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Book reviews are sometimes used on undergraduate courses, and frequently appear in academic journals. This page considers what a book review is , how to structure one , and provides some language for writing a book review .
A book review describes and critically evaluates a (usually recent) book. Like any kind of review, for example a review of a film or television programme, it will offer a description of the main points, consider the strengths and weaknesses, and give an overall evaluation, in order to allow the reader to decide whether or not it will be of interest to them and therefore a good investment of their time and money. Book reviews are sometimes used as assignments on undergraduate courses, and are a common component of academic journals. They are typically short pieces of work, around 500-750 words in length. They may sometimes be shorter or longer, but will rarely exceed 1000 words. A book review should not be confused with a book report, which is a relatively short and purely descriptive assignment, common in high school (rather than university) courses.
A book review will usually begin with bibliographic information . This means details such as the name of the book, the name(s) of the author(s), and the publisher. Other details may be helpful, for example date and place of publication, format, edition, number of pages, price and ISBN.
The text of the review should begin with an introduction . As the review will be fairly brief, it is common to begin with an anecdote or quotation which captures the main idea of the book. The introduction will identify the author and title, specify the type of book, and state the book's subject matter. Further background detail to place the book in context may be given, for example previous work by the author in the same field, prior work by other writers in the same field, or information about the book series (if the book is part of a series). The thesis of the book, i.e. its specific contribution, may also be given, along with your own thesis, i.e. your initial appraisal of the work and key observations.
The main body of the review will provide description and critical evaluation of the text. These may be dealt with separately, with description first and evaluation next, or in combination. Although the evaluation is the more important part, the description may still take up half or two thirds of the content of the main body, in order to lay the foundation for the evaluation.
The description of the text will summarise the book. Evidence from the book, such as quotations, may be used to support the points. This part might give information on the following areas, which can later be used as criteria for evaluating the book:
The critical evaluation will present your reaction to the book. You might compare it to other (similar) books in the field, and consider its relative strengths and weaknesses. In this part you may respond to the areas above by considering key questions, as follows, to further highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the book.
Finally, there should be a conclusion to the book review. This will sum up your thoughts on the book. This means summarising the book's strengths and weaknesses, indicating whether this is a useful book, whether it will make a lasting contribution to its field, whether you recommend it, and who will benefit from reading it.
Note that the above is the structure for a book review for a non-fiction work, which is the most common kind of review for university study. For a work of fiction, a similar approach can be used, though in place of the points for argument and sources, you would consider setting, plot, characters, use of language and voice when describing the book, and consider how effective each of these elements are when evaluating it.
It is important is to make sure that your views are distinct from the author's. This can be done by using the author's name, or referring to 'The author' or 'The book'.
The following phrases might be useful for summarising the contents of the book.
The following phrases can be used to highlight weaknesses.
The following phrases can be used to indicate a suitable audience for the book.
The following adjectives can be used to give a positive review (negatives of these can be used for a negative review).
An example book review, as well as exercises for book reviews, can be found in the book Academic Writing Genres: Essays, Reports & Other Genres , part of the EAP Foundation series of books. You can use the form below to download a sample of the book .
Like the website? Try the books. Enter your email to receive a free sample from Academic Writing Genres .
Below is a checklist for book reviews. Use it to check your own writing, or get a peer (another student) to help you.
Essential details are given, e.g. name of book, author, publisher, date/place of publication, format, edition, number of pages, price, ISBN. | |||
There is an interesting beginning (e.g. anecdote or quotation). | |||
The introduction identifies the author, title, and type of book. | |||
The introduction states what the book is about. | |||
Background is given, e.g. previous work by the author or others in the same field, information about the book series (if part of a series). | |||
The thesis of the book is given, i.e. its specific contribution. | |||
Your thesis is given, i.e. your initial appraisal of the work and key observations. | |||
There is a description of key areas, e.g. summary of content, author's purpose, intended audience, arguments, sources, organisation and layout. | |||
Quotations are used as evidence. | |||
There is critical evaluation of key areas, e.g. content (is everything included?), purpose (is it achieved?), audience (is it suitable?), arguments (are they valid?), evidence (is it strong?), organisation and layout (it is logical and clear?). | |||
Strengths and weaknesses are given. | |||
There is a summary of the book's strengths and weaknesses. | |||
There is an indication of whether the book is useful or makes a lasting contribution. | |||
The conclusion states whether you recommend the book, and what audience it suits. |
Find out more about research proposals in the next section.
