How To Write a Book Review Step by Step

Nowadays, to be a good lover of literature, it is not enough to have an account on Goodreads or Anobii, but rather you have to be owners or collaborators of a literary blog and thus have a small space where you can show the world your own reviews, the list with all those books that we have read or would like to read, and our reflections.

If you are new to the blogging world, it is likely that you have no idea how to write a good literary criticism and you have looked around the Internet a thousand times until you came across this article. But don’t worry! Here’s a Guide to teach you how to write a book review step by step, either for your blog, for a class exercise, or to familiarize yourself with the most professional techniques. Take note!

What Is a Book Review

A review or criticism is a value judgment that is issued about a book, text or movie. If you are wondering more specifically what a book review is, you should know that it is an exercise that mainly includes two things: a summary of the book and a literary criticism that goes beyond the classic “I liked it/I didn’t like it”.

Thus, in a book review, both the literary evaluation and the personal opinion of the reader are combined. The result can be a positive or negative review, or even a little of each, while the tone of the writing (light, gloomy, technical, formal) will depend on your own personality and who your readers are.

Parts of a book review

Book reviews, or literary reviews, consist of four parts that you should distinguish well if you are wondering how to make a professional and clear review. By dividing each space, you will be able to explain yourself well and connect better with your readers:

• Technical file of the book : here we will include the title of the book, the author, the publisher, the edition, the number of pages, the literary genre and a cover photo.
• Summary: the length of the synopsis will depend on our own taste, but it is recommended not to exceed 8-10 lines so that it is not excessively long and makes the reader heavy.
• Literary assessment: responds to more technical and objective aspects. To do this, we must make an analysis as if we were experts in the field.
• Personal opinion: this is the part where you can elaborate the most, since there you will say what you thought of the book and if you would recommend it or not.

How To Write a Book Review Step by Step

You already know what a review is and how it should be divided, so now is the time to learn the steps to write a professional review. Read carefully first and write down what you think is most relevant in this step-by-step guide on how to write a good book review.

First impressions

First of all, grab a pen or pencil and a notebook. Write down your first impressions of the book: what does the title convey to you? What does the cover tell you? In case you have read the summary on the back cover, what do you hope to find?

After having answered these questions (and the ones that come to mind), now comes the funniest part: start reading the book to yourself!

Annotations

As you read, write down everything that comes to your mind or catches your attention. If you are clueless or forgetful, you can write down the names of the characters and make an outline of what is happening in the story. Don’t miss out on anything! Then, all this will be very useful when writing the review, either to add citations or to recover impressions and ideas.

Write a summary

Once you finish reading, comes the easy part: writing the summary . Here, you have three options:

• Copy the summary from the back cover of the book.
• Write your own abstract from scratch.

In this guide we advise you to write it yourself to make it more original, especially if you want your review to have quality.

Write the review

Once you have the summary ready, it’s time to order the ideas. It may make it easier for you to put them on paper or on the computer; what it is about here is to collect all the impressions that you have written down and have your own opinion of the book clear.

When you have this done, you will have to write a review about the reading. You will need to include two parts:

• Critical and objective view of the book.
• Personal vision.

The order in which you write it is up to you. In most blogs, they mix both points of view, but in this guide, we advise you to put the critical point of view first and then the personal point of view. This will make it look more professional and the text will be clearer.

Finally, check everything calmly and make sure you don’t leave anything behind. You can leave this task for the next day or for a few hours later, and thus see everything with another perspective.

What Elements to Add in A Review

If you are wondering what to put in a literary appraisal, in this blog we offer you some questions that you can answer to serve as a guide:

• Is the literary style appropriate for the genre of the book?
• Does the story have inconsistencies?
• Can you empathize with the characters?
• Hooks up?
• Is the narration easy to understand?
• Is the plot predictable or does it have unexpected changes?
• Who can like this work?
• Does the author’s style remind you of another?

On the other hand, if you are wondering what to put in the personal opinion of the review, you can answer other questions such as:

• Did you enjoy reading? Just because? Why not?
• Have you read it in one go or have you had to take voluntary breaks? Why?
• Is the genre one of your favorites?
• If the answer above is “no”: have you enjoyed the book anyway?
• Would you recommend it?
• Has he taught you or contributed something?

Other tips for writing a good literary review

Now that you know how to write a review and what essential elements to include in it, in this blog we want to provide you with other tips for writing a good book review:

• Do not forget to write down:always have a piece of paper and a pen next to you, because you never know when you will have to write down an important idea, a dialogue that you want to refer to later or a relevant section that you want to comment on.
• Bookmark and underline– Don’t be afraid to mark pages in your book or underline things, remember that these little gestures will help you find specific chapters or passages later.
• Review the book: Although it is not necessary to read the book a second time, especially if you did not like it, we do recommend that you review some passages that you have left written down in order to form a more forceful criticism. Many times, we get so into the story on the first reading that we can’t appreciate other details, so for a more in-depth analysis you will benefit from a refresher.

Don’t read other reviews: we know it’s difficult, but at voxghostwriting we advise you not to read other reviews online, as these could influence your own opinion and you could end up misrepresenting your own experience a bit.