By: Jordyn Malmstrom

1. How to Write a Good Book Review By: Jordyn Malmstrom All the tips, tricks and hacks to writing a good book review – according to many different successful and accomplished writers.

2. Contents 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 Introduction Basics: What to do before writing Beginning process: What to start writing about While Writing Final Steps Tutorials: Podcast/Video Helpful Examples How To Write a good Book Review

3. Chapter 1 Introduction When it comes to making a good book review, many people follow the basic and simple steps. This book will apply those theories, as well as introduce new ones to make your book review go above and beyond just a simple and dull one. Creativity and bringing your own voice to a review is particularly necessary in order to create something that truly sticks out in comparison to others. For starters, just about anyone can create a book review. All you need to do is read the desired novel and write a brief synopsis regarding its major themes and plot. However, what everyone cannot do is create an environment where the reader is instantly captured and wants to read on. Catching your reader’s attention is the most important thing to do when writing a book review. If you cannot accomplish that, the book review ultimately fails. Now, that is not to say that this is going to be an easy task. Finding your voice as a writer is often times the most difficult part of the process. What is funny and what isn’t? Is too strong of an opinion coming off too bold? Truth is, there is no way that you are going to please everyone. Book reviews are almost entirely based on your own opinion, whether others agree or not is entirely out of your control. That being said, it is important that you try and bring in other opinions and voices as well to bring in a larger audience. The one important thing to realize about book reviews is that your opinion is not the only opinion. Therefore, it is essential that you bring your own voice to the table while acknowledging a counter argument at the same time. When you do this, you will soon come to find that your review will be more accepted by a wider range of people and you can still successfully get your message across to your readers. However, you will come to find that is easier said than done… Your goal in a book review should never be to please everyone – it is utterly impossible. But, your goal should be to create the best version of a book review to help point out your own opinions of a novel while also being open-minded and show your readers that you are open to suggestions and other opinions. Recently, this country has had a problem with accepting multiple viewpoints and have remained close-minded and overly opinionated in many aspects – particularly political agendas. Try and encompass multiple viewpoints and your book review to succeed. How To Write a Good Book Review

4. Chapter 2 Basics: What to do before writing Clearly, the first step to writing a book review is actually reading the book that you will be writing on. Obviously. But some general tips while reading the book could help you take your review to an entirely new level. Tip 1: Take Notes While this seems so obvious and unnecessary to reference, it is surprising how many people actually don’t do this. By taking notes, mapping out a character list and providing seemingly mundane details, your job when actually writing the book review will be tremendously easier. Along with that, but you will be able to remember the little things that could end up making your review that much better than the other person’s. It gives you ethos, or credibility, in your writing as a reviewer. Tip 2: Hook The Reader This is arguably going to be the most important tip in this entire book. It is undoubtedly crucial in a successful book review that you are able to hook and keep your reader. The opening line is the best place to start. Try finding a specific moment in the novel that is important to the overall story and incorporate it into an opening, vague line. This can be a question or a general statement, just something that is sure to grab the reader’s attention and make them want to continue reading. Tip 3: Do Your Research It should be said that you would know about the author, genre, publication and title of the novel before beginning to review the book. Often this is the most overlooked step, yet one of the most important. It is sure to take your review to the next level and give the reader a lot of background context. Tip 4: Don’t Only Review the Writing While the writing is obviously the most important part to the review, something to give yours a little extra is to pay close attention to the cover and title of the novel. They are like mini-reviews in and of themselves. How To Write a Good Book Review 4