Go back to the previous section about literature reviews .
Author: Sheldon Smith ‖ Last modified: 27 December 2022.
Sheldon Smith is the founder and editor of EAPFoundation.com. He has been teaching English for Academic Purposes since 2004. Find out more about him in the about section and connect with him on Twitter , Facebook and LinkedIn .
Compare & contrast essays examine the similarities of two or more objects, and the differences.
Cause & effect essays consider the reasons (or causes) for something, then discuss the results (or effects).
Discussion essays require you to examine both sides of a situation and to conclude by saying which side you favour.
Problem-solution essays are a sub-type of SPSE essays (Situation, Problem, Solution, Evaluation).
Transition signals are useful in achieving good cohesion and coherence in your writing.
Reporting verbs are used to link your in-text citations to the information cited.
Writing a book review, how to find book reviews, search the library, what is a book review.
Book reviews are brief overviews and critiques of a book. They evaluate a book's merits or significance in the field by commenting on the author's writing style as well as the book's themes, accuracy, and other outstanding features. The reviewer might also compare it to similar books. Book reviews may help you to understand a book by doing one or more of the following:
A book is usually reviewed in the year that it is published, or the following year or two. Book reviews are published in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Depending upon where they are published, reviews can be written by academics, librarians, journalists, writers, or practitioners in the field and may appear in a variety of lengths and styles.
To locate book reviews, you need to know the following information:
This bibliographic information is found on the book's title page and on the verso (the back page of the title page). If you need assistance in locating book reviews, interpreting citations, or finding reviews in the library, please come to your campus library's Information Desk for help.
Often, the simplest way of finding book reviews is to search for "[title of book] AND review." As with all sources, you need to take in to account the author of the review, as well as the prospective audience.
Many academic journals contain book review sections for new books in their discipline, but keep in mind that these sections are not usually peer reviewed and book reviews are not generally considered scholarly sources.
Search for book reviews in the following resources:
The purpose of a review is to provide an informed and succinct analysis of an item such as a book, article or video. The review should describe the item’s content and argument(s) and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. A person who has not read (or seen) the item should be able to decide from what you have written whether or not he/she wants to read (or see) the item. Reviews should include the following information:
• a heading which provides all the necessary bibliographic information about the item (i.e., author, title, publisher, publication date, etc.)
• a summary which briefly summarizes what the item is about
• a discussion of the author’s main point which reports on the author’s main purpose and overall argument
• a critique which uses your knowledge of the field to evaluate the quality of the item (i.e., its strengths and weaknesses)
The summary and critique follow one another without the use of subheadings.
The search and collection of information from published sources (books, journals, newspapers, etc.) nowadays may include other types of documents, such as websites, reports from bibliographic databases, etc.
Searching for bibliographic sources relevant to your project is an integral and unavoidable part of the thesis work.
To find out how to conduct your bibliographic research, we suggest you consult the Bibliographic Research Guide .
For a start, you can consult the Library books on academic writing (how to write assignments, presentations, theses ...):
Literature review is the analysis of the academic literature (articles, books, dissertations, theses, etc.) that you have identified when performing your search on the topic.
A review of the relevant literature for the topic selected is a key element of any academic project (dissertation or PhD thesis, writing an article for an academic journal…) for several reasons:
• it provides you with the conceptual context for your research
• it allows you to acquire, deepen and organize knowledge in the chosen research area
• helps you define or better focus your research objectives
Furthermore, its objectives are:
Want to learn more about the literature review? Explore the Project Planner on SAGE Research Methods .
If you notice that a significant book or resource is not included in the Library collections, please let us know : the Library will consider acquiring it!
Book review - no title, book review - title refers to book being reviewed, book review - title doesn't refer to book being reviewed, abbreviating months.
In your works cited list, abbreviate months as follows:
January = Jan. February = Feb. March = Mar. April = Apr. May = May June = June July = July August = Aug. September = Sept. October = Oct. November = Nov. December = Dec.
Spell out months fully in the body of your paper.
Note : For your Works Cited list, all citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent.
A "hanging indent" means that each subsequent line after the first line of your citation should be indented by 0.5 inches.
Author's Last Name, First Name. Review of Title of Book: Subtitle if Any , by Book Author's First Name Last Name. Name of Journal , vol. Volume Number, no. Issue Number, Date of Publication, pp. First Page Number-Last Page Number. Name of Database . https://doi.org/DOI Number if Given.
