Whenever we read a good and interesting book, we want to share our thoughts about it with someone else. The ultimate way to do that would be to write a book review. For students, it’s hard to evaluate great literary masterpieces without any directions. Analyzing the written text, composing an overview, and structuring your thoughts is really a challenging task, especially if your writing skills are not professional.

But, there is nothing impossible with well-written and simple instructions. Below, you’ll look for a comprehensive guide on how to write a book review. We’ll describe every stage of the writing process and present you an array of useful recommendations. On our blog, we also have numerous book review examples that you might find utilizing the list of links at the end of our article. Don’t hesitate to start reading and learning!

What Is a Book Review?

A book review is a critical evaluation and analysis of a book presented in written form. Book reviews can be classified both as academic and creative papers, as it is dependent upon the purpose of writing. At academy or school, professors frequently assign students with writing a book review so that you can evaluate their writing skills and critical thinking on a particular subject. However , book reviews are often written by expert literary critics, as it is just a part of their professional activities. Finally, anyone who wants to present his or her opinion about the book in written form may possibly write a book review.

Usually, the book review format depends on what's needed specified by your instructor or your own personal preferences. The structure type varies, but we suggest you to decide on a standard essay format that features an introduction, main human anatomy, and conclusion.

five Common Book Review Formats: Make Your option

If your instructor always specifies all the details of the assignment, you have nothing to worry about. Nevertheless , sometimes, you need to make a choice all on your own. Below, we’ll describe five popular book review formats to try. Usually, you may pick any of them no matter what book you analyze. But choose knowledgeably!

General impression

This sort of book review may seem easy and simple, but the first impression could be deceptive. In the event that you miss an essential aspect, your review will soon be superficial and insufficient. We recommend you to choose this format of writing a book review for short stories, as there is not so much material to analyze. An over-all impression carries a brief plot summary, analysis of the primary aspects, as well as your overall evaluation.

Issue development

Every book targets one or two main issues, but there may also be a few additional themes. Such book reviews can be useful both for studying a particular book and for analyzing a concrete social, psychological, or moral problem. Thus, this format of a book review could be assigned to students who study not merely English literature but also an array of other disciplines.

Character portrayal

This kind of book review can be extremely interesting for those who study psychology. Literary characters resemble human creatures. In supreme quality books, authors create lifelike heroes who behave and evolve, the same as real people do. This book review format may appear similar to a character analysis essay. Nevertheless , in a good review, you don’t simply analyze a plumped for character. You additionally have to evaluate how a writer was able to make the smoothness realistic and vivid.

Aspect analysis

This sort of book review will be ideal for novels where the author develops many various topics, describes lots of characters, and addresses different issues. You can pick any aspect and provide a deep and detailed analysis. Before writing a review, ensure that the opted for element is presented in the book at an adequate level, rather than in one short dialogue.

Comparative review

In the event that you enjoy writing compare and contrast essays, you should undoubtedly choose this book review format. You could compare various aspects in the books of the exact same or different authors: writing style, issue development, a viewpoint on a certain topic presented in the novel, and so forth As in essays, you could analyze both similarities and differences in your book review.

Finally, you know what options you have when you need to compose an evaluation. We also want to mention that you may combine different formats if you want and create totally unique kinds of papers. Your creativity needs to have no limits, especially when it comes to creative book reviews!

Let’s take a closer look at the writing process it self!

10 Simple Steps to Writing a Book Review

Planning makes any task much simpler. You feel confident when you understand what exactly you need to do at every stage. Discover ways to write a book review step by step and commence working straight away!

1. Read a book

This is so obvious that it isn’t worth explanation, can it be? Did you believe you could get a good grade without reading the primary source? Actually, you could try. But we don’t recommend you to simply take this risk. Moreover, if your book is short, you can read it twice to get a better impression.

2. Make notes

Sometimes, your instructor may request you to attach your notes and drafts to the final version of your book review to be able to evaluate your writing process. Even when it isn't necessary, the notes will soon be utterly ideal for you to memorize small details. You can even write down several quotations that may help you to prove your perspective in the review.

3. Read critical articles

You don’t need to use additional materials in your writing if it isn’t specified by the instructions. Anyway, you may read a few articles in order to get inspiration or some ideas for the review. Please, avoid plagiarism! If you like the critic’s idea, don’t copy it thoughtlessly! Use paraphrasing or direct citation to utilize someone else’s opinion in your writing. Don’t forget that you should only use reliable sources like reputable newspapers, scientific journals, on line encyclopedias, and so on

4. Choose a book review format

Pick an appropriate option from the list above. Take into account your instructions, personal preferences, word limit, and book genre.

five. Specify your topic and thesis statement

With no clear comprehension of your purpose, you won’t be able to compose a supreme quality book review sample. Pick a particular problem and define your point of view on it. Would you agree or disagree with the author’s position? Did the author find a way to develop a theme or perhaps not? Remember that you are able to change your thesis statement later when it is not strongly related your review. However , you'll need a starting point to start with.

