you're a writer, a critic, or someone who loves books, knowing how to prepare a book review can enrich your reading experience and contribute to the literary community. 

In this article, experts of our book review writing service break down the key elements and tips for compelling book reviews that spark conversation and excitement.

What Is a Book Review

A book review is a critical evaluation of a book, where the reviewer discusses its content, themes, and overall impact. It typically includes a summary of the book's main points, the reviewer's analysis and opinions, and a recommendation for potential readers. The goal is to inform others about the book's strengths and weaknesses, helping them decide if it’s worth reading.

Later in the article, you’ll find a quality book review example for your inspiration and motivation. If you’re in a hurry, try our cheap essay writing service that covers all types of academic papers.

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

Writing a book review might seem complex, but in reality, the process can be divided into only three steps:

Summarize the Book's Content

Book reviews summarize the source's content by providing a brief and clear overview of the main plot, key characters, and central themes without giving away any spoilers. This helps readers understand the essence of the book and sets the stage for your analysis and evaluation.

Actionable Tips:

• Read the Book Thoroughly: Ensure you grasp the full story, including subplots and character development.
• Highlight Key Points: Note down significant events, character arcs, and main themes as you read.
• Be Concise: Keep your summary short and to the point, focusing on the most important aspects.
• Avoid Spoilers: Do not reveal major plot twists or the book’s ending.
• Use Your Own Words: Write the summary in your own language to maintain originality and avoid plagiarism.
• Provide Context: Include the book’s genre, setting, and relevant background information to help readers understand the summary.
• Focus on Clarity: Ensure your summary is easy to read and understand, avoiding complex language or unnecessary details.

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Analyze and Evaluate

You’re always halfway through writing a book review! Next, you have to critically examine its elements, such as the writing style, character development, plot structure, and thematic depth. This step is where you share your personal insights and opinions, providing evidence from the text to support your views.

Conclude with a Recommendation

We’re almost reached the finishing line of the how to write a book review race. Conclude your review of a book with either a summary, recommendation, or addressing readers directly. This step provides a clear and concise verdict based on your analysis, helping potential readers decide if the book is right for them.

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.

Book Review Structure

A book review outline usually follows a structured format with an introduction, main body, and conclusion.

Introduction

This section introduces the book, mentioning its title, author, genre, and publication details. It gives a brief overview of the book's premise and main themes to provide context for the reader.

The main body offers a detailed analysis and critique of the book. It's divided into paragraphs focusing on specific aspects such as plot, characters, and writing style. Each paragraph provides evidence from the book to support the reviewer's analysis.

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The conclusion summarizes the reviewer's overall thoughts and impressions of the book, restating key points and the main argument. It often includes a recommendation for potential readers and may provide final reflections or insights about the book's significance.

Book Review Template

Here's a basic structure you can follow every time you’re tasked with such an assignment:

Extra Tips for Writing Better Book Reviews

Here are 11 extra tips for writing better book reviews:

• Look for essay topics that are interesting personally for you.
• Consider your audience and what they might want to know about the book.
• Be mindful not to give away major plot twists or endings that could ruin the reading experience for others.
• Use quotes or examples from the book to support your analysis and critique.
• Express your opinions openly, but respect the author and their work.
• Think about the book's historical, cultural, or social context when evaluating its themes and messages.
• Paint a vivid picture of the book's qualities using descriptive language to engage your readers.
• Acknowledge the book's strengths and weaknesses to provide a balanced review.
• Aim to be concise and to the point, focusing on the most important aspects of the book.
• Let your enthusiasm for the book shine through in your review to captivate your readers.
• Gain insights from reading other reviews to see different perspectives and approaches to reviewing books.

Book Review Example

As promised at the beginning of the article, we’d like to share a good example of a book review as it should be done by students either in school or college:

Final Thoughts

Book reviews empower students to become active participants in the literary conversation. They learn to contribute their unique perspectives and interpretations to the broader discourse. With a custom term paper writing service , learners can become true educational powerhouses who never miss deadlines.

Through critical engagement with literary sources, students develop a deeper understanding of complex themes and issues, honing their ability to think analytically and empathetically. At the end of the day, aren’t these two skills that every educated individual should possess? 

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How To Write A Book Review?

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

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

• Added new infographics.
• Updated writing tips.
• Added new example.
• How to write a book review | BookTrust. (n.d.-b). https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/writing-tips/writing-tips-for-teens/how-to-write-a-book-review/
• Book Reviews – The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (2024, May 14). The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/book-reviews/
• Research Guides: Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments: Writing a Book Review. (n.d.). https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments/bookreview  

Related Articles

Tips for Writing a Book Review

As many avid readers know, book reviews can be magical. Not only are they book recommendations, they’re also bridges to our fellow bookworms all around the world. Reviews offer a chance to share your thoughts with other readers and to keep track of your own musings on the books on your shelf, but many find that writing a review isn’t as easy as it seems. To help our NetGalley members craft the best reviews possible, we’ve put together a list of 12 tips for how to write a book review. Whether you’re reviewing books on NetGalley or your personal blog and social media accounts , these steps are sure to help take your reviews to the next level.

Describe the plot First things first: Your readers will want to know what the book is about. But describing the plot needs to be a fine balance in a book review. You want to share just enough to hook the reader without giving too much away and without veering into book report territory. Give a bit more background on the plot outlined on the book’s jacket, and focus on any elements that you feel particularly strongly about or you think that your readers will want to be aware of. If you’re reviewing an audiobook, you’ll need to also talk about the narrator, pacing, and more. You’ll find our tips for writing audiobook reviews here .

Avoid spoilers Spoilers—enemy number one of readers everywhere. Most readers take spoilers very seriously, but they continue to pop up in book reviews. Often, spoilers can be tempting to share because they are frequently the elements that gave the reviewer an intense reaction (a sudden twist, a shocking death, a surprise unveiling). But make sure you don’t rob any of your readers of that genuine emotional reaction or discovery. Unless your reviewing platform offers a way to hide spoilers, avoid them completely or at least add a “spoiler alert” warning to your review.

Consider content warnings Content warnings can help readers be aware of elements of a book that might trigger traumatic memories, cause anxiety, or are generally upsetting. Providing them in a review is a helpful way of giving readers a heads up about what they’re in for so they can make a healthy and informed choice about whether or not they want to engage with that book.

Find the hook There are two hooks to think about when writing a book review. First, how to make a reader stop scrolling and read your entire review. Second, in cases of positive reviews, how to convince them to pick up the book. Don’t wait until the middle of your review to try to catch the reader’s attention. Try to hook them from the very first sentence. Think about what made you pick the book up, and use that to inspire your own way of writing about it.

Make your opinion clear This tip might seem obvious, but sometimes a reviewer may get caught up in describing the plot and forget to offer their own insight. We recommend making your thoughts clear as early as possible and throughout the review. As you describe the plot, share your opinion on the things that worked or didn’t when it comes to the writing, characters, and events of the book. Tell readers why they should (or shouldn’t) pick this book up.

Find your voice Readers choose to follow certain reviewers because of similar reading taste, but also because they enjoy their review style. Celebrate your uniqueness in your book reviews. Provide the insight only you can offer. This is an opportunity to share your passion with other readers, so make it personal. Don’t be discouraged if this doesn’t happen immediately. Rewrite, hone your voice, and keep reviewing. Your signature style will develop as you go.

Rating system Ratings help to give readers an immediate sense of how you felt about a book. If you review on a personal blog, decide on the rating system that works for you and make sure you clearly explain how it works to your readers. Professional reviewing platforms like NetGalley provide readers with a pre-set rating system . NetGalley’s system pairs stars with a likelihood of recommending the book to fellow readers. Think about how the way you personally rate books fits into their system. For example, if you give half stars on your blog (or in your mind!) but the platform doesn’t have half-stars as an option, decide if those should be rounded up or down.

Consider the reviews you’ve read Browse through NetGalley to read reviews and find examples that you think are effective. Ask yourself what it is that you like about the review, and find ways to showcase those same elements in an original way in your own. Maybe you’re swayed by great pull quotes, thorough plot summaries, or a review with a strong voice. Do you love reviews that are conversational, like you’re talking with a friend? Do you want a bit of humor in your book recs? Or do you prefer a serious tone, to convey how much thought you’ve put into your feelings about the book? These are all techniques you can use to make your own reviews even more successful.

Explain both praise and critiques When it comes to book reviews, it’s important to explain both your praise and critiques of a book so that other readers get the whole picture. For example, don’t just say that the book has great characters—explain what makes them great. Don’t tell readers that the book was boring—explain which elements failed to capture your attention. This will help readers to understand your point of view and decide for themselves whether or not this is a book that they might enjoy. Thoughtful praise and critique often can also be a great starting point for a continued conversation about a book. Click here to read our tips for writing a critical book review !

Think about the audience Let readers know if this is a book you’d recommend, and to whom. Not every book is suited to every reader, so you’ll want to be specific about who is likely to enjoy it. For example, you’d recommend  A Game of Thrones  to fans of historical fantasy, not urban fantasy. But it may also be a great recommendation for those who love a good political thriller. Keep in mind that even if a book didn’t fit your personal reading tastes, there’s a chance it may appeal to other readers and your review could help them discover it.

Proofread before posting The fastest way to lose credibility with your audience is to have a typo-laden review. Give your entire review a final read before posting to catch any spelling or grammar errors, including checking facts you share, the spelling of author and characters names, pronouns used, and any quotes you use. The last thing you want is for a reader to stop following your reviews because you accidentally kept calling the main character Jay Catsby.

This is also a great time to add a disclosure statement! The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires readers to disclose if they received a review copy of a book. In reviews, members should include a simple line like, “Thank you (name of publishing company) for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.”

Have fun! Reviewing can be a labor of love, but it’s a job that should always bring you joy. If you ever find yourself feeling burned out, take a break and remind yourself of why you started reviewing in the first place: to share your love of books with readers all over the world.

Looking for fresh and creative review formats? We’ve got you covered!

Check out the  netgalley review guidelines  and  tips for writing and submitting feedback  to publishers. , netgalley tips.

