Writing A Book Review

Book reviews: tips on writing and structure

Writing a book review, whether for business, at school, for pleasure or for paid work can be great fun and not a chore at all, depending how you view it.

The key is to have a structure to your work and critique, and not to just aimless and haphazardly start writing and see what happens.

But before you put pen to paper, the first thing you need is a thorough understanding of the text. To get this you need to read it through a couple of times at least, even if it a length tome, as the second reading often reveals many details and facts you did not pick up on the first time round, and can therefore embue a richer understanding.

Once you have read it through a couple of times, you should have a good idea of whether you like or dislike the book overall, a general impression.

You now need to start structuring your thoughts. Specifically, you need to think about the bits you did and did not like and ask the key question: why. This should put your thoughts into focus.

The key to a book review is also to pick examples of the elements you did and did not like, and explain why. Was the characterisation too stereotypical? Or was it just right, with accurate details and good development of each character.

Was the writing consistent, or were there some mistakes and some facts that contradicted themselves? Was too much or too little background and explanation given to the story? Was there a logical flow.

When writing a book review on a scientific or mathematical work, or anything that is not fictional, then some key questions will be around the arguments used and how convincing they are.

Here is where you can really analyse things and get some revealing information as a result. Often arguments seem obviously true and compelling the way they are stated by the author. Therefore it can pay dividends to review their logic and ask what ifs. See if you can come up with examples where their argument doesn't work, or an example where you can apply the logic of their argument and yet come up with a patent obsurdity as a result - all tell tale signs that things are not as watertight or clear cut as they would have you believe!

By going through this process you will come to write a great book review, understand the text more and help those who read your review.

Remember to structure the review well too, with a summary of your position at the top, then examples as to why you hold that view throughout the rest of your book review. Good luck!

Author: Fred

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Last Updated: Oct 3rd 2006

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