How To Get Smart: The Art of a Good Book Review
From a girl whose only claim to fame is that she was Goodreads famous in like, 2018.
This is a rewrite of a post of mine from September of 2017 and a second post from September of 2018.
In my several years as a randomly famous book reviewer on Goodreads, which is a great hobby for your local friendless high schooler, I developed a pretty strong set of opinions on how to write a review that resonates. While I don’t really write reviews for every book I read anymore, as someone who genuinely loves writing and reading book reviews… I still have some strong feelings on how to write a good one.
For those of you who have never before written a book review — or television review, or movie review — you should try. Reviewing is a fantastic way of developing your own viewpoints and feelings about the books you read. This is some introductory advice, but frankly, the main thing I’d like for you to take from this post is to start writing reviews, period. It’s good for the soul.
Reviewing as a Way of Healing Our Relationship to Culture
Note | If you’ve genuinely enjoyed my writing and my work, I would love if you sent me a tip. I put a lot of hours into writing these wrapup posts and since I’m not ready to turn on paid subscriptions, if you value that, I would love a tiny payment!
First Steps — Forming Your Own Viewpoint
1. Your introduction should begin with a strapline or a hook, not a summary. Don’t summarize the entire plot; I’ll be scrolling or closing out of your review. The first sentences should sum up the book in some meaningful way, or even simply provide a basic opinion. You have to make your reader want to continue with the review, or at least to click on it.
It is also very common for reviewers to begin with quotes, as they are a great way of getting across writing style. I would recommend still adding a strapline under the quote, if you plan to go this direction.
Occasionally, my reviews have begun with essentially a joke. (See: The insane review I apparently posted of Holly Black’s The Wicked King in 2018. You are 17 and cannot say that on the internet.)
2. When you first begin writing out a review, don’t think, just write. Start typing everything you thought about the book, every passing joke and idea you had. I even recommend keeping notes while reading the book, though I acknowledge some people hate this (your mileage may vary). Word vomit your thoughts onto the page.
If you have a lot to say at this stage, see what throughlines are coming up. If you talked entirely about a character arc that made you cry, that may be the main focus of your review; if you talked entirely about one plot aspect that bothered you, that may be a main focus of your review. Let your thoughts guide you.
3. When you run out of your immediate instincts about the book, that’s when you can become more methodical. It’s only at this point where I begin to mentally break the review down into characters, plot, setting, worldbuilding, etc. If one of those elements seems fairly irrelevant, either skip it or mention it as something the book failed on. I do not use a standard structure, but if I were to use a specific structure, here’s approximately what it would look like:
a. your basic opinion, summing it up;
b. a two-sentence summary;
c. a worldbuilding summary — typically tied into the summary;
d. assessing the quality of the writing;
e. assessing the plot and plot structure;
f. character summaries and thoughts on those characters;
g. an assessment of feelings on the book’s relationships; romantic, familial, and platonic;
h. a discussion of themes and/or messages within the book;
i. acknowledging the nuance — see point 6 for more this on this;
j. a TL;DR: — see point 5 for more on this.4. When beginning your journey into reviewing, I recommend learning a bit about plot structure. While the three-act structure is technically one for movies, I found learning about it to be pretty revolutionary in my reviewing journey. I’ve linked a video essay below that helped my understanding:
It can be really helpful to have this knowledge on file, because learning to distinguish and critique each act changed my life. A bloated first act or a nonexistent second act or a lack of want vs. need shift or a messy third act may be the problem with some books.
5. Simply loving a book or hating a book does not a review make. Many, I think, struggle with writing highly negative or highly positive book reviews, because they are deceptively simple; a review ends up reading as either I loved this and every aspect was good, or I hated this and every aspect was bad. But when a book impacts you deeply, it does not typically come from simple flat goodness or badness; it comes from one or two aspects that deeply resonate. The way to avoid a simplistic and easy review is to find a why, and concentrate on the why.
For five star reviews, don’t simply convey that the entire book is excellent — tell me about the one or two elements that formed your deep emotional connection to the book. Find a main theme. For me, a five star read is often that way due to characters that deeply resonated with me, so I’ll focus on how the character arcs are built and what about each of them resonated with me; my review of Fonda Lee’s Jade War contains a paragraph each about the four leads. Sometimes, it’s due to a well-explored theme that a book resonates with me; my review of Ann Leckie’s Translation State ends with a paragraph-long discussion of body blending.
For one star reviews, rant about everything, but stick to some kind of main theme of What Sucked About This — was it the absurdity of the plot? the annoying characters? the tropes? Pick one of those things to make the focus, or possibly two if you really feel you have to. If all the flaws fall into one category, as is often the case, make that one category the theme of your review.