The Different Ways to Access Books on NetGalley

How to Review Books Across Different Platforms

Tips for Making Your Social Media Accounts More Accessible

Everything You Want To Know About Requesting Books on NetGalley

What to Do When You DNF a NetGalley Book

10 Things You Should Include in Your NetGalley Profile

Join the #NetGalleyBingo Summer Reading Challenge!

Tips for Promoting Your NetGalley Reviews on Social Media

Answering NetGalley Members’ FAQs About ARCs

10 Things You Might Not Know About NetGalley

Kelly Gallucci

Kelly Gallucci is the Executive Editor of We Are Bookish, where she oversees the editorial content, offers book recommendations, and interviews authors and NetGalley members. When she's not working, Kelly can be found color coordinating her bookshelves, eating Chipotle, and watching way too many baking shows.

Great summary. I write quite a few book reviews and this has helped me think more about what I should emphasize and how to phrase my comments. I like the reminder to have fun, too! Thanks!

I have seen it written in many places that book reviews should be impersonal. Keep the focus on the book, not on the reviewer. Probably good advice if one is looking to make a living at it. But I often find that a personal touch adds a lot. Not all books will touch those individual nerves, or connect to one’s life experiences, but I have found that when books do, incorporating those elements gives my reviews considerable extra punch. Also, I have found them among the most fun to write.

Excellent points! Thanks!

This looks great!

Thanks for the great tips on writing book reviews. I often wonder what would make my review stand out or really express my feelings about a book. I totally agree about careful proofreading before being posted. I am also turned off if a reviewer has grammatical errors, misspellings, and exhibits poor writing habits. I also agree that a good review should give the reader a little glimpse into the personality of the reviewer! ❤️????

Great tips and very helpful suggestions!

Loved this article ????

Very useful article. Thank you!

Thank you so very much for the tips! Been doing reviews for over a year now and I’m getting better at it! One thing do hate is your not dc king a book report! I try and getting better,I don’t want to know a bunch when reading a reviewing but ,just enough I say to wet my whistle! I never thought about using the humor think I will try that when it’s warranted! Thanks again,will let you know if I think I am improving ,lol,can’t get any worse than I am now!!Maybe when I write one I will have you look at it for me. I will send you a copy!!

The tips are good and helpful. As I read other reviews I do get insights into way to present my views. But I refrain from being too much of a critic in respect to the author’s effort in writing so many pages. Thanks for the tips.

I’m trying to write my 1st ever review and to be honest I’m nervous. I really like the author and the book was amazing, so I’m worried about letting the author down. These tips are going to be invaluable, so thank you.

Thank you very much, this was very helpful in helping me get started! I’m so excited!

Thank you for these great and helpful hints for writing a book review. I am new to book reviewing online but have been giving book reviews in the 5 libraries I have worked in, over the past 20 years, as an Assistant Librarian. I have loved reading since 1st grade and have tried to pass that passion on to family, friends, and strangers! I write brief reviews on BookBub and GoodRead, while keeping a list of all the books I have read. Sincerely, Ramona

This was very helpful! Thanks

Write a book that is not only going to fill your pocket but is also going to satisfy your mind and heart. In essence, to write an amazing book, you must be an amazing, passionate author.

Lots of good tips on writing a review. I don’t agree on including a summary of the story in my reviews. A summary can be found on the jacket front fly or on various websites. I believe a review should include the rest of the items you mentioned and should be my personal viewpoint of the book. Then the reader can make their own decision on whether or not to read the book.

I agree with you, Kathy C., about foregoing the summary of the story in the book review. Not only is this information available on the book jacket or online description, but reading review after review that begins with a summary becomes tedious. I’m really more interested in what people think about the book rather than their summary of the plot. I definitely agree with all the other tips offered. Thanks for your helpful thoughts!

I understand that you want to your reviewers to put some thought into their reviews. I read a lot of books (200 plus a year, not including the ones I don’t finish). I review most of them and I get a lot of positive comments on my reviews. The reason why is I am honest, and I explain to the readers how this books relates to events in my life. The response is that readers respect my reviews because I have a worldly view and have experienced events that most people have not. For example, I wrote a review about Mohammed Ali biography and the author include a lot of current events that were going on during that time. This was when I was a teenager, and I remember those events and Ali’s life relevant to me because he was reacting to what was going on at that time. So yes you can write a long review, and describe the plot, but if you can’t explain how the book makes you feel then you have lost your audience.

I’m finding out what is proving difficult in writing reviews is that some books have almost the same theme/plot. For me, it’s like watching an exciting weekly TV series that engages me and I want to continue until the season ending. I really can’t complain about the authors because I tend to pick my favorites. Any ideas on how to write a good review?

Yolie McLaughlin

Thank you for this article! I have a brand new book blog and reading thru these tips gave me a few ideas to keep me on track while writing a review. I do like that the information is conveniently separated so I can just glance at the topics when I need to. I’ll be saving this for ease of reference. Thanks again!

Just wondering about book covers we love, do we mention that in the review? Some book covers are just beautiful, and some are fairly ordinary. If a cover really makes an impact should we also give credit in our review of the book?

Thanks for your insightful tips, Cheers Jools

Great question! While it isn’t necessary to talk about a book’s cover in your review, if it had a particularly positive impact on you it’s definitely worth mentioning. You can also use the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down option on all book pages to show your love for favorite covers, or by selecting that it’s what drew you to the book when making a request!

Thank you for these tips. I will try to leave reviews in accordance with these suggestions that will be a credit to the company and to the authors that have shown confidence in my commitment to be a reliable and honest reviewer.

I appreciate your wonderful and practical book review writing advice. Although I’m new to book reviews on the internet, I have 20 years of experience as an assistant librarian and have reviewed books in 5 different libraries. Since the first grade, I have loved reading, and I have made an effort to share my enthusiasm with friends, family, and strangers. I maintain an inventory of all the books I’ve read and post succinct reviews on BookBub and GoodRead.

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Writing a Book Review

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Book reviews typically evaluate recently-written works. They offer a brief description of the text’s key points and often provide a short appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the work.

Readers sometimes confuse book reviews with book reports, but the two are not identical. Book reports commonly describe what happens in a work; their focus is primarily on giving an account of the major plot, characters, and/or main idea of the work. Most often, book reports are a K-12 assignment and range from 250 to 500 words. If you are looking to write a book report, please see the OWL resource, Writing a Book Report.

By contrast, book reviews are most often a college assignment, but they also appear in many professional works: magazines, newspapers, and academic journals. They typically range from 500-750 words, but may be longer or shorter. A book review gives readers a sneak peek at what a book is like, whether or not the reviewer enjoyed it, and details on purchasing the book.

Before You Read

Before you begin to read, consider the elements you will need to included in your review. The following items may help:

• Author: Who is the author? What else has s/he written? Has this author won any awards? What is the author’s typical style?
• Genre: What type of book is this: fiction, nonfiction, romance, poetry, youth fiction, etc.? Who is the intended audience for this work? What is the purpose of the work?
• Title: Where does the title fit in? How is it applied in the work? Does it adequately encapsulate the message of the text? Is it interesting? Uninteresting?
• Preface/Introduction/Table of Contents: Does the author provide any revealing information about the text in the preface/introduction? Does a “guest author” provide the introduction? What judgments or preconceptions do the author and/or “guest author” provide? How is the book arranged: sections, chapters?
• Book Jacket/Cover/Printing: Book jackets are like mini-reviews. Does the book jacket provide any interesting details or spark your interest in some way? Are there pictures, maps, or graphs? Do the binding, page cut, or typescript contribute or take away from the work?

As You Read

As you read, determine how you will structure the summary portion or background structure of your review. Be ready to take notes on the book’s key points, characters, and/or themes.

• Characters: Are there characters in the work? Who are the principal characters? How do they affect the story? Do you empathize with them?
• Themes/Motifs/Style: What themes or motifs stand out? How do they contribute to the work? Are they effective or not? How would you describe this author’s particular style? Is it accessible to all readers or just some?
• Argument: How is the work’s argument set up? What support does the author give for her/findings? Does the work fulfill its purpose/support its argument?
• Key Ideas: What is the main idea of the work? What makes it good, different, or groundbreaking?
• Quotes: What quotes stand out? How can you demonstrate the author’s talent or the feel of the book through a quote?

When You Are Ready to Write

Begin with a short summary or background of the work, but do not give too much away. Many reviews limit themselves only to the first couple of chapters or lead the reader up to the rising action of the work. Reviewers of nonfiction texts will provide the basic idea of the book’s argument without too much detailed.

The final portion of your review will detail your opinion of the work. When you are ready to begin your review, consider the following:

• Establish a Background, Remember your Audience: Remember that your audience has not read the work; with this in mind, be sure to introduce characters and principles carefully and deliberately. What kind of summary can you provide of the main points or main characters that will help your readers gauge their interest? Does the author’s text adequately reach the intended audience? Will some readers be lost or find the text too easy?
• Minor principles/characters: Deal only with the most pressing issues in the book. You will not be able to cover every character or idea. What principles/characters did you agree or disagree with? What other things might the author have researched or considered?
• Organize: The purpose of the review is to critically evaluate the text, not just inform the readers about it. Leave plenty room for your evaluation by ensuring that your summary is brief. Determine what kind of balance to strike between your summary information and your evaluation. If you are writing your review for a class, ask your instructor. Often the ratio is half and half.
• Your Evaluation: Choose one or a few points to discuss about the book. What worked well for you? How does this work compare with others by the same author or other books in the same genre? What major themes, motifs, or terms does the book introduce, and how effective are they? Did the book appeal to you on an emotional or logical way?
• Publisher/Price: Most book reviews include the publisher and price of the book at the end of the article. Some reviews also include the year published and ISBN.

When making the final touches to your review, carefully verify the following:

• Double-check the spelling of the author name(s), character names, special terms, and publisher.
• Try to read from the vantage point of your audience. Is there too much/enough summary? Does your argument about the text make sense?
• Should you include direct quotes from the reading? Do they help support your arguments? Double-check your quotes for accuracy.

Book Review

Book Review Examples

Last updated on: Nov 20, 2023

Good Book Review Examples to Help you Write a Great Review

By: Nova A.