Note : If the book review is from a source other than an article in the library's database, view the appropriate section on the MLA guide to determine how to cite the source after the name of the book's author.
Works Cited List Example | Khovanova, Tanya. Review of , by Edward Frenkel. , vol. 45, no. 3, May 2014, pp. 230-231. . https://doi.org/10.4169/ college.math.j.45.3.230. |
In-Text Citation Example | (Author's Last Name Page Number) Example: (Khovanova 230) |
Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Review." Name of Journal , vol. Volume Number, no. Issue Number, Date of Publication, pp. First Page Number-Last Page Number. Name of Database . https://doi.org/DOI Number if Given.
Note : If the book review is from a source other than an article in the library's database, view the appropriate section on the MLA guide to determine how to cite the source.
Works Cited List Example | Grosholz, Emily R. "Book Review: by Danielle Macbeth." , vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 263-275, . https://doi.org/10.5642/jhummath.20170120. |
In-Text Citation Example | (Author's Last Name Page Number) Example: (Grosholz 264) |
Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Review." Review of Title of Book: Subtitle if Any, by Book Author's First Name Last Name . Name of Journal , vol. Volume Number, no. Issue Number, Date of Publication, pp. First Page Number-Last Page Number. Name of Database . https://doi.org/DOI Number if Given.
Works Cited List Example | Rodriques, Elias. "Lonesome for our Home." Review of " by Zora Neale Hurston , vol. 306, no. 18, 18 June 2018, pp. 35-39. . |
In-Text Citation Example | (Author's Last Name Page Number) Example: (Rodriques 35) |
Sources for general book reviews.
Have a question? Need assistance? Use our online form to ask a librarian for help.
Chat with a librarian , Monday through Friday, 12-4pm Eastern Time (except Federal Holidays).
Before you start your search you should know the title and author of the book being reviewed. The date of publication will sometimes also be required. Some databases offer a search option to limit search results to book reviews. Where not present, adding a keyword search that includes the phrase "book review" should help. Reviews of popular books are typically published close to their publication dates; find them via book-related websites and indexes that cover general interest periodicals. Reviews of scholarly books may take months to appear in scholarly journals. For more databases that cover scholarly journals, visit the Library of Congress E-Resources Online Catalog .
Free contemporary book reviews are widely available on the web. The sources listed below are some of the most common places to find them.
Subscription databases are great sources for current and recent book reviews. Many also include historical coverage.
These more general subscription databases cover a wide array of periodicals which include book reviews. Using the phrase "book review" in your search can be effective if no check-box option for book reviews is available in the database's search function.
Some researchers seek reviews that are decades or even centuries old, for example, to see how a book written in the 19th Century was reviewed when it was first released. This listing includes general and book review resources. For the general sources, be sure to Include the phrase "book review" in your search if no check-box option for book reviews is available.
C19 Index draws on the strength of established indexes such as the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue (NSTC), The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index, Periodicals Index Online and the Cumulative Index to Niles' Register 18111849 to create integrated bibliographic coverage of over 1.7 million books and official publications, 70,000 archival collections and 20.9 million articles published in over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers. C19 Index now provides integrated access to 13 bibliographic indexes, including more than three million records from British Periodicals Collections I and II, together with the expanded online edition of the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism (DNCJ).
A book review is a thorough description, critical analysis, and/or evaluation of the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, often in relation to prior research on the topic. Reviews generally range from 500-1000 words, but may be longer or shorter depending on the length and complexity of the book being reviewed, the overall purpose of the review, and whether the review is a comparative analysis examining 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 a research problem or issue.
There are two general approaches to reviewing a book:
Book Reviews . Writing Center. University of New Hampshire; Book Reviews: How to Write a Book Review . Writing and Style Guides. Libraries. Dalhousie University.
NOTE: Since most course assignments require that you write a critical rather than descriptive review, the following information about preparing to write and the structure and style of reviews focuses on critical book reviews.
I. Common Features
While book reviews vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features. These include:
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 an 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 two-step process: 1) developing an argument about the value of the work under consideration and 2) clearly articulating that argument as you write an organized and well-supported paper.
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 intended to promote critical thinking about the book as you read.
Beyond the content of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the general content. Question to ask may include:
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; 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.
I. Bibliographic Information
Provide the essential information about the book using the writing style asked for by your professor [e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.]. 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: 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, 207pp.).