6. Brainstorm

Time for creativity! Look at your topic from different perspectives to acquire a full picture. Use various brainstorming processes to achieve the most effective result: associations, questions, rolestorming, mind mapping, etc . Unfortuitously, you may not use group brainstorming for individual assignments, but we are sure your exemplary mind may well be more than enough for a book review.

7. Create an outline

Now, you have a number of great a few ideas. The next step is structuring. Imagine how your book review will appear and what parts it'll have. Then, choose one main idea or even a keyword for every single section and write it down. For every single point, select suitable expressions and quotations. In such a manner, you’ll obtain a solid foundation for your writing.

8. Write the first draft

You have everything required to do this, believe us. Over come your anxiety about writing the very first sentence! You don’t need certainly to make it perfect on the very first try. However, you need something to start from, okay? The very first draft is obviously filled with inspiration and your personal voice. You are able to correct grammatical mistakes later, so don’t worry!

9. Proofread

Which is the less inspirational area of the writing process. Unfortunately, you can’t write a book review without proofreading. We’re sure that your paper will undoubtedly be great, but even the tiniest mistakes can spoil the overall impression. Before you begin the editing process, involve some rest. The human brain needs a restart to be on the correct level of concentration.

10. Add finishing touches

Carry it to perfection! If possible, get feedback from your own friends or family members. A new perspective never hurts. Check always your logic, argumentation, and wording. In the event that you really like your book review sample, others will like it too.

Now, you have a proper plan on just how to write analysis a book. You’re willing to find out what the most typical mistakes in reviews are. We’ll also explain to you steer clear of them effortlessly!

six Mistakes to prevent While Writing a Book Review Template

Maybe you’ve already heard about these mistakes, nonetheless it is our duty to remind you of them once more. We want to make sure that we’ve done everything possible to improve your writing.

• Don’t write a summary

Book reviews aren't summaries. A brief summary could be included in the text of your review in order to inform your readers about the main plot events and characters. Don’t concentrate on details if indeed they aren’t very important to your topic. Unnecessary information will make your book review boring and wordy.

• Express your evaluation

And also a short summary, an assessment is an indispensable part of a good review. Don’t forget of expressing your personal opinion directly! Avoid words like “rather, ” “enough, ” and “almost, ” while they will make your statements vague and uncertain. On the other hand, a bold statement without any arguments won’t be used seriously. Always provide your readers with examples as well as other strong items of evidence.

• Avoid a superficial manner

This mistake may be the most common for novel reviews. The author can’t focus on a definite aspect or character and must write a few sentences about every thing. Such a review won’t be useful or interesting for the general public. If you’ve made a decision to provide a general overview of the complete book, you must make sure that your review is long enough to cover all of the essential topics of the novel. Otherwise, you won’t be able to present the book in an effective way.

• Stick to the writing style

Perhaps you have read formal letters that end with “XOXO” or “With love”? We doubt it. Before writing a book review example, define your purpose. If you compose a review as your academic assignment, adhere to the formal writing style. If you develop a review for the personal weblog or just to share with you your thoughts with the general public, you don’t need to follow strict rules or formatting style. Sure, we still recommend you in order to avoid jargon, nevertheless, you can freely use first-person pronouns and expressions like “In my estimation, ” “I believe, ” “My first impression, ” etc .

• Provide strong arguments

As in any other type of paper, argumentation is vital for a well-written book review. All of your statements and some ideas should be proven by one or a few arguments. For book reviews, we recommend using examples, quotation, and comparisons since the best bits of evidence. Understand that you can’t just say “I like/don’t like this book. ” You need to be consistent and follow certain argumentation logic in your writing.

• Don’t be a plagiarist

We shall never tire of repeating this rule. We will not believe that you have no personal opinion or original thoughts! No doubt, you could look for inspiration in the articles published by professional critics, but you should not underestimate your writing skills. We genuinely believe that you’re in a position to create a fantastic text and steer clear of plagiarism.

Ok, that’s enough about mistakes for now! We’re sure that you’ll avoid them in the most elegant manner. If you want more strategies for writing a book review, you can check our amazing books for academic writing!

Our guide on the best way to write a book review is almost completed! The final thing you should understand this type of paper is its structure. We’ll describe the essay-type structure for an evaluation that will be right for academic writing. If you pick a creative book review, you are able to break most of the rules and compose the absolute most extraordinary book review sample.