Reviewed By: Chris H.

Published on: Mar 30, 2021

A book review is a common assignment that allows the students to demonstrate the author’s intentions in the book. It also provides them with the chance not only to criticize but also to give constructive criticism on how they can make improvements.

The purpose of writing a book review is to come up with your opinion about the author’s ideas presented in the book. On the other hand, a book analysis is completely based on opinions that are relevant to the book.

Writing a review is something that can be done with any book that you read. However, some genres are harder to write. But with a proper plan, you can easily write a great review on any book.

Read some short book review examples in this guide. They will help you understand the key elements of writing a great review in no time.

On this Page

Academic Book Review Examples

If you are assigned to write a book review, referring to some examples will be of great help. In addition, reading examples before starting the writing process will help you understand what elements are needed for a great book review. There are also many review sites online you can get help from.

Academic book reviews follow a fairly simple structure. It usually includes an introduction, middle paragraphs, and a conclusion that sums up all the ideas.

For a great book review, here are the things you need to focus on during the writing process.

• The main argument presented by the author
• Author’s methodologyAppropriateness for the audience
• Relationship to the real world

Have a look at the following book review examples for kids before beginning the writing process.

Book Review Examples for Middle School Students

Book Review Example For Kids

Book Review Examples for High School Students

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

Book Review Examples for College Students

Book Review Examples for University Students

How to Write a Book Review - Examples

If you don’t know how to write a book review, look at the following steps.

The first step is to plan and create an outline that includes all the points that you will have to cover in the review. Don’t forget to include all the information about the characters, plot information, and some other parts of the chosen book.

The three parts of a book review are:

1. Provide a Summary

What is the book about? Write about the main characters and what is the conflict that is discussed in the book.

2. Provide Your Evaluation

Share your thoughts about the book and what elements work best.

3. Rate the Book

Rate and recommend the book to others who will enjoy reading this book.

If you need to submit a book review soon, we suggest you start reading some book reviews online. Here you can also find some good book review writing examples to understand how to craft each section of a book review.

Book Review Introduction Examples

Thesis Statement Book Review Examples

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Book Review Conclusion Examples

Critical Book Review Examples

A book review is a critical evaluation of the book, movie, or any other literary work. It has two goals: the first is to inform the readers about the content of the book, and the second is to evaluate your judgment about the book.

A book review is more than a book report. A review is basically a critical essay that evaluates the merits of a literary work. The purpose of writing a book review is not to prove that you have read a book but to show that you think critically about the chosen book.

When you are asked to write a critical book review, you need to identify, summarize and evaluate the ideas of the author. In simpler words, you will be examining and evaluating another person’s work from your point of view.

Science Book Review Examples

A scientific book review will contain the same elements as writing a review for a fiction book; some elements might vary. When you are reviewing a scientific text, you need to pay attention to the writing style and the validity of the content.

Most students turn to non-fictional sources of information. It is important to make sure the information you provide in your review is factual and scientific.

Book review writing can be difficult if you don’t know how to follow the standard protocols. That’s where our reliable book review writing service aims to provide the necessary help.

No matter what your academic level is, we can provide you with the best book review writing help. This type of writing assignment can be tricky and time-consuming. So, if you don’t know how to crack this task, better get professional help.

We at 5StarEssays.com provide exceptional book review writing help. Not only book reviews, but we also provide the best ‘ write an essay for me ’ help to students. Moreover, we also have an AI essay writer to help you with tight deadlines, give it a try now!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you write a book review example.

Here are some steps that will help you to write a book review example.

• Start writing with few sentences and describe what the book is all about
• Focus on your thoughts
• Mention things that you dont like about the book.
• Summarize your thoughts.
• Give rating to the book.

Thesis, Law

As a Digital Content Strategist, Nova Allison has eight years of experience in writing both technical and scientific content. With a focus on developing online content plans that engage audiences, Nova strives to write pieces that are not only informative but captivating as well.

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👀 Book Review Example

🔗 references, ❓ what is a book review.

A book review is a form of literary criticism. There are several important elements to consider when writing one, such as the author’s style and themes of interest. The two most popular types are short summary reviews and critical reviews, which are longer.

Summary Book Review

The format of a book review depends on the purpose of your writing. A short summary review will not include any in-depth analysis. It’s merely a descriptive piece of writing that overviews key information about the book and its author. An effective summary review consists of:

• Reference to a chosen book in the form of a citation.
• A few words on the book’s purpose.
• Description of the main themes, ideas, and issues highlighted by the author.
• Brief information about other works on this topic, if applicable.
• A note about the author and visual materials of the book, along with its structure.

Critical Book Review

A critical book review is much longer than its summary counterpart and looks more like an analytical essay. You may be asked to write one as a college student. It includes:

• Book citation and a hook in the introduction.
• A few words about the author’s intentions.
• An academic description of the main ideas and themes.
• Mention of errors in the text, if you found any.
• Discussion of the chosen book’s significance and how it has influenced the field.
• Some information about the author and the physical content of the book.
• Description of the audience and whether the writer’s style and ideas are engaging.

🧩 Book Review Outline

Check out the book review outline template below to learn more about structuring your paper.

Introduction

The introduction of a book review should include some background information and your thesis statement.

• What is this book about?
• Who is the author?
• What were the reasons for writing this book?
• Who is this book for?
• What is the general problem the book addresses?

Brief book summary

A brief summary should provide an outline of the book’s main ideas or events.

• What are the main themes/ideas of the book?
• What is the plot?
• Who are the characters?
• What is the major emphasis of the work?

Critical review 

A critical review should focus on your evaluation of the author’s approach to writing about a particular issue.

• What did you like/dislike in the book?
• What are the book’s strengths and weaknesses?
• What do you agree/disagree with? Why?
• How does this book compare to other books on this topic?
• What matters does the book leave out?

The conclusion of a book review should finish with your personal assessment of the work.

• Has the author achieved the purpose of writing the book?
• Is this book worth reading?
• To whom would you recommend this book?
• What is your final opinion about it?
• What steel needs to be written on this subject?

Book Review Outline Example

We have prepared for you a book review outline example on Looking for Alaska by John Green. Check it out:

• Hook: Have you ever searched for meaning amidst the chaos of teenage life? John Green’s Looking for Alaska embarks on that very journey, unveiling the messy realities of adolescence.
• Overview of the book.
• Information about the author.
• Thesis statement: In Looking for Alaska , John Green skillfully crafts a narrative that delves into the turbulent journey of adolescence, exploring themes of friendship, identity, and the quest for meaning.
• Introduction of the protagonist, Miles Halter.
• Introduction of other characters and their roles in Halter’s life.
• Key events of the book.
• Green’s writing style and its effectiveness in portraying the turbulent emotions and confusion of adolescence.
• The character development of Miles and his journey of self-discovery, grief, and understanding.
• Exploration of how themes of friendship, identity, and the quest for meaning are depicted throughout the narrative.
• Restated thesis.
• Brief summary of main points.
• Recommendation: I would recommend this thought-provoking book to fans of realistic fiction that doesn’t shy away from difficult topics.

📋 Book Review Format

Here are several practical tips that can aid you in formatting your book review:

• Start with the book citation. Provide the necessary publication information about the book, including the author’s name, the full title of the book, and other elements required by your chosen citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).
• Italicize the book title in the text. Whenever you mention the book title in your review, remember to type it in italics without using quotation marks. However, if you include the title of a book chapter, enclose it in quotation marks and don’t italicize it.
• Use a readable font. Type your book reviews using a 12-pt Arial or Times New Roman font.
• Apply standard document settings. These include 1-inch margins on all sides, double spacing, and flush left paragraph alignment.
• Use in-text citations. Always cite the information borrowed from other authors. This way, your readers will understand the origin of your ideas and distinguish your thoughts from those of others.
• Keep your review to 500-1500 words. When the professor does not indicate how many words to include in your book review, keep it to 2-5 double-spaced pages.

✍️ How to Write a Book Review?

The structure of a book review is like any other essay. That said, the process of writing one has its own idiosyncrasies. So, before moving to the three parts of the review (introduction, main body, and conclusion), you should study the chosen piece and make enough notes to work with.

Step #1: Choose a Book and Read It

Being interested in a book you’re about to analyze is one thing. Reading it deeply is quite another.

Before you even dive into the text proper, think about what you already know about the book. Then, study the table of contents and make some predictions. What’s your first impression?

Now, it’s time to read it! Don’t take this step lightly. Keep a note log throughout the reading process and stop after each chapter to jot down a quick summary. If you find any particular point of interest along the way and feel you might want to discuss it in the review, highlight it to make it easier to find when you go back through the text. If you happen to have a digital copy, you can even use a shorten essay generator and save yourself some time.

Answering the following questions can also help you with this process.

Step #2: Create Your Book Review Outline

A solid outline should be the foundation of any worthy book review. It includes the key points you want to address and gives you a place to start from (and refer back to) throughout the writing process.

You are expected to produce at least five paragraphs if you want your review to look professional, including an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion .

While analyzing your notes , consider the questions below.

Step #3: Write Your Book Review Introduction

With a layout firmly in place, it’s time to start writing your introduction. This process should be straightforward: mention the name of the book and its author and specify your first impression. The last sentence should always be your thesis statement, which summarizes your review’s thrust and critical findings.

Step #4: Write Your Book Review Body

Include at least three main ideas you wish to highlight. These can be about the writing style, themes, character, or plot. Be sure to support your arguments with evidence in the form of direct quotes (at least one per paragraph). Don’t be afraid to paraphrase the sentences that feel off. It’s better to aknowledge the mistakes yourself than have someone else point them out.

Step #5: Write Your Book Review Conclusion

Compose a brief summary of everything you wrote about in the main body. You should also paraphrase your thesis statement . For your closing sentence, comment on the value of the book. Perhaps it served as a source of useful insight, or you just appreciate the author’s intention to shed light on a particular issue.

Now you know how to write a book review. But if you need some more inspiration, check out the following sample review, which follows the basic outline described above.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Book Review Example

If you want more examples, check out the list below!