Reviewed by [your 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:
III. Note the Method
Illustrate your remarks with specific references 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.
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:
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 your own.
V. Examine the Front Matter and Back Matter
Front matter refers to anything 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].
The following front matter may be included in a book and may be considered for evaluation when reviewing its overall quality:
The following back matter may be included in a book and may be considered for evaluation when reviewing the overall quality of the book:
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 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.
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; 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.
Always Read the Foreword and/or the Preface
A good place to begin understanding a book's purpose, organization, and relationship to other studies is to read the preface and/or foreword. The foreword is often 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. A preface is usually an introductory essay written by the author or editor. Both, although particularly the preface, are 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 or preface were actually achieved.
There are many databases the USC Libraries subscribes to that include the full-text or citations to book reviews. Reviews can also be found at book-related online sites such as Amazon , although it's not always obvious who has written them The following databases provide comprehensive access to scholarly, full-text book reviews:
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:
Examples of usage
Paquot, Magali. Academic Keyword List . Centre for English Corpus Linguistics. Université Catholique de Louvain.
What is a bibliography?
A bibliography is a list of works on a subject or by an author that were used or consulted to write a research paper, book or article. It can also be referred to as a list of works cited. It is usually found at the end of a book, article or research paper.
Gathering Information
Regardless of what citation style is being used, there are key pieces of information that need to be collected in order to create the citation.
For books and/or journals:
For websites:
This section provides two examples of the most common cited sources: a print book and an online journal retrieved from a research database.
Book - Print
For print books, bibliographic information can be found on the TITLE PAGE . This page has the complete title of the book, author(s) and publication information.
The publisher information will vary according to the publisher - sometimes this page will include the name of the publisher, the place of publication and the date.
For this example : Book title: HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible Author: Steven M. Schafer Publisher: Wiley Publications, Inc.
If you cannot find the place or date of publication on the title page, refer to the COPYRIGHT PAGE for this information. The copyright page is the page behind the title page, usually written in a small font, it carries the copyright notice, edition information, publication information, printing history, cataloging data, and the ISBN number.
For this example : Place of publication: Indianapolis, IN Date of publication: 2010
Article - Academic OneFile Database
In the article view:
Bibliographic information can be found under the article title, at the top of the page. The information provided in this area is NOT formatted according to any style.
Citations can also be found at the bottom of the page; in an area titled SOURCE CITATION . The database does not specify which style is used in creating this citation, so be sure to double check it against the style rules for accuracy.
Article - ProQuest Database
Bibliographic information can be found under the article title, at the top of the page. The information provided in this area is NOT formatted according to any style.
Bibliographic information can also be found at the bottom of the page; in an area titled INDEXING . (Not all the information provided in this area is necessary for creating citations, refer to the rules of the style being used for what information is needed.)
Other databases have similar formats - look for bibliographic information under the article titles and below the article body, towards the bottom of the page.
Reviews are important tools for evaluating books. Online databases have made finding book reviews quicker and easier. This brief guide lists the major resources available to Cornell users for finding book reviews. The print resources listed are available in the reference collections of Olin Library. This is not an exhaustive list of ways to find book reviews. Many disciplines have indexes that may be used to locate book reviews for that subject area (literature, history, religion, and so on). A few examples are listed here. Reference staff can guide you.
Book review indexes provide a citation to the review appearing in a newspaper, magazine, or journal. Search the newspaper, magazine, or journal title in the Cornell Library Catalog to find all the formats we own for that journal. Academic Search Premier , Amazon.com, ARBA online, Bowker's Books in Print , JSTOR , ProQuest Research Library , and ProQuest Historical Newspapers have the full text of at least some reviews (or online links to them).
For further information or to locate titles not listed here, consult a reference librarian .
The simplest criterion for distinguishing book reviews from literary criticism is the time of publication of the review/critical article compared to the original publication date of the book. Book reviews are written around the time the book was originally published; literary criticism appears in later years, usually about titles considered classics or in the literary canon.
For example, reviews of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby that appeared in 1925 or 1926 (right after the novel was published) are book reviews. Gatsby is considered an important work in the history of American literature, and literary criticism about the novel continues to be written today. MLA International Bibliography is an important database to search for literary criticism.
In general, the sources cited in this guide find reviews that reflect the response near the time of a book's publication.
