Book Review 101

So you’ve just read a book you love and want to shout it to the world?  Yeah, I know that feeling a million times over.  It never gets old my friend.  NEVER.  Discovering a new book and new author is a thrill no matter how many times you’ve done it before.

Everyone has their own rules for writing a book review.  Below you will find general, good practice guidelines.

The first step is to let the author know how much you loved their book, by giving a review!  Author’s love this.  They want to know if their book touched you, brought you to tears, had you ugly crying, couldn’t put the book down, etc.   Explain why you loved the book, was it the chemistry between the characters?  The plot?  The romance?  What made you fall in love?  Tell me about it.  This is, after all, a product review.

You’ll want to include an example.  Just a little snippet from the book that brought you to your knees.  This will help other readers see what you meant and entice them to read the book too.  Use your memory when writing a review.  If a certain scene sticks out to you, write about it.  It was obviously important to you.   Do try to keep the review spoiler-free, you can allude to something, just don’t come right out and spoil the book for everyone.

Now on the flip side, you read a book that has no business being a book and you need to get the word out – ASAP.  Again, book review.  Be specific on what you didn’t like.  Was the character to wishy-washy?  Did the plot now come full circle?  Too many characters?  Not enough description?  What was it, that made the book bad in your eyes?

Simply stated – this book sucked.  Is NOT enough.  Why did it suck?  Grammar?  Spelling?  What was it that you disliked so much?

I’ll admit there are books I do not care for that other’s have raved about.  To each their own, just like a book review.  Not everyone is going to like the same book.  We all understand that.  But when I give the bad, I try to give the good too.

While I didn’t like the character due to these reasons, blah, blah, blah.  I did love how the plot moved along and all the unanswered questions were answered at the end of the book.  The ending for me was abrupt and felt rushed.  However, I did enjoy the conclusion of the story.  Good with the bad, if possible, unless you didn’t enjoy anything about the book.   Then state that.  Maybe this book wasn’t for you and list why you didn’t care for the book.