• “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”: Book Review
• The Great Gatsby: A Book Review and Summary  
• Book Review: “They Say I Say”  
• Book Review “Religious, Feminist, Activist ” by Laurel Zwissler
• “Tell My Horse” by Zora Neale Hurston Book Review
• “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman Book Review  

Book Review Essay Topics

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: book review.
• The symbolic nature of the Canadian consumption culture in The Donut: A Canadian History by S. Penfold.
• The key lessons of the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
• Big Talk, Small Talk by Shola Kaye : a guide to effective communication.
• Review of the book The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
• The main ideas promoted in Thinking About Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture by M. Tonry.
• Exposition of young boys’ problems in Nikkah’s Our Boys Speak .
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf: book review.
• Discuss the message to future entrepreneurs in Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog .
• The main ideas of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.
• Magical realism in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Juno Diaz.
• Book review: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.
• Psychological struggles of identity and isolation in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
• The principle of negotiation in the book Getting to Yes .
• Analyze the symbolism in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 .
• The role of family in Montana 1948 .
• Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee: book review.
• Discuss the main topic of the book Death of a Salesman .
• Tragedy of the family in A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor.
• Realistic features of Afghanistan in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
• Review of the book Montley Fool Money Guide .
• Description of the gap between two cultures in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman.
• The effect of Puritan beliefs in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown .
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad as a prominent example of symbolism.
• The philosophical value of Oedipus the King by Sophocles.
• Discuss the description of gradual personality changes in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat .
• Review of the play Much Ado About Nothing by W. Shakespeare.
• Analyze the core theme of Sherman Alexie’s book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian .
• Family values and culture preservation issues in J.D. Vance Book Hillbilly Elegy .
• Problems of teenagers’ behavior in Nothing but the Truth by Avi.
• The role of women in society in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar .
• Satire on the Victorian society customs in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde .
• Danger of obsession with new technologies in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark .
• Describe the controversial messages of Why Don’t You Dance by Raymond Carver .
• Examine the central problem of the novel Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility by Patricia Santana.
• Review of the book Billy Budd by Herman Melville.
• The fundamental philosophical problems of perception and consciousness in The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares.
• Discuss the role of the illusory world Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie .
• Gender roles in A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen.
• Analyze the main topic of Death by Landscape by Margaret Atwood.
• Book Review – The New York Times
• Book Reviews – UNC Writing Center
• Writing a Book Review – USC Writing Center
• Books | The Guardian
• Book Reviews : NPR – NPR
• Book Reviews // Purdue Writing Lab
• Book Reviews | Nature
• The New York Review of Books: Home
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I need a seven page Book report on Booker T. Washington. Instructions below from instructor title, your name, and then seven paragraphs and seven pages – no more no less.

get rid of the outline format.

They combine your ideas into seven paragraphs.

Each paragraph that has quotes should have a topic sentence followed by the five sentences with quotes and endnotes, followed by the concluding sentence.

You do not need any quotes in the introduction or in the summary.

So seven paragraphs total.

Each paragraph needs to be 13 – 17 lines, lines on a page and not sentences.

So, delete the outline format.

Combine your ideas into seven paragraphs.

Make sure that each paragraph has between 13–17 lines.

And make sure your overall length is in seven pages, no more no less.

Sam Thomas Davies

How to Write a Book Summary (Step-by-Step)

by Sam Thomas Davies | Last updated: July 13, 2023 | Filed Under: Self-Improvement

In 2015, I wrote a book summary for The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. 

Distilling the book’s key ideas helped me remember what I read. Plus, readers got a lot from it, so I continued with other nonfiction books I read.

Since then, I’ve written 100+ book summaries for the best non-fiction books of all time. And, in doing so, I’ve learned a thing or two about writing good book summaries.  

In this article, I want to share how to write a book summary that will help you remember what you read months, even years, after reading.

Table of Contents

Why write a book summary.

• Step 1. Take Notes While You’re Reading

Step 2. Write the Main Takeaways in Your Own Words

Step 3. continue to summarize overtime .

I’ve found there are three key benefits to writing a book summary.

First, writing a book summary helps you remember what you read. We’ve all read a book only to forget its key ideas as soon as we finish. Summarizing a book in your own words, though, minimizes that problem by helping you internalize the book’s key insights. 

Second, writing a book summary helps you connect key concepts from other books. When writing a book summary for The Little Book of Yes , I noticed the author wrote about the importance of endings, a key idea also covered in The Power of Moments .

In The Power of Moments , Chip and Dan Heath explain that when people assess an experience, such as an experience with a brand, they tend to rate the experience based on the ending. In The Little Book of Yes , by contrast, Noah Goldstein discusses endings in the context of persuasion. 

By summarizing an idea, in my own words, and then looking at that idea through the lens of another context, I was able to understand it on a deeper, more applicable layer. 

Granted, for ideas covered, again and again, there’s a risk of moving too far from the source. (Think of all the instances of “research shows that” with no reference.) 

But for principle-based ideas (e.g., the trichotomy of control ), connecting “knowledge trees,” as author James Clear calls them , helps you internalize and remember what you read.

Third, writing a book summary helps you improve your writing . As Head of Content for Sleeknote , I create a lot of content and need to refer to and reference ideas I’ve read as quickly as possible. 

In this article on copywriting examples , I wanted to talk about how copywriter Claude Hopkins saved Schlitz from bankruptcy. Still, I couldn’t remember which book had introduced me to the story. 

So, I ran a search in my Commonplace Book , found the book, ( Scientific Advertising ), and featured the story in my article.   

You might not be a writer or even a creative for that matter, but as we’ll discuss in Step 3., there’s value in “remixing” an idea as part of the retrieval process. 

Now we’ve covered the benefits of writing a book summary let’s discuss how to write a summary, step-by-step.

Step 1. Take Notes While You Read

If you’re reading a print or hardcover book, highlight important quotes, ideas, or questions, and then write the page number on the first blank page.

By contrast, if you’re reading a Kindle book, use Kindle’s “notes” and “highlights” to capture and save important takeaways. Try to be as descriptive as possible to save time when exporting.

When reading Drive by Dan H. Pink, I marked a popular highlight.

But I also added a note, so when I summarized Drive , weeks, or even months later, I knew who Pink was quoting.

I also recommend highlighting the book’s chapter headings as you’re reading. You won’t always write a book summary, chapter by chapter, but for certain books, where each chapter builds on the last, it’s much easier to get an overview of your notes and highlights.

If you’re reading a print or hardcover book, write your notes and highlights into your preferred word processor or note-taking app. (I recommend Notion for reasons I’ll mention in Step 3.)

However, if you’re reading a Kindle book, adding your notes and highlights is quicker and easier. To export your notes and highlights, go to Your Amazon Kindle page . 

Next, copy all your notes and highlights and paste them into a preferred word processor or note-taking app. For this tutorial, I’m using Notion .

Then, remove all instances of “Read more at location [NUMBER],” “Delete this highlight,” and “Add a note” to remove all redundant copy.

Next, rewrite each highlight in your own words. If a highlight lacks context, like the example I mentioned in Step 1., rewrite it to include the note.

For example, before rewriting, this highlight read, “‘When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity,’ he wrote.” 

However, after editing, it became, “In one study, Edward Deci found that when money is used as an external reward for some activity, subjects lost intrinsic interest for the activity.”

If you highlighted chapter headings, as suggested in Step 1., turn them into subheadings. I also suggest adding a divider to separate each block. 

Editor’s Note

If you commit to writing book summaries over time, you will soon have dozens, if not hundreds, of summaries that will require a sound organizational system.

To do that, I recommend building a digital commonplace book in Notion. To learn more about how to do that, check out this article .

One of the best book summarization practices is called progressive summarization (PS). Coined by Tiago Forte, the idea is to summarize your notes, and then summarize that summary, then summarizing that summary, distilling the ideas into smaller and smaller layers each time.

There are five layers to PS, but I’ve adapted it for a book summary, specifically.

First, we have layer 1, which is a book’s notes and highlight, unedited, including redundant copy like “Add a note.” The problem, though, as mentioned previously, is raw notes lack context and are therefore unhelpful when we return to them in the future.

Layer 2, the first round of summarization, solves that problem, with a summary of the book, in your own words.

Layer 3 is the second round of summarization. Forte recommends bolding the book’s big ideas at this layer, but I use highlights instead for reasons I’ll explain in a moment.

At layer 3, I highlight key takeaways that are not context-specific.

Next, for Layer 4, I bold what I call “ Directives .” These are bite-sized instructions that “tell” you what to do. Here’s a Layer 3 example (highlights) with Level 4 (bold) added after a fourth revision.

At this stage, if I notice an idea that’s similar to one in another book, I use Notion’s callout box feature to draw attention and link it to the book summary for reference.

Finally, for a tiny minority of book summaries I write, I “remix” them by combining them with another idea for a piece of content. Remixing is a Layer 5 practice.

For instance, for one of my weekly Words Into Works newsletters, I knew I wanted to share a story about Abraham Lincoln, which Ryan Holiday introduced me to in his book, The Daily Stoic . 

I also knew I wanted to use the story to illustrate the idea of pausing, an idea I learned from The Little Book of Yes . So I combined Holiday’s story with Goldstein’s idea and added a creative spin to help me internalize the idea.

I should mention progressive summarization is done best over time. You shouldn’t go through all five levels for a summary in one sitting, nor will you need to. 

But for a select few, you will return, again and again, over time, and improve on the summary you wrote, often with a greater understanding than when you first wrote it.

Writing a book summary requires time, energy, and effort. That much is a given. But when done consistently, over time, it’s one of the best investments you can make in yourself. 

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June 23, 2020 at 12:05 am

It feels like divine intervention to have found your website, Sam. I just finished reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad a week ago, and was summarizing it and linking to other alternative summarizes to the document and I came across your website. I’ve been looking to incorporate book summaries into a blog and my own commonplace book to help myself internalize the content and help my friends. This article of yours is just what I needed. Once I saw your mention of Scientific Advertising , I knew I immediately had to comment on my thanks and check out the rest of your website haha. I’m looking forward to exploring more of your site!

June 23, 2020 at 7:16 am

Thanks a lot, Shawn. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

August 16, 2021 at 11:23 am

Thanks to you. I enjoyed reading this article and gain a lot of ideas. Thank you once again.

