Yeah this is a week late but I went out of town last weekend and just didn't get around to writing this post before I left. In my opinion, posting it a week late is better than not posting it at all. If you want to read what my friends already wrote about their review writing process you can check that out at
Nite Lite Book Reviews and
The Reader's Antidote!
The way I write reviews now is leaps and bounds different than how I wrote them when I first starting blogging (gasp!) five years ago! When I first started blogging I would read a book as fast as I could and then I would write the review maybe a few weeks later. The problem with that method is 1. I read the book so fast I didn't give myself a chance to enjoy or even process what was happening. 2. After waiting a few weeks to write the review, and reading so many book in between, I would forget all the characters names and basically everything that happened in the book.
Now, as a more experienced blogger, I know that my reviewing process starts when I start reading page one. As a reader and a reviewer with a full time job, my time is precious and I pay especially close attention to the first one hundred pages. Every book I read is given the same chance and that chance is to grab my attention in the first one hundred pages. I feel like after one hundred pages I can get a good feel and grasp on the plot and the characters. This is also when I decide if I will DFN (did not finish) a book or not. If I decide to continue with the book and finish it (which is the case with most books) then right after I pass one hundred pages, I write an evaluation based on those one hundred pages. This gives me a chance to write down my initial thoughts of the book before I forget. I also write down the names of the major players. Then I finish the book as usual. When I write my review I have my initial thoughts down on paper which makes writing a full review much easier because I am able to remember more of the book.
Often, when I read a book that I love, I have a hard time saying exactly what I loved about it. So usually in books reviews where I just say that I loved it, I also write a summary of the book. I don't always write a summary because that's what the synopsis is for and I always include the book's synopsis from Goodreads. But sometimes there is more to that synopsis so (sometimes) I like to write a summary. I really go back and forth with this and sometimes I feel like writing one and sometimes I don't. It depends on the book and my mood.
My format is pretty simple. I like to say right off the bat, in the first paragraph whether I liked the book or not. Then I sometimes give a summary or not. Then I go straight into my one hundred page evaluation and copy it straight off the page from when I wrote it down because this is my true initial reaction before reading the remainder of the book. After the one hundred page evaluation I get into the meat of my review and at that point I'm reviewing the book as a whole. Characters, plot, atmosphere and ending. In the last paragraph I say again what I said in the first paragraph of whether or not I liked the book.
I find that writing a review is a lot like writing a paper in college just a much shorter version. In the beginning you have your introduction and your hypothesis. In the body you prove your hypothesis and in the conclusion restate your hypothesis and wrap it up. That's exactly how I approach writing a book review.
Wow that was long. I hope you got to the end! If you did, what do you think about having a review writing process? Have a topic you want us to discussion in a future edition of What Does the Bookworm Say? Let me know in the comments!
