If you have a literature blog, The most normal thing is that you do the odd book review that you yourself have bought, or that they have given you to make a comment on your website. But how do you review a real book?
Many times, most of the reviews only include the synopsis, the author's biography and say if they liked it or not. But little more. Is that a review? We already tell you no. Actually, there is a script that you should use to create a perfect review. Which? We explain it to you.
First of all… what is a review?
Before explaining how to write a book review, the best way for you to understand what is being asked of you is to know exactly what a review is.
This can be conceptualized as a comment for a reader to make about how the book made them feel that you have read In other words, it is a critical comment, with personal opinion, about that book. That is, what he liked, what he didn't, what made him feel in the different parts of the book...
As you can see, it is not a summary of the book, which is what is usually thought and seen as reviews. Actually, this one goes further and does not delve as much into the story as it does in what impacts the book and the story on the reader itself.
How to write a book review
Now that you know exactly what to give in a review, let's jump right into how to review a book. And to begin with, you should know that the most experienced in this, take about 10 minutes to do it; but if you do not have much experience, we recommend that you leave an hour free to do it calmly.
The structure that a review should follow can be the following (we already warned you that this will change depending on the focus you have on your blog or the way in which you make these reviews):
- Introduction. Where you present the book and the author briefly, without getting too into it.
- Technical data. Where you give the name of the book, author, publisher (if it has one), number of pages, ISBN and other information that is important and relevant.
- Summary of the story. It can also be a synopsis of the book.
- Assessment. Here we directly find out what the review itself is, where we will talk about what it has made us feel, if we liked it, criticism (always constructive), characters, etc.
You must bear in mind that the review should not be extensive, but ratherand it is better that it be brief and that it goes to the important thing. Here it is not about making a 3-page monologue about what the main character has made you feel, but something more summarized and above all that contains your personal, non-professional or critical assessment. Of course, personal does not mean that it is subjective; You have to seek objectivity to be able to assess a book based on reasons that are logical and that say why you liked the book or not
Within the review, the structure that you could follow is the following:
Framing the book in the appropriate genre
That is to say, talk about the theme of the book, what the story brings and give a little context so that whoever reads the review knows what they can find you. Be careful, that does not mean making a summary of the story, but talking about what it contributes as a reader, if it hooks you, if it is easy to read, if it has words that are not understood at first, etc.
analyze the context
In this case, most of the books will be based on a past, present, or future tense. Depending on the book and the author, more or less license will have been taken when writing it. What do we mean by this? Because whate you can talk about the time of history and compare it with reality (if possible) to see if there are things that are faithful or not and how those changes may have made you react.
For example, if it's about a war, you may have felt the anguish of the characters. If it is also true and you have read about it, it is possible that you will see reflected in the characters the most realistic experience of that situation. Or on the contrary, that the author has not known how to combine the characters well with the emotional charge of the situation or the temporality of the story.
Characters
It is another aspect to deal with, talking about the characters, but not physically but of his personality, character, if they are credible, if he has evolved throughout history...
book values
Every book has an underlying theme, something the author wants to teach readers. Sometimes this is easy to recognize; but other times not and you have to dig deeper into the story to bring it to light. And that is your task when writing a book review.
We give you an example. Imagine the Game of Thrones books. Do you think the author only wanted to focus on the deaths and everything bad that happens in the story? In fact, It's a fight between good and evil, between doing things as well as possible, without harming anyone, or not caring about others and thinking only about the good of oneself.
Provide your comment
Actually, every book review is a personal comment about what you have felt with reading. But In this section you can delve a little deeper into what it has made you feel.
For example, it is possible that the book, in certain parts, You have fallen in love, angry, taken out of history...
All this must be put in the review because it will help other readers to see that the book is not flat, which you can feel in different ways at different times in history.
For example, in Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the ending is one in which the reader can feel happy because it is the finishing touch that is expected and that you did not want it to end without those two characters being together.
Or the scene where the nutcracker fights the mouse king can make you feel restless to know if he is going to finally defeat him or fall into a new trap of this one.
You have to remember that reviewing a book is something "personal", that is, they are not going to look like each other because each one must contribute their point of view. Even if the result is good (in the sense that you liked the book), each one may have had different feelings in different parts of the book. And that is what should be reflected. Have you ever read a review like this?