5. Chapter 3 Beginning Process: What to start writing about “Quotes “ Many readers are captured by good quotes from the novel. Especially those related to the major themes and motifs because it gives them a good idea of the style of writing and what they are to expect of the author before they decide to read. It is an added bonus giving the readers one or two really good quotes that you thought stood out while you were reading. By doing this you give the reader more information about the book that is concrete evidence of what they are getting ready to read. While it seems obvious that you should immediately start writing about the novel you just finished reading, there are a few steps to take before that happens. For starters, you have to let your audience know key details about the book to even peak their interest in the first place. Book title, author, publication, date, genre and the page number of the novel is incredibly important. Your review can be incredible, but if these steps are missed, many readers won’t even bother to look or begin reading. These are the basics that every book review needs. It is also important to decide what kind of audience you are trying to target. A book review, while it would be nice to think about, is not created for just the general public. You have to target a specific group of readers that you think would give your review the most success. Along with that, but you must understand that these readers have yet to read the work that you are reviewing. The beginning of this process should be overly simplified for the reader so they get all the information that they would need to understand the storyline. These small steps will get you started with the beginning of the review. How To Write a Good Book Review

6. Chapter 4 While Writing When you begin the bulk of the review, the main thing to remember is that you are only writing a review. You are not recapping every little detail to put into your writing because if you did, there is no point for your audience to read the book. If you are complimenting a book, the most important thing is to not give too much away or else you are robbing their experience and the author’s work. Evaluation For this text, you will be giving your best evaluation of a novel that you have just read. You are recapping it briefly for the reader, but overall, you are providing evidence of your opinion and providing a general assessment. Characters and Issues In this case, a character map that you make while reading the novel becomes an incredible tool for you to use. When you make a character map, you are able to see how certain people in the novel relate to each other and the main topics revolving around their character. These are helpful subjects for your audience. Along with that, but showing your readers what the main issues are in the book give them good context of what the novel itself is going to look like. This often helps them gauge whether or not the book is something they will even want to read. In order to give a good evaluation of the novel, you must be able to show the audience what worked and what didn’t work, as well as relating your ideas back to specific points in the text to provide evidence. While this sounds fairly formal, it does not have to be. Let’s backtrack to the introduction – to make a good review, you need to find and incorporate your voice. Anyone can give the readers the key points and why it worked for them, but not all writers can provide an entertaining voice to accompany the review. With this, you will automatically have a leg up because it will more than likely naturally be more entertaining than the normal review. Along with that, but you are critically evaluating the text rather than just informing the general public of what the novel is about. This means that you have to give a brief, but in-depth evaluation of what you think is going right or wrong in the novel itself as it is not just a synopsis of what it is about. To establish your credibility as a writer, referring to other texts while you review a certain book is good for readers to refer back to. They could have read those books or you could in turn be providing another segway for other novels they might enjoy or not enjoy. This additional information gives an extra leg up in the reviewing process and shows that you are knowledgeable on your subject. Now, themes and motifs that you notice in the novel are very important to introduce to your readers. When you show your reader what they signify, be sure to be brief and not give away too much information. The best way to do this is to show them how it relates to the novel, but leave them wanting more in the long run. Leaving a bit of mystery is imperative to the review because if you give too much away, you have ultimately failed in your purpose. This is the most important concept when it comes to book reviews. How To Make a Good Book Review

7. The other exciting part about a book review is the fact that it can quickly turn into a critical discussion about a novel. When you write a book review, a good way to help engage your audience is to leave a comments section where your readers can readily engage and have an opportunity to give their opinions as well. Whether they agree with you or not, this is a helpful way to see what your audience thinks about your reviews and you can better gauge what you might need more work on or what you are doing well. In the long run, the audience is going to help you create content that is going to be successful for both you and your readers. However, whether or not you allow comments, always try and evaluate how successful you are with your target audience. Checklist while writing: • Did you give the reader all the facts? (Author, title, genre, publication, date and page numbers) • Did you give a brief description of the book? • Have you given the audience your take on the book and your explanation or why or why not? • Did you let the audience know if you think the author succeeded? If you can check off all of these, you are in a good position in your review. These are all the main goals of a good book review and should always be included when discussing a book. Everything else that you add besides these four main steps is what is going to give you an identity as a book reviewer and should try and help you create something unique. Did the author succeed? At this point in the review and after reading the novel itself, you should have a pretty good grasp of what the author’s intended purpose was. It is good to include in the review if you think that they ultimately ended up succeeding or failing in their overall purpose of the novel. If you could not understand what they were aiming for after reading the book, that might be a good indicator that they have failed their mission. Another easy way to discover the purpose is to research the novel and the process of making it through the author’s website and see if they conveyed the message clear enough to someone who went into the book not knowing what the author’s underlying goals and intentions for the book happen to be. Keep these steps in mind while writing your review: • Give the audience the facts: Title, author, genre, publication, date and page number are all great and important facts to provide to your reader. Some book reviewers also give the price of the book and a place where you can find it. • Give your evaluation: Remember, you are not giving your audience only the information in the novel. You are also giving them your assessment of the content, themes, motifs and purpose of the novel itself. • Evaluate the success of the novel: Did the author succeed or fail in their overall purpose of the novel? • Rating: Finally, one of the most important parts of the review is to give the audience your overall rating of the book. Is it the best book you’ve ever read? Why or why not? How To Write a Good Book Review