Basically, I tend to wrap this up into a conclusion of one of the following forms, depending on my star rating:
[for ★★★★☆ or ★★★★★] TL;DR: when I think about how much I love this book, what will stick out to me? what will I mention first when I recommend this to my best friend?
[for ★☆☆☆☆, or really negative ★★☆☆☆ reviews] TL;DR: when I think about my deep dislike for this book, what will I remember? what will make me bring up this book angrily at a party?
6. Acknowledge the nuance of even your harshest opinions. This looks different for each rating, so here’s a basic template for how you could approach it:
★☆☆☆☆: Was there anything redemptive, and why didn’t I care?
★★☆☆☆: Why didn’t I hate this enough to one star it?
★★★☆☆: [three stars is a positive rating] What bugged me about this book?
★★★★☆: Why wasn’t this good enough to five star? is it just because it didn’t resonate enough for a five?
★★★★★: Was there anything wrong, and why didn’t I care?
7. When I work on my review, it can help to think about why something stands out from its genre. Fantasy? A creative worldbuilding concept, a standout main character, an interesting philosophical question asked. Suspense? Emphasize the depth of psychology, a twist that stuck out to you as nonstandard. Romance? Maybe the healthiness of the relationship, the well-written characters, a trope it uses in an interesting way. If a book was a lot of fun, but doesn’t quite stand out from its genre — i.e. isn’t a must-read — it is fine to admit that. It will give you far more credibility as a reader and as a reviewer.
8. Be truthful and unapologetic in your viewpoints. If you dislike a book, it is unnecessary to couch it in “I’m sorry I didn’t like this don’t kill me you might like it!!” every time. If you truly do have mixed feelings, say that, but don’t affect a complimentary attitude towards the book when it’s not what you feel. If you didn’t like it, there is a reason for your dislike; don’t be wishy-washy. An audience enjoys honest reviews. A positive review is more trusted from someone willing to give negative reviews; a negative review is more trusted from someone willing to give positive reviews.
It is fine to hate books everyone else loves. (Even if you may occasionally get unbelievably stupid comments. To this day, the stupidest comments I’ve ever personally received were on my review of Caroline Kepnes’s You.) The people will not hate you if you post unpopular opinions on occasion; it is exactly that which gives reviewers credibility.
Review Formatting and Review Conventions
1. On the topic of ratings: Use a system that works for you, but I personally am a fan of rating most things in the two to four range.
I would recommend using the five star rating sparingly. Readers won’t always trust the high ratings of someone who rates 98% of the books they read highly. That doesn’t mean you should pretend you didn’t love any books you did; it just means that if you enjoyed a book but feel no specific strong love for it, or don’t consider it a top book of the year, or felt it had some flaws, a four star rating is the right rating.
On a related topic, do not be afraid to rate down books that were not for you. Anything that I appreciated but never personally enjoyed gets a two, or a three on a good day. If you genuinely don’t have a single feeling other than “uhhhhh” it’s a two star read. Drop it to two stars. You did not like it. You thought it was okay. Drop your rating.
And also don’t be afraid to change your ratings; we change as people, our rating systems change, our review style changes, and it’s completely fine.
2. It is very common to compare books to other books in reviews — it’s a convention in straplines, actually. Remember when doing so that comparing a book to super popular books can be both a blessing and a curse. If you recommend the latest fairy romantasy for fans of Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses because of your love for complicated fairy court politics, you should be aware that those reading your review could fall in two different traps: turned off by the comparison to a book they hate, or ready to enjoy the book only to be let down by the absence of a trope they love. As such, I’d recommend providing multiple book comparisons, making it clear which elements of the other book you are comparing to this one (the romance? the world? etc.), and making it clear you don’t have to like the compared books to like this new book.
3. On a related note, describe genre correctly and market to the right audience. On a basic level, don’t market a swoony new adult romantasy as a great fantasy read, or vice versa. On a more complicated level, there is no need to pretend a book is character-driven if it isn’t, or has cross-market appeal to romance readers if it doesn’t.
One of my hardest-ever exercises in reviewing was a five star review I wrote years ago of Sarah Porter’s Never Contented Things. This book is a deeply disturbing and extremely terrifying book about teen-on-teen sexual violence and manipulation with a magical realism and fairy-tale background. It’s one of my favorite books of all time. And yet most of its audience picked it up expecting a fairy romance, and so the rating has dropped to an — I shit you not — three star average, primarily from a slew of DNFs. In writing my review, I was very careful to ensure that I was not marketing this as a sexy fairy romance, because it is anything but, and anyone going in expecting such is going to hate it.