August 18, 2021 at 4:33 pm

My pleasure. Glad you enjoyed the article.

November 4, 2021 at 10:44 pm

Many thanks to you! I enjoyed to read this article and it was very impressive! Thanks

November 14, 2021 at 8:54 am

Thanks, Bava. Glad you found it helpful 🙂

July 22, 2020 at 2:11 pm

Sam –

I love your work. Thanks for all you are doing to make great knowledge more accessible to all of us.

I’d like to start writing summaries of the great books I listen to. How long does it take you to write a summary? I want to block some time in my calendar to write summaries.

Thanks so much!

– Curt

July 24, 2020 at 10:55 am

Thanks, Curt. Writing a book summary can take anywhere from six to nine hours, depending on the book’s length.

August 10, 2020 at 1:19 pm

Wow. That is a long time! Thank you for sharing the fruit of your efforts!

August 10, 2020 at 1:47 pm

My pleasure. Thanks for reading, Curt.

August 18, 2021 at 2:03 pm

Thanks a lot, sir. I really grabbed something here. Though a lot of time is required I will practice.

August 18, 2021 at 4:32 pm

Thanks, Jennifer.

August 25, 2020 at 2:10 pm

Amazing job you are doing Sam by writing these priceless summaries. A heartfelt thanks! Btw, just wanted to know: Do we still need to read the books after reading your summary? 😛 I mostly read non-fiction self help books to get ideas for improvement which I believe you are covering aptly in the summary. So what do you suggest? Should I save my time and focus on the implementation part?

August 29, 2020 at 3:07 pm

Thanks, Anabil. I would also recommend reading the book still. The summary is only one interpretation, one that often changes with each new read.

July 7, 2021 at 12:57 pm

Thank you, Sam. I think I understand what you have written here. Helpful. 🙂

I have a question. How do we differentiate a summary of fiction from nonfiction?

Thanks, Kulbushan

July 12, 2021 at 6:17 am

Thanks, Kulbushan. I would still focus on summarizing the book chapter-by-chapter.

August 6, 2021 at 7:49 am

Thanks for your work, Sam. This is so far the most valuable post I have read on summarizing books. The step-by-step guide along with the principles is exactly what I was looking for. While I was at it, I also read some of your book summaries – and kudos to that! 🙂 I am very grateful for your site.

August 6, 2021 at 5:12 pm

Thanks, Sri. I’m glad you found it helpful.

August 26, 2021 at 5:27 am

Thanks, Sam.

February 8, 2022 at 6:19 am

This is so true Sam I think writing summaries help us condense our learning and helps our audience as well as they can easily consume our byte-sized lessons.

February 17, 2022 at 11:00 pm

Very insightful. I struggle remembering most books I read so decided to use a summary to at least reflect. I decided to research how to do this and I chanced on your website. Thank you. Very helpful.

May 18, 2022 at 7:00 am

Thanks, Seth. Glad you found it useful.

February 18, 2022 at 1:48 pm

This is dope, I loved it. Thanks for being plain and clear for a better understanding.

February 28, 2022 at 7:14 am

My pleasure, Andrew. Glad you liked the post.

April 8, 2022 at 4:34 pm

Hi Sam, Your highly instructive and rich article is surely providing great support for writers of overviews and summaries. I have almost finished a book of a prehistoric-linguistic denomination. I am about to prepare it for publishing. One of my tasks is to edit an overview. Would you be able to do the overview for me and how much it will cost?

Kind Regards,

April 18, 2022 at 3:59 pm

Afraid not, Sabah. Try searching for a copyeditor on Upwork. Best of luck.

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The Seven Year Slip (Review, Book Summary & Spoilers)

By ashley poston.

Book review, full book summary and synopsis for The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston, a rom-com about a woman who moves into a magical apartment and falls for a man who exists seven years in the past.

In The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston, Clementine is a book publicist whose aunt passed away six months ago, leaving her an Upper West Side apartment in a highly sought-after building her will.

Clementine remembers the stories her aunt once told her about the apartment and its magical ability to slip its inhabitants back in time by exactly seven years, but it's not until a handsome stranger is standing in her home that Clementine truly believes it.

Soon, Clementine finds her falling for this guy, but she knows that falling for someone who exists seven years apart from her is not a small complication to say the least...

(The Full Plot Summary is also available, below)

Full Plot Summary

The four-paragraph version: Clementine is a book publicist who inherits her aunt's apartment after she passes away, knowing her aunt's claims that the apartment has the magical ability to transport its inhabitants back in time by exactly seven years, though it's unpredictable. Clementine is skeptical until the apartment reverts back in time one day, and a stranger, Iwan, is there. He says he has permission to stay there for the summer. Clementine and Iwan soon fall for one another, but the apartment soon reverts to current-day.

At work, Clementine is given the task of bringing in a potentially bestselling author, a handsome and well-known restauranteur, known as James Ashton. It turns out to be Iwan, which is his middle name. Iwan remembers her but is unsure how Clementine feels now, and Clementine doesn't understand why Iwan never came to find her. As her publishing house engages in the bidding process for Iwan's upcoming cookbook and he opens a new restaurant, Clementine sees how Iwan has changed and misses the man she fell for.

Eventually, Clementine realizes that she needs to accept Iwan as the person that he is today, and Clementine understands why it wouldn't have made sense for him to come find her. And when Clementine sees Iwan-from-seven-years-ago again, she tells him the truth about what's been happening and tells him to wait seven years for her. She doesn't want him to go looking for her now, because she knows that she was a different person seven years ago and it wouldn't make sense for him to try to be with the early twenties version of herself who was still figuring herself out. Clementine is also inspired to quit her job and pursue something more meaningful for her.

When Clementine sees present-day Iwan again, he tells her that he has changed but also that he appreciates the reminder of who he once was. He tells her he loves her, and she says it back. Then, Clementine and Iwan embark on the beginning of something new.

For more detail, see the full Chapter-by-Chapter Summary .

If this summary was useful to you, please consider supporting this site by leaving a tip ( $2 , $3 , or $5 ) or joining the Patreon !

Book Review

Ashley Poston’s The Seven Year Slip is a rom-com with a time-traveling twist that came out last June. I’ve continued to be the mood for some lighter, faster and more entertaining books lately and this seemed right up that alley.

In The Seven Year Slip , Clementine is a book publicist at a small but reputable publishing house who has recently become the owner of her aunt’s fashionable Upper East Side apartment. Her aunt passed away six months ago, and Clementine is still struggling with her grief. She thinks fondly about her adventures with her aunt and remembers her aunt saying that the apartment was magical — in a literal, not just metaphorical, sense.

But it’s not until Clementine enters her apartment one day to find it transported seven years into the past that she really believes it. And to complicate matters, there’s a man there who says he’s been given permission to stay there for the summer while her aunt is away traveling. Stuck together for the time being, Clementine starts to fall for him despite being someone who has always kept her heart closely guarded. She knows it’s useless falling for a man who exists seven years in the past, but before she can figure out what to do next, he’s gone again…

The Seven Year Slip is a really fun, classic rom-com type story. You basically can guess what’s going to happen, but there’s a lot of joy in the anticipation of when and how it’ll come about. Along with the com-com elements, the book also lightly explores the way people change over time.

I had a lot of fun reading this delightful book, and it sped by very quickly.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a huge sucker for anything involving time travel, so I had feeling this would be a win for me. And I was right, and I also really like being right. So it was a double win, basically.

Read it or Skip it?

If you’re looking for a book that’s fun and has a classic rom-com-type feel, the Seven Year Slip s serves it up in a bright, time-traveling package. It’s a little predictable in the way that rom-coms can be fairly predictable, but it’s also enjoyable and delivers on its entertaining and slightly magical premise.

I’d easily recommend this book to anyone looking for some rom-com goodness.

I was surprised that I originally found out about this book on a list of book club reads. I’d say it’s probably not substantive enough to be a good book club book. Like, I’d struggle to come up with a solid list of discussion questions about it, unless you’re in the type of book club that’s more about socializing and less about the book itself. It’s definitely a crowd-pleaser, though. I’d recommend it more as a beach read.

See The Seven Year Slip on Amazon.

The Seven Year Slip Audiobook Review

Narrator : Brittany Pressley Length : 9 hours 42 minutes

I listened to parts of this via audiobook. I thought it was fine. I didn’t love the voice that she used for the male lead, but that’s always going to be tough for a woman to really sell.

Hear a sample of The Seven Year Slip audiobook on Libro.fm.

Book Excerpt

Read the first pages of The Seven Year Slip

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Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: stay busy, work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future. Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed. After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

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My book club is definitely more social than discussion. I went to the first one ready to discuss and reviewed questions and we did nothing of the sort! I also enjoyed this one – Jeanna (www.drbookmom.com

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Editors at The Times Book Review choose the best fiction and nonfiction titles this year.

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How Beautiful We Were

By imbolo mbue.

Following her 2016 debut, “ Behold the Dreamers ,” Mbue’s sweeping and quietly devastating second novel begins in 1980 in the fictional African village of Kosawa, where representatives from an American oil company have come to meet with the locals, whose children are dying because of the environmental havoc (fallow fields, poisoned water) wreaked by its drilling and pipelines. This decades-spanning fable of power and corruption turns out to be something much less clear-cut than the familiar David-and-Goliath tale of a sociopathic corporation and the lives it steamrolls. Through the eyes of Kosawa’s citizens young and old, Mbue constructs a nuanced exploration of self-interest, of what it means to want in the age of capitalism and colonialism — these machines of malicious, insatiable wanting.

Random House. $28. | Read our review | Read our profile of Mbue | Listen to Mbue on the podcast

By Katie Kitamura

In Kitamura’s fourth novel, an unnamed court translator in The Hague is tasked with intimately vanishing into the voices and stories of war criminals whom she alone can communicate with; falling meanwhile into a tumultuous entanglement with a man whose marriage may or may not be over for good. Kitamura’s sleek and spare prose elegantly breaks grammatical convention, mirroring the book’s concern with the bleeding lines between intimacies — especially between the sincere and the coercive. Like her previous novel, “A Separation,” “Intimacies” scrutinizes the knowability of those around us, not as an end in itself but as a lens on grand social issues from gentrification to colonialism to feminism. The path a life cuts through the world, this book seems to say, has its greatest significance in the effect it has on others.