8. Chapter 6 Final Steps Revising When it comes to the final steps, it is always a good idea to go through and edit your review. Check for misspellings of names, including the author and title, to make sure you’ve got everything correct. Try reading it out loud to make sure the sentence structures sound good and compelling. Another handy trick is to read your review backwards, sentence by sentence, to try and catch any grammatical errors. Finally, make sure that you read from the audience’s point of view and make sure you gave just the right amount of information for them, not too much and not too little. Concluding your book review and final revisions At this point in your review, you should now have an all-but-finished piece that is ready for the final steps. You have given the reader the basic information like title, author, genre, publication, date, page numbers and even price of the book. Now, it is time to wrap it up and begin revising. Your final sentences are going to be some of the most important ones to leave you reader with. In my opinion, the best book reviews leave the reader with a question that ends with them craving more and eventually wanting to read it themselves. Unless, of course, you were giving the novel a bad review. Either way, leaving the audience with a kicker gives your review something to remember. Whether it is a question or not, always leave the reader with something to look forward to. Give them a little mystery to leave them wanting more. Consider this last line from a review of When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin: “What happens next will change both of their lives forever.” This last line would leave anyone interested in the book wanting to see what happens next. How To Write a Good Book Review

9. Chapter 5 Tutorials This Podcast will provide a brief overview of this eBook to give a quick overview of everything we have talked about! It is perfect for people on the go or who learn better through aural forms, rather than text-based content. The link will take you to a SoundCloud audio version of the podcast. Enjoy! Podcast: So, here is a killer video from YouTuber Yaasha Moriah that helps explain how to write a good book review. It gives helpful examples and adds on to some key points made in this eBook! :Video Additional information for those looking to get more practice under their belt! How To Write a Good Book Review

10. Chapter 7 Helpful Examples When it comes to book reviews, there are thousands of different types, genres, experience level and overall functionality. Here are some helpful examples to get the ball rolling! The Indie View: The Indie View is a book review blog of about 350 different authors from around the world, published and unpublished. These reviews are a great way to get a taste of great reviews. This link will take you to a review of Sponge Cake by Chris Arneson. Indie View is interesting because they get the inside scoop on many of the books and how they were made. While this type of review is unique and you probably will not be able to completely emulate it, it is still a good resource to have when asking yourself questions of what you should put into your review. Also, gives a lot of insights to how the novel was written which will help you as you write a review. Fictional Fates: This blog of book reviews is one of the tops sites on the web right now and just recently launched this year. It has many different kinds of reviews and encompasses a lot of the things we have talked about so far. For starters, they have the hard facts laid out for the reader immediately upon clicking on the review, then they move into the review itself. The hyperlink will take you to Joel Rochester’s review of the novel Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. Swept Away by Books: Swept Away by Books is a fantastic site that contains more than just book reviews. There are feature stories, photography and much more to enjoy on the site as you browse. However the site is packed with advanced and well-done reviews that will help you make your review successful. Menagerie of Thoughts : This book review blog called Menagerie of Thoughts is chalked full of great reviews, lists and other happenings in the book world right now with roughly 12,000 readers. It is a great place to check out to get you started. This link will take you to Kaitlynn’s review of The Girl You Left Behind by JoJo Moyes. Now, go get started! How To Write a Good Book Review