If you wish to use or adapt any or all of the content of this Guide, please review our use permissions and Creative Commons license .
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17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.
It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?
As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!
In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.
Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.
Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:
Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!
Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)
In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:
If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.
Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.
Find out here, once and for all. Takes 30 seconds!
Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .
That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.
Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.
Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :
An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.
His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.
This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.
Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:
YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.
This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.
I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]
The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :
Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.
The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.
Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]
Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :
In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.
An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.
Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.
The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.
As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.
This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.
Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.
Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.
The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :
I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.
Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim. To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]
The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :
♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.
In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.
♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]
The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :
Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.
Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.
“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]
James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!
This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.
The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.
Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :
This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.
Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.
Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:
4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.
I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.
The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.
I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.
I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.
Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:
“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”
Holy hell, what did I just read??
➽ A fantasy military school
➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history
➽ Shamans and gods
➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters
➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors
That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.
Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).
Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.
Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:
In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?
In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.
Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.
Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :
Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.
The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.
Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.
Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.
Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.
Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!
The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :
The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”
Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.
All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]
Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :
I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.
The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.
Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]
Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :
Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.
In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.
To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]
Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :
WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5
SUBJECT: 4/5
CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5
RELEVANCE: 3.5/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5
“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.
Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]
Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:
Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.
This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.
I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.
And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.
She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.
I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.
Hopefully, this post has given you a better idea of how to write a book review. You might be wondering how to put all of this knowledge into action now! Many book reviewers start out by setting up a book blog. If you don’t have time to research the intricacies of HTML, check out Reedsy Discovery — where you can read indie books for free and review them without going through the hassle of creating a blog. To register as a book reviewer , go here .
And if you’d like to see even more book review examples, simply go to this directory of book review blogs and click on any one of them to see a wealth of good book reviews. Beyond that, it's up to you to pick up a book and pen — and start reviewing!
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In “Elaine,” Will Self conjures a 1950s housewife who bears a striking resemblance to the woman who raised him.
The diaries left by his mother included her thoughts on marriage, sex, and her sons’ personalities, Will Self said. It was not always a flattering perspective. Credit... Charlotte Hadden for The New York Times
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By Elisabeth Egan
In 1988, during the final days of their mother’s life, Will Self and his half brother were at her apartment in North London when they discovered a trove of boxes under her bed. Inside were diaries — around 50, spiral bound and hardcover, dating back five decades to their mother’s first marriage in Ithaca, N.Y.
Suddenly, the brothers were face to face with their mother’s unfiltered musings on marriage, sex — extramarital and otherwise — and their own personalities. The view was not always complimentary.
“There was the shock of their existence,” Self said. “Then there was the shock of the content. And then there was the fact that we were reading them while the woman who had written them was dying.”
Elaine Rosenbloom was 65 years old, an Ohio native who married two different academic, writerly types and had three sons, two of whom are writers. Even 30 years ago, Self said, he knew it was only a matter of time until someone in the family “cannibalized” the diaries for an article or a book.
Now, at 62, he’s done just that, with an honesty befitting a son who’s staring down his own mortality.
“She taught me to be the writer I am, and I’m a good one,” he said. “I was difficult and violent and drug addicted by the time I was 15 and then I gave her merry hell almost till she died. So I have a lot to feel bad about. This is my payback.”
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Note: This information is geared toward researchers in the arts and humanities. For a detailed guide on writing book reviews in the social sciences, please check the USC Libraries guide to Writing and Organizing Research in the Social Sciences, authored by Dr. Robert Labaree.. When writing an academic book review, start with a bibliographic citation of the book you are reviewing [e.g., author ...
Annotated Bibliography; Book Review From Library Database (No Title) Author of Review's Last Name, First Initial. (Year of Publication). ... For more information on how to cite Book Reviews in APA 7, refer to pages 334-335 of the Publication Manual of the APA located at the circulation desk. Book Review from a Website (with Title)
What is Bibliographic Information? Bibliographic information refers to specific elements such as the author's name, the title of the thing (book, documentary, journal article) and the date it was created. Author + Title + Date are the most common pieces of information and they are often found on a book's title page and the back of the title page, also known as the verso.
About A book review is a descriptive and critical/evaluative account of a book. It provides a summary of the content, assesses the value of the book, and recommends it (or not) to other potential readers. A book report is an objective summary of the main ideas and arguments that the book's author has presented. The purpose of the report is to give enough information to help decide whether the ...