Riverhead Books. $26. | Read our review | Read our profile of Kitamura

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

By honorée fanonne jeffers.

“The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois,” the first novel by Jeffers, a celebrated poet, is many things at once: a moving coming-of-age saga, an examination of race and an excavation of American history. It cuts back and forth between the tale of Ailey Pearl Garfield, a Black girl growing up at the end of the 20th century, and the “songs” of her ancestors, Native Americans and enslaved African Americans who lived through the formation of the United States. As their stories converge, “Love Songs” creates an unforgettable portrait of Black life that reveals how the past still reverberates today.

Harper/HarperCollins. $28.99. | Read our review | Listen to Jeffers on the podcast

No One Is Talking About This

By patricia lockwood.

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• Blinkist Review 2024

How good is the Blinkist app? Is it useful? What does it feel like as a paying customer? And what about pricing? Does it hold up against other book summary services? The goal of my Blinkist review is to answer all those questions for you and more.

If you prefer to watch a video, you can see my live walkthrough of the Blinkist app below. This includes an analysis of its pros and cons and the price.

For an extensive review of the Blinkist app in written form, read on below or jump to any section using this table of contents:

Table of Contents

Quick Summary of My Blinkist Review (FAQ)

Pros of reading book summaries:, cons of reading book summaries:, 1. the discover tab, 2. the library tab, 3. the you tab, 1. reading book summaries, 2. listening to audio book summaries, recap: user experience on blinkist, pros of using the blinkist app:, cons of using the blinkist app:, what are the best books on blinkist, recap: how useful is the blinkist app, how much does blinkist cost, blinkist alternatives (free book summary services), blinkist alternatives (paid book summary services), recap: is blinkist worth it, conclusion: my blinkist review, other reviews.

If you want to come back to it at any time, just hit the little up arrow icon on the bottom right corner of this page.

If you want more information about Blinkist the company, details of individual features, and a walkthrough of the web app and how it feels compared to the app, check out my Blinkist Explainer Guide .

For this review, we’ll start with a quick summary where I give you brief answers to the most important questions.

• Is Blinkist app free? Yes, but as a free user, you can only read “the daily pick,” which is a random book summary.
• What’s it like to use Blinkist app? The user experience is simple, easy, and fast, thanks to Blinkist’s minimalistic interface, focused features, and sleek design. It’s geared towards reading and listening, which are its main use cases.
• Does Blinkist work offline? Yes. The summaries you add to your library will automatically be downloaded in text format. You can also download audios, even automatically, and delete them again after you’re done listening.
• How many books are on Blinkist? There are over 7,000 books in the Blinkist library and the team adds about 40 new titles per month.
• How much does Blinkist cost? The monthly pricing is $12.99, but if you buy the annual plan, you’ll get 50% off. If you use an affiliate link like ours , however, you can get another 35% off, putting the final price at $4.33 per month (that’s less than $0.15 per day). You can do so here .
• Is Blinkist worth the money? I think so. It’s the cheapest book summary service in absolute terms, costs less than a coffee a day (or in some places even a month!), offers great value for the money, and beats most free book summary sites.

If this is all you’ve wanted to know, and you now want to go right ahead and start a completely risk-free 7-day trial of Blinkist, you can use the button below to get started (and secure an extra 35% off should you decide to keep your subscription).

You’ll also support Four Minute Books at no extra cost to you, as we’ll receive a small commission for referring you. Thank you! If you haven’t made up your mind yet, just read on for the rest of our detailed Blinkist review.

What are the Pros and Cons of Reading Book Summaries (in General)?

When reviewing a tool or service, most people immediately jump into what they like and don’t like. That’s a mistake, especially when looking at one of many services in a particular category. In this case, book summaries .

The concept of a book summary itself has some specific advantages and disadvantages. Naturally, these will transfer to Blinkist and any other book summary service. You can’t really blame a particular company for them.

Let’s first look at those, so we can better pinpoint the unique pros and cons of Blinkist later.

• You’ll skip all unnecessary information. This is especially helpful for books that only make one or a few good points. It also helps you avoid poor books altogether.
• You can learn about more and different topics faster. Instead of being stuck on one book about meditation for a month, you can read a summary in a few minutes. Then, you can jump to the next mindfulness book or a new topic altogether.
• You’ll likely remember more without taking notes. Since book summaries center around facts and short ways to illustrate them, you’ll likely come away from one summary with 3-5 things you’ll remember. If you read a full book without taking notes, it’s hard to properly memorize anything.
• You’ll lose most of the story and humor of the book. This is bad, because it makes reading fun. Depending on how much you connect with the story, it also helps you remember a lot, even if you might have to take notes.
• You will miss out on big ideas and spontaneous insights from truly great books. The best books hit hard with every page. It’s impossible to transfer all of their knowledge into a summary. Some books you just have to read in full to get the most out of them.
• Due to a lack of context, you might interpret facts the wrong way. Sometimes, a summary states an idea one way, whereas the context of the book sets it up in another. But because that context is now missing, you’re interpreting the idea differently and thus get an impression the author didn’t want you to have.
• You are now trusting not just the author of the book, but also whoever wrote the summary. If the summary writer does a bad job, you lose. For example, they might fail to include an important story and so you won’t remember a crucial fact.

Again, these apply to all book summaries and the services that provide them. So with those in mind, let’s turn our attention to the Blinkist app user experience.

How Does It Feel to Use the Blinkist App?

First, the Blinkist app is available for both iPhone  and  Android . Downloading the app is free. You can sign up using your email address or Facebook account. When you open the app for the first time, you’ll get a short tutorial of how everything works.

One of the first things you’ll notice is that the app only has three tabs for you to choose from :

• Discover . This is where you can explore their library and find new titles.
• Library . Here, you’ll have access to your personal selection of books.
• You . This is where your settings and saved highlights are.

This is brilliant, because it makes navigating the app and choosing what to do really easy. Let’s look at the individual tabs.

There are seven ways to find new book summaries inside the Blinkist app:

• You can search for a specific title, author, or keyword.
• The Daily Minute is a short introduction to the free book summary of the day .
• You can browse their 27 categories.
• The app generates personalized reading recommendations for you.
• There are multiple curated book lists from experts and authors .
• Trending blinks are what’s popular right now.
• The “New” section shows you the most recently added titles.

Since they have multiple ways of exploring, you can both find specific books and topics you’re looking for and randomly find new things.

This is the central tab, the main view, the homepage, if you will. Your library is a list of all the summaries you’ve saved to read, which you can do in all discover modes using the ⨁ (plus) icon.

You’ll see a blue progress bar for all the books you’ve started and a green bar for all the ones you’ve completed. You can also filter your library for only audiobooks and by how much progress you’ve made. Finally, you can sort it by the books you’ve most recently added, opened, how much progress you’ve made, and alphabetically.

You can even create your own tagging system, save books as favorites on your profile, or download the audio for any book with one tap. The text summaries of all books in your library will be downloaded automatically, so you can always read them offline.

Here, you will also see a small, dark blue banner at the bottom, prompting you to continue reading your last summary where you left off. The library is from where you’ll start most of your reading journeys inside the app.

This tab is a very simplistic profile. It only shows a list of your favorite books (which you control via the ❤︎ (heart) button or by using the three dots icon in your library) and your highlights.

Your favorites list is a way to filter books even more, but I personally don’t use this feature, as I find the library does enough of that.

Your highlights are sorted by book and, if you tap on one, you’ll see which blink each one is from. You can also share them directly to Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, email, and many other services from here.

Finally, this is where you’ll find your settings. You can switch languages (they have German and English), activate email notifications for the Daily Minute, and choose how you want to download audios. There’s an option to auto-download, to turn off mobile data for it, and even to auto-delete audios after you’re done listening.

This also where you can sync your profile with your Evernote account and connect your Kindle. The first allows you to save all your highlights in an Evernote notebook and make them searchable. With the second you can send book summaries to your Kindle, save them forever, and take them anywhere.

As you can see, moving around the app is very easy to do thanks to its structure. Let’s see how it feels to use the main features: reading and audio.

What are the Main Features of the Blinkist App?

There really are only two use cases for the Blinkist app: reading summaries and listening to them. But what does that look and feel like?

When you tap on a book inside your library, you’ll see a brief overview along with the option to either read it or listen to it. If you tap on “Read,” you’ll be taken to the first ‘blink,’ which is what Blinkist calls the pages of their summaries. It describes what you can get out of reading the summary.

Then, you can swipe from one key highlight to the next. You’ll see a progress bar at the bottom and you can highlight any part of the text that speaks to you. There’s also a table of contents, a toggle to adjust the font size or switch to white-on-black mode (rather than the default black-on-white), and a button to quickly switch to audio mode.

In between blinks, you’ll sometimes see nuggets of wisdom from the book, which is a nice goodie. The final blink is always a summary with some actionable advice. Then, you can mark the title as finished and go back to your library. Easy peasy!

When you hit “Listen” in the book overview, you’ll go to the audio player. The blinks of that book will now play one after another until you’ve finished the whole summary.

You can also enable autoplay at the bottom of the screen, which will proceed to play all the books from your library in a row. If you swipe left, you can change the order of books in your queue, too. When you enable “Offline mode,” the app will only play audios you’ve previously downloaded.

The audio player itself is very easy to understand. The key takeaway of each blink is shown in the middle and the controls allow you to skip 15 seconds forward and backward, as well as increase or decrease speed. The minimum is half speed, the maximum is twice as fast. That’s it, plain and simple, just like using Spotify or your phone’s standard music player!

Blinkist truly wants to save you some time. You can feel it. The design is very minimalistic, and that’s on purpose. Everything is concise and to the point. They don’t give you many options and that’s a good thing.

In fact, they’ve removed several features from previous versions, and I think it serves a purpose. Blinkist wants you to be focused on one thing and one thing only: learning from books through reading and listening.

