How I Write a Review

Reviews. They can be a slightly sticky topic. Many people have many different ways of writing them, and different opinions on how they should be done. Personally, I found my happy spot after I began writing lots of reviews and read many posts/watching many videos on writing reviews. I will post those links next week for you guys to check out for yourself (I highly recommend them!). And I just thought I'd share how I, personally, write reviews. :) 

So say I just read a book and finished it. We’ll take “The Tiger of Mysore,” by G.A. Henty, as an example. (I have actually just finished this but haven’t written a review yet so this will get that off my To-Do List :P). 

So, I just finished “Tiger” and now I’m going to review it. First off, I’ll rate it. I personally used to rate everything 5 stars unless I had a problem with it, but I changed my mind when I began bookstagramming. Now, I do it on the principal of Goodreads’ and Amazon's rating.

5 stars—I loved it! 
4 stars—I really liked it. :D 
3 stars—I liked it. 
2 stars—Meh... it was OK. 
1 star—I did not like it.

Personally, I also added a 5+ star which means I 100% totally loved it (we can cite “Jonas & Olivia” by Victoria Minks for an example). I also added .5 stars to add extra distinctions. So, for example: 4.5 means I really liked it but there was probably some content that lowered my rating from 5 or 5+. 3.5 means I enjoyed it, but didn’t “really, really like it.” 1.5 would be I didn’t like it overall, but there were a few parts I did like. And so forth.

This year I've also started doing hearts. (You will notice that my older reviews don't have hearts; that's why). I borrowed this idea from my friend Abi. She started rating books on a scale of 1 to 10 mushrooms (or ’shrooms) because it gave her more freedom. I decided to adapt that to my reviewing style so people could tell how much I loved a book. There's 5+-star books, and 5+-stars books. So I took 10 hearts and gave each one a meaning. 

So, back to “Tiger.” I really very much enjoyed this book and I think I will give it 4.5 stars. (As I said, .5 is as much as saying there’s content I didn’t like, so keep your eyes open when you see that in my reviews). I can't give 4.5/10 hearts, so I'll round up to 5/10 hearts.

Now I will write the actual review. First I’ll start with the rating, so that it’s right there in the review and not just on the Amazon or Goodreads rating thingamajig. Next, I will say things I liked about this book.

“4.5 stars & 5/10 hearts. I’ve read this book several times, and is still highly excited by it. There is a lot of scope for imagination in it, and from beginning to end there are few parts where the focus is not on the hero and his exciting adventures.”

Personally, given the number of reviews I write and my personal likings, I don't talk at length about the characters I loved or how amazing the scenes were. There are reviewers who do so and it is totally fine; I, personally, prefer to write and read shorter reviews. But if I did rave over the characters, I would divide it between here and the closing phrases. 

Next comes what I didn’t like--stuff that personally didn’t appeal to me. I.e, a poor writing style, or a political perspective, or a character that drive me crazy, etc. 

“Because of the highly exciting nature of the hero’s adventures, I found the historical parts unusually boring, but there were very few of those.”

Then comes the content. Content is the sexual, religious, and moralistic stuff such as drinking, kissing, language, and things that I think do not line up with the Bible. So, for “Tiger”... 

“There was some mentions of smoking; very little drinking, and all for medicinal purposes if I remember correctly; two kisses mentioned between a young man and the girl he later marries; some lying; & discussions on second sight which I don’t totally agree with.”

So, I list the negative content but I don’t go on and on about it unless it really bothered me, in which case I’ll make a separate statement about it. If there's a lot of content, then I state here that there is content and add, "Look below for a list of the content" and after the quotes I put a list. See an example here.

After listing the content and/or negative stuff, I close with more positivity. In the case of “Tiger,” I have:

“This is actually one of Henty’s cleanest books, and one of my personal favourites. Dick is humorous, gallant, and always involved in interesting--often thrilling--adventures. And the whole kept-prisoner-by-Tippoo part, in both Mr. Holland’s and Annie’s cases, personally fascinate me.”

By starting with positivity, the reader of my review starts off with positive feelings about this book. He then reads what I’ve listed as negative, and then finished with some more positivity to leave with a pleasant impression towards the book. 

All this is, of course, if I liked the book. In that case, I of course want to spread it around. If on the contrary I did not like this book, I will probably start negative, add the positive I can, and then end as nutrally as I can. If I have nothing positive to say, I always make it a short review basically listing my objections. 

(By the way, a little note about typos: instead of writing in my review that there were typos, I approach the author (if they are Independent Published) and let her know that I found some, so that she can change them. Indies can republish books and remove typos, so a review stating there are many typos might be incorrect in a few months. However, if it’s a traditionally published book and the quality is poor, I might note that in my review.)

After writing my thoughts, I then pick out one of my favourite quotes. I have three categories, and I pick one quotes for each category.

Category #1 is A Favourite Quote [note the ‘a’. This isn’t THE favourite quote, it’s a favourite quote. ;)]. This is basically a quotable quote. xP By which I mean, something you would quote or write down. So for example, suppose that while reading Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” this phrase really stuck out to you: “... go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confiding you as you come to your mother.” This is where you would write it down.

The next category is “A Favourite Beautiful Quote,” either in creating a beautiful image or having a beautiful sound to it. Such as this quote from “Beautiful Blue World” by Suzanne LaFleur:

“The glowing candlelight … seemed to flicker inside me as well, warm and soothing.“A shred of darkness remained, like that creeping through the windows between the curtains.”

And my last category is “A Favourite Humorous Quote.” Pretty self-explanatory. xD

So, here’s “Tiger” as your model again:

“A Favourite Quote: “‘I do not want you to be quarrelsome, ... but I have heard your father say that a man who can use his fists well is sure to be cool and quick, in any emergency. ... Therefore, Dick, I say, never quarrel on your own account, but whenever you see a boy bullying a smaller one, take the opportunity of giving him a lesson while learning one yourself. In the days of old, you know, the first duty of a true knight was to succour the oppressed, and I want you to be a true knight.”  

“A Favourite Humorous Quote: “‘I will tell you about it, as we ride.’” 

“‘You had better tell me afterwards, Dick. I have not ridden a horse in my life, except when they were taking me from the coast to Mysore, and I shall have enough to do to keep my seat and attend to my steering, without trying to listen to you.’”

As you see, there’s no Favourite Beautiful Quote in this book. Henty doesn't often have beautiful quotes. ;P 

As for the length, I try to keep my reviews short, as I said earlier. The quotes make them longer, and I’d personally rather read a concise review than a long, fangirly one about all the characters (who I don’t know anyways, if I’m just checking out this book). So I keep that kind of long, gushing writing for a blog post, although some of my reviews are longer than other when I really deeply love the book. (See an example here). ;) Feel free to check out my Amazon profile to see other examples of how I write reviews. :)

~//~

Let me know your tips & tricks for reviewing!