How exactly to Write a Book Review: Simple Structure

INTRODUCTION	Back ground information on mcdougal and book (important biographical facts, rewards, publishing date, the main idea/topic) Hook (bold statement, rhetorical question, impressive statistics, or quotation that will intrigue your readers) Thesis statement (your starting point that establishes the structure of the whole book review)
The main body	Three or more paragraphs (a new paragraph for every single idea/point) Transitional words and phrases (they allow the readers to follow your thinking easily) Logical structure (strong arguments and connections)
Conclusion	Restate the thesis statement (don’t rewrite it verbatim, take to paraphrasing) Mention your overall evaluation (it must be based on the a few ideas and arguments presented however body) Provide recommendations for potential readers (tell whether you recommend this book or not and specify the categories of readers that might be interested)

We now have told you everything you need to understand about writing a book review. Nevertheless , we have something else to surprise you with! Awesome book review samples from our talented writers are awaiting you below! Follow the links in order to find your inspiration in our texts!

Book Review Examples and How to Use Them

Once we promised, we shall share each one of these book review samples with you! Please, don’t copy them thoughtlessly to present as your own work. This will be regarded as plagiarism, or in other words, theft of intellectual property. But you have many legal opportunities to utilize our samples. They will educate you on how to make a book review better than any theoretical guides. So , you can find four methods to use our texts and make the writing process easier:

• Source of information

Our writers only use reliable resources of data if they look for information regarding the topic. They avoid Wikipedia articles, personal blogs, and magazines to supply you only with valid facts and expert opinions. Hence, you can use our samples as a way to obtain information without the fear of being misinformed.

• Citation

That is an important strategy to avoid plagiarism. Create a proper citation based on the required formatting style, and you’ll get yourself a good little bit of evidence for the argumentation! Don’t forget to list all of your sources in your reference list!

• Paraphrasing

This process is a extra difficult when compared with citing, as every academy has a unique rules of proper paraphrasing. Before writing a book review, ask your instructor to specify his or her requirements with regard to paraphrasing. Formatting mistakes will negatively influence your grade!

• Inspiration

Finally, well-written samples may help you to over come writer’s block and driving a car of the very first sentence. Inspiration and motivation are a vital part of the writing process. Therefore let the Muse be with you!

This example of a book review demonstrates the way the writer can look from the fresh perspective even with the pieces of classical literature. The review is targeted on the problem of guilt and its nature developed by Arthur Conan Doyle in his crime novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles. ” A well-written sample will surprise you with an in-depth psychological approach.

In this example, the writer compares two versions of the utopian community developed by Thomas More and Ayn Rand. In the novel “Atlas Shrugged, ” the society is dependant on principles of ideal capitalism. In “Utopia” by More, people live according to a communistic philosophy. The writer explains the similarities and differences between these communities.

This book review sample is really a bit more emotional than the previous ones and for a good reason. The writer evaluates and analyzes the love novel “The Notebook” created by Nicholas Sparks. This review could be classified as a creative piece of writing. The writer’s purpose wasn’t to be objective but to talk about his or her feelings awakened by the novel.

When you have to write a book review about a history book, this sample is a great help for you. The writer provided a detailed and well-structured analysis of the book “Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945-1984” by Robert Bothwell. The review is really a balanced mix of a summary, analysis, and critical evaluation.

Sherman Alexie interprets and examines social and cultural dilemmas faced by the Indian ethnic group in Nothern America in his short story. This review will assist you to learn more about this work quickly. We recommend reading our sample to acquire a better comprehension of this story.

Here, we’ve placed an example of an alternative format of a book review. The writer is targeted mostly on the main character of the novel, Liesel Meminger. The review analyzes her character and attitude. The writer examines the way the character changes through the book and what causes these changes.

This text is just a short book review example about the novel “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott. Although this book was written in the 19th century, it still develops feminist views and other social issues. This sample would have been a good template for your own writing.

Mcdougal of the review sample examines how a novel published by Harriet Beecher Stowe images the social issue of slavery. The release of this book had both positive and negative consequences for the image of African Americans in the 19th century. If you’re going to produce a book review about “Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ” our sample would have been a great kick off point for you.

“Flowers for Algernon” is an amazing novel compiled by Daniel Keyes. It deserves thousands of reviews, and you won’t be disappointed if you decide to write another one. Inside our sample, the writer targets the theme of intelligence developed in the book. You can pick another aspect or follow the steps of our expert. This will depend on you.

Now, we’re finally done. It's been a long path, but you can call your self a real “book review guru”! Writing a book review is not as hard as you imagine. You just have to find a book that you’ll like and a good guide just like the one above! Of course, you’ll also need inspiration, time, and energy. If you’re limited in another of these resources, there is always a means out!

Connect with our EssayShark team to obtain immediate expert help! Our talented authors will solve any writing problem flawlessly. We work 24/7, so you may e mail us anytime once you need a helping hand. Affordable prices and a user-friendly system may also be waiting for you on our website. Just forget about your deadlines with our EssayShark writing service!