That’s why there are no cluttered sidebars, no fancy buttons, no advertisements. The user interface reminds me of Medium . It’s extremely focused on giving you the best reading and listening experience possible. Nothing more, nothing less.

This also means navigation is easy, you can hardly do anything wrong or go somewhere you don’t want to be inside the app. Loading times are fast, both on the phone and web app , and thanks to offline reading and downloading audios, you don’t even need an internet connection at all times.

So much for the user experience. Now let’s talk pros and cons.

Thank you for reading this far! Ready to jump in and try Blinkist? Use the button below to get started and snag a sweet 35% off should you decide to keep your subscription after your totally risk-free one-week trial. Comes with free support of Four Minute Books at no extra cost (we’re an affiliate). If you want to know more first, read on for the remainder of our review.

What are the Pros & Cons of the Blinkist App Specifically?

Now that you know what it feels like to use the app, let’s talk about some of its ups and downs. Again, remember that all book summaries have advantages and disadvantages, but these are specific to Blinkist’s service:

• The book summaries are complete. You don’t get just a few ideas or important concepts from a book, you get all of them .
• It’s very easy to consume content and learn. The app is simple to use, convenient to navigate, and a child could figure out how to access the main features, reading and listening, within minutes.
• Highlighting helps a lot with remembering facts from summaries. This is an underrated feature, as it can make a big difference in how much information you retain, but you also have to use it to get the benefits.
• The audio experience on Blinkist is seamless. You tap, it plays, you listen. Perfect for learning during long workouts, your commute to work, or while cooking or cleaning your house.
• Humor and most emotion are stripped away almost completely from the book. Some writers make a point to capture some of the book’s unique spirit in their summary. Blinkist doesn’t, it’s very geared towards facts.
• Reading many summaries in a row can feel repetitive and boring. That’s mostly because of the lack of story, and it’s why I’d recommend reading 1-2 summaries a day, no more.
• Some summaries are too short for the book they represent. I’ve come across summaries that only had three or four blinks, but the actual book was really long. I suspect those will miss many important points.
• There is no scrutiny towards individual books. The Blinkist team doesn’t review, critique, rank, or fact-check any of the books. That means these jobs are still yours to do.

I’ll give you my final thoughts on how these weigh against one another at the end of this review, but for now, I’ll let you be the judge.

Next, let’s look at some of the content itself so we can get an idea of how useful the service might be for you.

The single best way to get a feel for the content on Blinkist is to read today’s free summary . You can also listen to the audio. You’ll find both  here . That said, here are 10 of Blinkist’s all-time most popular titles so you can see what kind of books they have:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey . This all-time classic describes seven habits most successful people share and how to form them in your own life.
• Getting Things Done by David Allen . The default manifesto on productivity. A simple system with a few hard and fast rules to help you do your work.
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman . In this book, you’ll learn about cognitive biases and how they shape – and sometimes distort – our perception and decisions.
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg . This is one of the best books on making and breaking habits there is. Thanks to Duhigg’s habit loop, you can identify and change your behavior in the ways that you want.
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss . If you want to be an entrepreneur, this is for you. Tim describes how he built, automated, and later even sold his company. More importantly, he gives you the tools and tactics to create your own in a way that funds your lifestyle without taking too much time.
• Influence by Robert Cialdini . One of the best books on how to interact and build relationships with other people. You can use this book to find friends, get a promotion, or find a compromise with your spouse.
• Drive by Daniel Pink . Pink dissects what motivates us, which is really helpful in finding work you love.
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell . By analyzing a few extreme cases, Gladwell manages to deliver a template of why products, ideas, and people are successful – or not.
• Mindset by Carol Dweck . There are two main ways to look at the world: you can either try and learn from everything (a growth mindset) or accept everything as is (a fixed mindset). Dweck helps us go from one to the other.
• Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi . One of the best books on creativity and happiness. It explains why we enjoy the activities we enjoy and helps us do more of them.

If you sign up for a free, 7-day trial , you can read all of the above. You can also get a sneak peek at their content by reading their free summaries on Four Minute Books. You can find them all in our index of book summaries .

Blinkist has over 7,000 books in its database. The selection is also growing at about 40 books per month. That’s a true all-you-can-read buffet of book summaries . No matter whether you want to learn about growth hacking, stoicism, economics, entrepreneurship, habits, mindfulness, happiness, love, biology, history, or food, you will find the right book.

What’s more, thanks to cutting out the fluff, but giving you all the important ideas of a book, Blinkist also lets you decide what you want to learn from a book and how much . You can get just the main concept from a book like The One Thing , or browse all blinks and see how many sound new to you. If you find many interesting things, you can still buy the book. If not, you can be done with it or return to it later.

The purpose of Blinkist is to give you a factual analysis of the core message of a book, along with all its important points. And it really delivers on that promise. Therefore, you can use Blinkist both as a complement and supplement to books. Get the best ideas from books not worth reading in full and screen great ones before you commit to them.

Okay, time for the money talk. How expensive is this service?

Thank you for reading this far! If our book selection has made you curious, please use the button below to sign up for Blinkist. You’ll support this site at no extra cost in the process by automatically letting them know we’ve referred you, and we’ll get a small commission should you keep your subscription.

The trial lasts 7 days, however, and is completely free! And now, on to the rest of our Blinkist review: pricing and competitors!

First, the Blinkist app is free to download and install. But with a free account, you can only read one summary each day: the daily pick. This is a set of randomly chosen blinks, so you can’t control what you’re reading. Full access requires a Premium subscription.

Blinkist offers a monthly and an annual plan.

For $12.99 per month (or the same amount in €, if you’re in Europe), you get unlimited access to their content. That includes over 7,000 titles, including audio versions, shortcasts (summaries of podcasts), offline reading and downloading, highlighting, as well as the ability to sync your highlights to Evernote  or send summaries straight to your  Kindle . That’s less than $0.50 per day and pretty cheap if you consider the “skill” you’re getting in return. But wait!

On the annual plan, you get 50% off, which means you’ll pay only $6.67 (or €) per month . That’s a steep discount. Even if you just use the app for six months, it’ll have paid for itself. Can it get any better? Actually, yes, it can.

Four Minute Books is a Blinkist affiliate , meaning we can give you another 35% off if you use our link . In return, we’ll receive a commission for referring you to Blinkist as a customer. In the end, you’ll pay just $4.33 per month – less than $0.15 per day!

How Much Does Blinkist Offer Compared to Other Book Summary Services?

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of book summary services.

First, there are those offering free book summaries , like we do on Four Minute Books . This usually means affiliate links to the actual books are included in the content. Often, it’s just one or a few people running the site and sharing their notes.

Second, there are paid book summary services, like Blinkist. These either charge you per summary or you’ll have to pay a monthly fee to access all their titles. Usually, it’ll be a team creating the content in multiple formats.

We wrote an in-depth article looking at the 8 best Blinkist alternatives overall , but for now, let’s look at some of the most popular ones in both categories and how they stack up against Blinkist.

• Optimize by Heroic . Brian Johnson used to run Optimize.me as a paid service. Over 250,000+ people use it. However, he recently raised money, turned his company into a B Corp (a public benefit for-profit corporation), and made the app free! Before, it used to be ~$100/year. Optimize offers over 600 Philosopher’s Notes, structured 6-page PDFs of some of the world’s best titles. It also includes audios, videos, and a lot more. Great free book summary app!
• The Power Moves . Lucio is incredibly dedicated to objectivity and putting out quality content. I didn’t count the number of summaries in his list , but it seems to be the only free one that rivals our nearly 500 titles .
• NJlifehacks . Nils and Jonas are great, positive guys, and they put a lot of hard work into their writing. They even create custom images for their summaries . Awesome!
• Actionable Books . With over 1,000 summaries, this is technically the largest list , but the articles don’t really feel like summaries. They all share just one big idea and then two more random insights. I’m not convinced of this structure. I know our own 3-lesson format is sometimes limited, but this even more so.
• James Clear . King James barely needs an introduction. He’s one of the most prolific researchers and writers on the science of habits. He’s summarized many popular books in 3 sentences.
• Sam Thomas Davies . I’ve known Sam for years now, and he dissects the psychology of our brains like no other. He also has 100+ book summaries which he’s organized perfectly by category.
• Nat Eliason . Nat is one of the great experimenters of our time, covering everything from health to tech to sex to entrepreneurship. His book notes are more like highlights, but combined with his ratings they’re very useful.
• Derek Sivers . After selling his business, Derek is now living a quiet life as a thinker, writer, developer, musician, and whatever else he wants to be. He has notes on over 250 books too. Respect!

Other free services, like Spark Notes , CliffNotes , and WikiSummaries are more concerned with textbooks and classic literature, to help you study for school.

Considering you only get one summary per day as a free Blinkist user, many other services offer far more free content. At the same time, these services rarely provide summaries that are as complete or in-depth as Blinkist’s, precisely because they are free. Often, they also have less content overall, as Blinkist’s team of 60+ people can put out way more summaries than any one- or two-person blog.

If you’re only reading a few summaries a month or don’t care about the randomness of Blinkist’s daily pick, free might do the trick for you. But if you want more, a paid service is the way to go.

• Headway . This is a relatively new app, offering bite-sized learning in a variety of formats. They only launched in 2019 but already boast over 12 million users, making them a serious Blinkist competitor. By using a combination of quotes, summaries, audio, and graphics, they make it really easy for you to make learning a habit. At $90/year, it costs about the same as Blinkist.
• Shortform . A few years ago, I saw a guy named Allen Cheng post incredibly detailed book summaries on his blog. Now, his work has become the foundation of Shortform, a full-scale book summary service trying to offer the most detailed, chapter-by-chapter book summaries of them all. You can read our full review of Shortform here .
• Instaread . Another solid Blinkist competitor with over 2,000 books summarized, a sleek-looking app and format, and a nice level of depth and storytelling to their content. It’s about the same price as Blinkist too, and has some neat goodies like swiping left and right on quotes from books. Read our full review here .
• getAbstract . With over 18,000 books, this is probably the biggest book summary service in the world. They have a cool student offering (free for one year, then 59 €/year), but the regular Pro and Enterprise licenses are really expensive (299 € and more per year). You can read our in-depth review of them here .
• Uptime . This app offers 5-minute knowledge hacks for books, courses, documentaries, and even podcasts in extremely creative reading, listening, and watching formats. Starts from just $4/month! Read our detailed review here .
• Readitfor.me . This service is more geared towards busy professionals with its 12-minute video summaries and audios. It also costs $19/month, or $29/month if you want access to their masterclasses.
• FlashBooks . I’m not sure how many summaries this service has, but at $29/month after a $1-trial-week, it’s definitely expensive.
• Readingraphics . This service takes a more visual approach to reading with infographics for each books. However, for $19/month you only get 3 new summaries, which is a high price per piece of content.
• Scribd . Scribd aggregates and summarizes all kinds of content, from audiobooks to books to magazines to research papers. They also often host full-version PDFs of the originals. You can read our in-depth review here .