Book review submission checklist. File named: <book author>BY<review author>.docx. Bibliographic information of the work(s) reviewed confirmed. Category recommended and timespan noted. Word limit observed (approx. 800 words). Contributor bio(s) included at the end of the review (approx. 50 words).
An academic book review provides the main ideas, and since published book reviews typically have a limited word count, the summary should remain brief. Analysis and Significance. Compare the book and its argument with the other literature on the topic. Discuss its contribution to past and current research and literature.
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 ...
Organizing the Review. 1. All reviews begin with bibliographic information: the author's name, the book's full title, place of publication, publisher, edition, date, pagination, and cost, if known. 2. In no more than two paragraphs, introduce the book. Give your initial appraisal of the work, including your key observation on the text.
I. Bibliographic Information. Provide the essential information about the book using the writing style asked for by your professor [e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.]. 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:
Read the book (and others) 1. Allow enough lead time to fully absorb the book over time. When you first open the book, jot down some initial thoughts. This is important. You won't see the book the same way again as you did when you first cracked it open. Set the book aside and come back to it later to make additional assessments.
Organizing the Review. All reviews begin with bibliographic information: the author's name, the book's full title, place of publication, publisher, edition, date, pagination, and cost, if known. In no more than two paragraphs, introduce the book. Give your initial appraisal of the work, including your key observation on the text.
ISBN: 9780814758366. Instead of italics, please underline book titles, and other text you wish to appear italicized in your review. Please adhere to the assigned length limits for your review: 600-800 words for a single book review and 1000-1200 for a two-book review essay. The word limits for essays comprising more than two books will be ...
Structure of book reviews. A book review will usually begin with bibliographic information. This means details such as the name of the book, the name(s) of the author(s), and the publisher. Other details may be helpful, for example date and place of publication, format, edition, number of pages, price and ISBN.
This bibliographic information is found on the book's title page and on the verso (the back page of the title page). If you need assistance in locating book reviews, interpreting citations, or finding reviews in the library, please come to your campus library's Information Desk for help.
The search and collection of information from published sources (books, journals, newspapers, etc.) nowadays may include other types of documents, such as websites, reports from bibliographic databases, etc. Searching for bibliographic sources relevant to your project is an integral and unavoidable part of the thesis work.
Annotated Bibliography; Powerpoint Presentations; More Help? On This Page: Book Reviews. Book Review - No Title. ... Note: If the book review is from a source other than an article in the library's database, view the appropriate section on the MLA guide to determine how to cite the source.
Covers 300,000 books and cites over 1.5 million book reviews found in over 500 popular magazines, newspapers, and academic journals, as well as the library review media (the reviews originate in a group of selected periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and general science published in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain).
A book review is a thorough description, critical analysis, and/or evaluation of the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, often in relation to prior research on the topic. ... I. Bibliographic Information. Provide the essential information about the book using the writing style asked for by your professor [e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc ...
A bibliography is a list of works on a subject or by an author that were used or consulted to write a research paper, book or article. It can also be referred to as a list of works cited. It is usually found at the end of a book, article or research paper. Gathering Information. Regardless of what citation style is being used, there are key ...
Introduction to Book Review Searching. Reviews are important tools for evaluating books. Online databases have made finding book reviews quicker and easier. This brief guide lists the major resources available to Cornell users for finding book reviews. The print resources listed are available in the reference collections of Olin Library.
This unique annotated bibliography is a complete, up-to-date guide to sources of information on library science, covering recent books, monographs, periodicals and websites, and selected works of historical importance. In addition to compiling an invaluable list of sources, Bemis digs deeper, examining the strengths and weaknesses of key works.
For example, a book review in a journal follows the same format as an article in a journal, except that it also includes information about the book being reviewed. This page lists examples on how to cite book reviews. For examples of more types of reviews (films, TV shows, video games, etc.), see the APA Publication Manual, pp. 334-335.
It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking. Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry's Freefall, a crime novel: In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it's a more subtle process, and that's OK too.
Lauren Christensen is an editor at the Book Review. Sept. 17, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET. ... her own bibliographic history superimposed onto the present, fictional text. In ...
100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
Rumaan Alam is a rarity: a male novelist who specializes in female viewpoints. The viewpoints in question are themselves specialized. They focus on the bourgeois adventures of New York City up-and ...
Elisabeth Egan is a writer and editor at the Times Book Review. She has worked in the world of publishing for 30 years. More about Elisabeth Egan. Share full article. Explore More in Books