How To Write Good Book Reviews

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Book reviews have become one of my favorite things to make blog posts and YouTube videos about. I love sharing my opinion but also reading/listening to other reader’s opinions as well. 

So far, I’ve written about 70 book reviews. That’s a solid chunk of book reviews! At first, I didn’t have a format for my reviews, but if you take a look at most of my recent reviews, I’ve found a way to simplify the process. 

I do advise you to take my advice with a grain of salt. While I do have a Bachelor’s in English & Creative Writing and I’ve been running this blog for almost 3 years, I’m certainly not an expert. I like to think I have lots of knowledge to share, but I’m not making up the rules. So please consider this a helpful resource, but not the set in stone rule book. There will be additional articles linked at the end of this one that are a bit more informative.

With that being said, let’s jump right in! 

Give a brief summary of the book

At first I used to summarize the books I read myself. But I found this to be quite time consuming sometimes when I’d read a book that was madness and I had absolutely no idea how to summarize it. 

So what I like to do now, is quote the Goodreads summary. This gives readers an idea of what the book is about and saves me some brain power for the rest of the review. 

Consider adding quotes

If you are someone who annotates your books, this one will be easy for you! I don’t annotate my books and almost always forget to highlight quotes on my Kindle for a later review. 

Quotes can give more insight into a story, but also what elements of the story you really liked or disliked. I like to start my review with a quote that either is a good representation of the story OR is just a really good quote that I liked. 

Stick to the book – not the author

When I write book reviews, I generally try to keep my thoughts to the story at hand. Often times there is no reason to review the author, unless there is some drama unfolding around the author. (but even then, try to keep your review revolved around the book.)

It might be worth mentioning, but I wouldn’t overcomplicate your review by starting out writing about the book and then switching completely to the author. Let your thoughts on the author be a different post entirely, in which you can link your book reviews to. 

Try not to spoil anything

This one can be super tricky. Sometimes something happens and you just have to share your thoughts on it, but to someone who hasn’t read the book, your opinion could end up being a spoiler.

I feel like there are 2 types of book review readers.

1) Readers who have not yet read the book and are trying to decide if they should by reading other’s opinions.

2) People who read the book and have super strong feelings about it and are looking for other readers who might have the same sentiment as them. 

My best piece of advice for avoiding spoilers is to just leave it out. There are a lot of bits and pieces that don’t make it into my published book reviews because I do not want to spoil anything. 

And if you do end up posting spoilers, put a warning or tag them, or place them at the very end of your review. So that way, people who want to avoid spoilers can still read your review without ruining any parts of the story for themselves.

Don’t confuse your readers

Sometimes writing book reviews can feel like writing a journal entry. If you love a book, then you’ll sit down and start gushing about it. If you hated it, then you’ll sit down and start ranting about everything wrong with said book. 

But here’s the problem: you’ll end up all over the place. 

Personally, I came up with a simple formula for my posts that I can re-use for every review. 

I open with a quote, give a summary, talk about the plot, the characters, give an overall thoughts blurb, and then give the book a rating. 

This covers most of the important elements and feels organized and to the point. 

Think about what is important when reading a book, what elements are important. A lot of people find the plot, characters, tropes, writing style, world-building, etc to be important factors of a story.

If you’re not a fan of formatting, write your reviews like essays. Let your thoughts flow freely from one point to the next, but try to not be repetitive and consider highlighting certain lines when it comes to the themes, tropes, characters, world-building, etc so readers can easily find your thoughts on these points. 

Proofread before publishing 

I have 100% fallen victim to going back and reading some of my older posts, to find a dreaded spelling error or grammatical error. 

While it isn’t the end of the world, small things like spelling errors definitely should have been caught pre-publication. 

I previously used Grammarly to make sure my writing was good to go. Though I recently switched to ProWritingAid and like it quite a bit more. After copying my post from my Apple Notes into WordPress, I go through and edit myself. 

Then I let ProWritingAid point out any other errors to make sure my post is as error-free as possible. 

Sometimes errors can’t be helped, so don’t beat yourself up if you go back and find some small errors. It’s part of what makes blogging human.

Reference other books

Last but certainly not least, is to reference other books! 

I am a big fan of “If you like this —, then read this — “ type of posts. Reviews are a great way to link/tag other books you have read that a reader might also enjoy. 

I love when I read a review of a book I really liked and then at the end of the post, the blogger or YouTuber included a recommendation or two for additional reading. 

And yes, it just makes my TBR even bigger, but it is so fun to discover new books through other readers! Especially when you end up enjoying the book you were recommended. 

Lastly, give it a rating!

Personally, I’ve really come to dislike the 5-star rating system everyone seems to use. After I finish reading a book, my feelings are either I loved it, I hated it, I’m conflicted about it, or it’s just sitting somewhere in the “meh” feeling. 

Assigning books 1-5 stars is something I might ditch in 2025, but for now it kinda works for me. 

My advice would be to find what works for you. If you like the star rating system, then go for it! I’ve also seen people come up with their own rating system entirely. 

You should do what feels right and accurately depicts how you felt after reading the book. This includes possibly giving a book a low rating. I find it’s better to be honest and rate low, then lie and rate high.

All in all, reviewing books doesn’t have to be complicated. 

My main takeaways would be to summarize the book itself, keep your thoughts clear, avoid spoilers, proofread, rate, and most importantly, publish! 

Starting out is always the hardest part. I still question if my reviews are even good enough. And if I should re-format and change the way I write them. 

There is a strong possibility in the future I might, but for now it works and I am a big fan of don’t fix what isn’t broken. 

And while reviews are definitely opinion based, don’t be afraid to throw in some statistics to back up your thoughts. 

Writing should be fun and if you end up discovering that book reviews aren’t for you, that’s okay!

If you’re looking for additional resources on writing book reviews, here are some additional resources that have helped me!

Independent Book Review // Bookish First Forum // Reedsy

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