My friend Prakhar created a great list of even more services and tools , but I think these are the most relevant ones. If you ask me, Instaread and getAbstract are the best alternatives to Blinkist, as they have a similar, if slightly more expensive price-to-value ratio, not factoring in any discounts . Optimize is probably the best free alternative.

If you want to learn from multiple books a week or even a day, I think Blinkist offers the best value for the money .

To figure out whether you should pay for a subscription, I like this thought experiment:

Imagine you could buy the skill of being able to read one book every single day. Just like in The Matrix , it’s uploaded right into your brain. How much would that skill be worth to you? $1,000? $10,000? $100,000? Whatever your number is, that’s what Blinkist should be worth to you.

Because with a Blinkist Premium subscription, you’re essentially acquiring this skill overnight. Instead of wasting lots of time on bad books and procrastinating on reading, you’ll read one set of blinks and digest  all of the core ideas of an entire book in 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, colleges charge $200,000 for a degree in which they barely teach you anything.

In my town, Munich in Germany, some cafés charge $7 or more for a single cappuccino or latte. Yet, for less than that, I can get a full month of access to over 7,000 book summaries and audios, all designed to do only one thing: make me smarter.

At $0.15/day, I pay ten times the money for my daily coffee. Maybe, you are too. If that’s not a no-brainer, I don’t know what is. 

Thanks to Blinkist, you’ll save lots of time, be able to learn in situations where you usually couldn’t, remember more, and soak up knowledge about new topics faster. The pros easily outweigh the cons. Given that it is the cheapest book summary service in absolute terms, and offers great value for the money, I think Blinkist is worth paying for.

Let’s briefly recap each section.

First, the user experience inside the Blinkist app is brilliant. It loads fast, the minimalistic design is simple to understand, it syncs between all your devices and you can always pick up right where you left off. The app gently steers you towards its two only true use cases: reading and listening to summaries of books.

Second, the Blinkist app is extremely useful and its pros outweigh its cons. Sure, the summaries are mostly fact-based and some of them aren’t perfect, but thanks to their completeness, you can pick up tons of ideas in a short time. Since the reading and listening experience is flawless, you’ll also remember a lot of what you read.

Third, Blinkist offers huge value for the money and is the cheapest book summary service in absolute terms. With over 7,000 summaries in its library and a price of only $0.15/day, Blinkist outshines most competitors. They have more content than most free summary sites and are cheaper than all other paid services. But even judged on its own, it’s an investment in yourself you won’t regret.

Here’s my final verdict: Use Blinkist as an extension of your usual reading and a complement to it, not a replacement.

You can skip the fluff of books with only a few good ideas, learn via audio in situations where you can’t read a book, and screen great titles before committing to reading them in full. That’s what this app is perfect for. If you read 1-2 summaries per day, you’ll also greatly speed up your learning overall. I highly recommend you sign up .

Thank you for reading my Blinkist review! I hope you found it helpful. If you like what you’ve seen and are excited to sign up, I’d appreciate it if you used our Blinkist discount code to get an extra 35% off and support us at no extra cost to you.

You can also sign up for a risk-free 7-day trial and make up your mind later. Thank you!

Whatever you do, I’m grateful you read this review and I hope Four Minute Books will help you become smarter.

Looking for our other reviews of the most popular book summary apps, tools, and services? Here’s a list of all the reviews we’ve published so far:

• Academic Mastery With Roam Review 2024
• Audible Review 2024 – Is It Worth the Price?
• Audiobooks.com Review 2024 – Is It Better Than Audible?
• Blinkist vs Headway: Which One Is Best For You?
• Evernote Review 2024: Is It the Best Note-Taking App?
• getAbstract Review 2024
• Headway App Review 2024: Is It the Best Book Summary App?
• Instaread Review 2024
• Masterclass Review 2024: Is Masterclass Really Worth It?
• Scribd Review 2024 — Is It Worth It? (Everand Review)
• Shortform Review 2024: Is Shortform Better Than Blinkist?
• The 17 Best Reading Gadgets to Make Reading Easier & More Fun
• The 8 Best Free & Paid Alternatives to Blinkist (2024)
• Uptime Review 2024: Is This 5-Min Book App Worth It?

Last Updated on June 6, 2024

*Four Minute Books participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon. We also participate in other affiliate programs, such as Blinkist, MindValley, Audible, Audiobooks, Reading.FM, and others. Our referral links allow us to earn commissions (at no extra cost to you) and keep the site running. Thank you for your support.

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Sweet tooth season 3 review: the netflix series sticks the landing with death-defying final season.

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Sweet Tooth's Christian Convery & Nonso Anozie Talk Emotional Final Season & Saying Goodbye To Show

Sweet tooth series ending explained: what it all means, why sweet tooth season 3 brings back key dead character explained by producers.

• Sweet Tooth season 3 ends the series with an epic final chapter.
• Gus has developed profoundly since the start of the show, and season 3 highlights his growth.
• Sweet Tooth season 3 has some of the series' best visuals.

Sweet Tooth season 3 brings back the Netflix series to end Gus' story in the way it should — with necessary love and care. Based on the DC (Vertigo) comic book of the same name, Sweet Tooth tells the story of a world where humans have been almost completely eradicated by a disease called the Sick . In their place are the hybrids, a growing population that consists of young children who are half-human and half-animal. The series focuses on Gus, who is seemingly the first hybrid, a deer boy with the biggest heart of all.

Sweet Tooth

Last season put an end to the biggest villain of the series thus far. In the Sweet Tooth season 2 finale , Neil Sandilands' General Abbott dies alongside his army, the Last Men, in a fierce battle at Yellowstone. With the group of hybrid kids secure, Gus, Big Man, Wendy, and Becky set out on a difficult mission of making their way to Alaska in order to find Gus' mom, Birdie, who is a scientist still looking for a way to cure the Sick and save humans from going extinct.

Sweet Tooth stars Christian Convery and Nonso Anozie discuss the emotional final season, their characters' arcs, and saying goodbye to the show.

Sweet Tooth Looks As Stunning As Ever In Season 3

Sweet Tooth is an exciting series because of the nuanced and hopeful take it brings to post-apocalyptic stories . On the one hand, things are dire for the human race, with a bleak ending approaching fast. However, there is also a huge deal of beauty to be found in this new world. With fewer humans, there is less destruction and killing, and thus nature has been allowed to heal in the ten years that take place between the start of the Sick and Sweet Tooth season 3.

There is a specifically poignant episode where the character is mostly by himself that shows the huge changes in Gus' life since leaving the comfort and safety of Pubba's Cabin to venture off into the world.

Sweet Tooth has had some amazing visuals throughout its run, paring off nicely with the emotional story that showrunners Jim Mickle and Beth Schwartz set out to tell. Season 3 continues that perfect mix of a world that is both full of wonder, seen through the eyes of Gus, Wendy, and other young hybrids, and violence, the default setting of most humans still alive by this point in the show's timeline. Gus and his friends face a long and tumultuous road to find a way to get to Alaska, while the villainous Helen Zhang has other plans for Gus.

It is interesting to see how much Gus has grown throughout this journey. There is a specifically poignant episode where the character is mostly by himself that shows the huge changes in Gus' life since leaving the comfort and safety of Pubba's Cabin to venture off into the world. While Gus is more mature and aware of the dire situation of the world outside his sunny Yellowstone home, the young boy still retains that spark that only a child can have, never faltering in his compassion towards others.

Sweet Tooth Season 3 Brings Closure

The cast gives it their all.

Sweet Tooth season 3's cast sees the return of the series' core stars and adds a few new names that help bring the show through to the finish line in the best way possible. Christian Convery makes season 3 his best yet in the lead role of Gus. He shows growth in his acting skills and makes the character deeply compelling. Gus is more mature but retains his child-like wonder, with Convery slightly switching his approach depending on what kind of obstacle or new character Gus and the gang find on the way to Alaska.

Sweet Tooth has always been a story of finding your own family and creating deep bonds that grow stronger than blood, and season 3 really hits that emotional beat.

After appearing as a towering mountain that rolled forward no matter the adversity, Nonso Anozie's Jepperd, aka Big Man, is much more nuanced in Sweet Tooth season 3. Now older, the toll of a life of action, both before and after the Sick, is catching up with Jep, with the character remaining adamant about protecting Gus no matter the personal cost. In a way, Sweet Tooth has always been a story of finding your own family and creating deep bonds that grow stronger than blood, and season 3 really hits that emotional beat.

Star Wars ' Kelly Marie Tran appears as Rosie, and her dynamic with the new Wolf Boys shows more of the conflict between humans wanting to restart human birth and hybrids, who just want to live their lives unafraid. Birdie finally gets the time to shine this season. Dr. Singh's morals continue to fight in his head throughout the season. Wendy and Becky grow closer as sisters, and new characters help add a fresh perspective to the question: Do humans deserve to live after all they've done? Sweet Tooth season 3 answers that and brings a fitting ending to the series.

All 8 episodes of Sweet Tooth season 3 are now streaming on Netflix.

Based on the comic series of the same name, Sweet Tooth is set in the not-too-distant future, post-apocalyptic United States in the wake of a devastating viral pandemic. After the disease decimated the world's population, some children began to be born with human and animal hybrid characteristics.

• Visuals continue to impress
• Returning and new stars mix well together
• Gus' growth is exciting to watch
• The tragic end of a major character was a shock value moment