4. Think carefully about the length of your plot summary. I usually read publisher-provided synopses before I read reviews, but even if a reader does not, you’re not trying to summarize the book for them; you’re trying to tell them why you feel the way you feel and why they will agree. Two sentences is enough for many books. Just mention the parts of the blurb you think will interest readers and skip irrelevant detail.
For extremely weird horror books, I particularly think less can be more in provoking a sense of awe and horror.
5. On the other hand, ensure your review will appeal to those who have not read the book. When editing, reread your review with the viewpoint of someone who has yet to read the book. A frequent error I see is reviewers leaving out an explanation of who the main characters are, but naming them anyway, leaving the reader of the review extremely confused.
6. If you are thinking of sectioning off your reviews — say, different headings for character development, plot, worldbuilding, writing quality — it is okay to vary the length of each section depending on which aspects of the book are most key to your impression. If you’re writing a super long review with three paragraphs about character development, three paragraphs about worldbuilding, and three about writing, then definitely use sections. Additionally, feel free to skip a section if you don’t need it. If the writing is basically mediocre, dedicate one sentence to it in your miscellaneous section — don’t try to stretch it out.
But I would also not recommend forcing yourself to split your review into sections. Many books are best served by one, continuous review. When I read Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, I found that the point is the writing style and thematic work; there was no need to section the review, because every aspect of the book is so tightly intertwined.
7. Use the return button. No one wants to read a wall of text. I guarantee this is not an unpopular opinion.
8. When discussing any major aspect of a book, the language to assess quality takes time to develop. If you have no commentary beyond “It was good,” my guess is you’re struggling with either confidence in your own thoughts or a lack of knowledge of common things a reviewer will focus on. Reading reviews helps, but here are a few extremely basic ideas:
For writing: How was the word choice? How did the author play with sentence structure; did they vary it or was each sentence the same length/too long/too short? How was the imagery, or visually descriptive language?
For characters: How did they grow and change, or stagnate? What did each arc look like?
For themes: What relationship does the book have with existing tropes or genre conventions?
9. Humor is fine, and fun. In my high school reviews, I often summarized characters by sort of joking at their expense, as in my The Stars Are Legion and Strange Grace reviews. (I will note that this works best when the characters are either lovable assholes, or unlovable assholes, i.e. you deeply hate them.) People like funny. Go for it.
Concluding: Go Forth, Little Reviewers
Before I send you off and away, I have something to say about my own history with reviewing. I started my Goodreads account in February of 2016, meaning I was… fourteen years old, about to turn fifteen, and oh my god that’s horrifying. At that point, I was starting the account partially to focus on a goal: getting back into reading by reading two books a week. After a year and the development of several close friendships, I was reading about four books a week.
In May of 2017, I went back through every single book I’d read in the last couple of years and gave each one a brief review, ranging vastly in effort and quality. But by this point, some of my newer reviews were reaching a much higher quality, or at least as Goodreads goes (see: my May 2017 Daughter of Smoke and Bone review). This was a ridiculous exercise, but by the end of 2017, I can really confidently say I was a much better reviewer. Practice makes perfect.
Before I sign off, I have one more key piece of advice. Early into your reviewing or critical writing career, it can be fun to ask for advice and peer review from friends. This is easily one of the most intimidating things you can do, but also one of the most rewarding. Show your friends your reviews. Ask them to tell you to rearrange the structure, change your words.
This Substack goes through a weekly review process by one of my closest friends. I’m not suggesting everyone do that, but I am saying they rearranged the entire structure of this post in my drafting stage, and it’s now significantly better. To review is to provide feedback on a piece of art. If you believe that cycle of feedback to be valuable, ask those you love or respect to provide it, too. Let the cycle continue.
In my reviewing as a way of healing relationships to culture post, I wrote about reviewing as a way of memorializing your own self as a function of your relationship to art:
Art is a way of memorializing your relationship to nature, to concepts, to historical events, to other people. It should be memorialized similarly — as a record of both your relationship to the media, and your relationship to the world around you as filtered through the media. To write, in detail, about the media you’ve read and experienced is to memorialize it for your own history, the one you live in now.
When I reread my old reviews, I find not just an interesting record of old books, one that often jogs my memory, but I also find a record of who I’ve once been: The good, the bad, the insightful, the not. I’ve written a history for myself.
I hope that everyone reading this post makes their own secret history of their own consumption for themselves. (And hopefully for me, too. This must be subtextually clear, but I love reading reviews.) As Cricket said while editing this post: Go be free, you little reviewers. And follow my Goodreads account.
this post finally made me go back and drop my reviews of the poppy war trilogy to 1 or 2 stars <3