Reviewer Copy

How to Start a Stellar Book Review

I never hit the bottom of the topic barrel, because for every topic I write about I think of two more. But sometimes all the topics in the barrel look boring and none appeal so I go fishing for another one. Today I opened Publishers Weekly to see if any publishing news therein sparked interest and none of it did, but I started browsing the book reviews and so I thought, “book reviews.” This is where all my Shelf Life topics come from: ADHD.

Speaking of ADHD, first I have to print a correction re: Tuesday’s Shelf Life, after a my-own-age friend let me know that she wears a slip sometimes. You heard it here first: Slips are back. If they left at all, which, maybe they did not.

Today I’m talking book reviews; but actually I am talking making a critical assessment of something you have read for any purpose that might serve. Maybe you want to publish a book review in the New York Times or on your personal blog; or post a review on Goodreads or Amazon; or pitch the book to a friend or colleague to convince them to read it; or maybe just keep a record of your thoughts on what you read.

In reverse order as above, that’s what I review books for: Mostly so I can remind myself of what I read and what characteristics about it were important to me; slightly less frequently to recommend books to friends or put a review on Goodreads; and to publish in the NYT never.

I’ll start by saying I don’t read as much as I used to, for a lot of reasons. I am always trying to read more than I do. I think I’ve read a high number of books in my lifetime so far. I have almost 650 cataloged in Goodreads. 

To that end, I remember a lot of books I read and I don’t remember a lot of other ones. There are books I read back in the 1980s and 1990s that I still remember clearly, and that I could describe well enough to recommend to someone. Then there are books I’ve read in the last year or so that have already faded pretty well from memory. If I look back over my Goodreads account and see them, I think, “oh right I remember that” and if someone asked me, “Have you read —?” I would remember, but they just didn’t stand out to me and my recollection of them is vague.

Those books, the latter, go on to become books I don’t remember reading at all. I might remember the title and author if someone asked me, and remember the fact that I read the book, but nothing about the book sticks with me past a few years. There are some books on the list from the last five years that I look at and think: “I don’t remember anything about this book at all.”

This is actually why I try to make at least a few notes on all the books I read: Not so I can remember what I liked and what impressed me, because I don’t need notes to remember those. Those will stay with me whether I make notes or not. I make notes to remember what I did not like and what failed to impress me. After a few years I will probably not remember anything about the book but if I take the time up front to write a paragraph or two about the book, I might take away a lesson about why the book didn’t do it for me and that lesson will stick—and if it doesn’t, I can always go back and re-read my notes.

That’s reason number one. Reason number two: I like to collect my thoughts at the end of reading anything and synthesize them into a brief soundbite I can use to explain the book succinctly to another person. When someone asks what you’re reading, or if you’ve read anything good lately, or if you have a book recommendation for them, they’re not asking you to rattle off a book title and author name. They also don’t want a ten-page white paper on the book or an entire blow-by-blow of the whole thing (“So it starts at the end of this war in the British magical community and this baby has been orphaned and—”). They want a brief, spoiler-free synopsis of the book, what you think about it, and why you recommend it (if you recommend it). 

It’s also helpful for me to remember why I didn’t like a book in case I end up recommending it to someone else later. For example: If I disliked X book and then disliked Y book because it was similar to X book; and then someone tells me they adore X book and do I know anything else like that. I might recommend Y book even though I didn’t like it myself. I will then make a recommendation with the caveat, “this wasn’t for me; however.”

And of course it’s helpful to remember why I didn’t like a book in the event I want to not recommend it. It’s unusual that I dislike a book so much that it sticks with me (looking at you Outlander) and I can handily provide the reason I didn’t like it, if asked. More often I don’t like a book and I finish it and it just leaves no impression, or I stop reading it partway through and let it disperse into the greater DNF (did not finish) list.

In summary, today I’m going to go over—briefly—how I take helpful and meaningful and brief notes on something I’ve read so I can preserve the main and important points for later use whether I intend to remember the book or not. And that kind of dovetails with the idea of writing a book review. 

A book review should contain the following:

• A brief, spoiler-free synopsis of the plot and characters.

• Discussion of the book’s themes.

• The reader’s opinion of the book’s strengths and its and weaker points. 

• A summary of the reader’s thoughts and perhaps a rating, ranking, or recommendation.

This is all you need. Whether it’s for your journal or the New York Times.

The brief summary or synopsis is the same soundbite you would use if someone asks you what you’re reading. Instead of giving just the title (eg, “Star Wars,”), instead give a high-level overview of the plot:

• Start with the main character (“Luke Skywalker”) 

• And who that is (“a moisture farmer on a backwater desert planet”)

• Then briefly state the inviting event that causes their life to go off the rails (“comes into possession of a droid that belongs to a high-ranking resistance official”)

• And then what the main character does in response to that stimulus (“joins up with a ragtag group of terrorists including a spunky princess, space Indiana Jones, somebody’s grandpa, and Bigfoot, to overthrow the lawfully elected galactic government”).

Next, make a list of some of the book’s prominent themes. A plot’s just a plot, and while plot is important, a story that doesn’t have any deeper meaning or themes behind the chronicle of events it’s telling is not a story that’s going to go the distance or stick in your memory. In the case of Star Wars, my list might look like:

• A coming-of-age story

• About accepting your identity

• Corrupt government

• Good conquering evil

• Individualism versus collectivism

And so on. With that list in hand, you can expand into a few notes on how the theme was explored throughout the story. For instance, over the span of three Star Wars movies, Luke Skywalker has to come to terms with who he really is versus who he was raised to believe he was, but the other characters are struggling with the same thing in different ways. Like Obi Wan Kenobi has been hiding out on Tatooine pretending to be somebody else, and Han Solo has been going about life as a low-standards smuggler when he’s actually been hero material the whole time. And so on.

I had to look up all these words on Wikipedia. I thought their spaceship was the Enterprise.

Next: Summarize what you felt were the strengths and weaknesses of the story you read. It helps me out in the long run if I do a little introspection to figure out what I disliked about a book before I put it aside and dismiss it as “bad.” I don’t know if there are any truly “bad” books, I just know there are books I like more, or less; a lot, or not at all. If a book didn’t work for me, it’s helpful for me to figure out why it didn’t work for me so I know what to avoid when choosing future reading. I can also, sometimes, identify where writing techniques were poorly executed, and that’s helpful for me to observe in situ for my own future writing practice.

I think every book, even those that I don’t like, probably have good things about them. Probably there’s somebody out there who liked that book and could give me an explanation of what they liked about it. However, I don’t go out of my way to find something nice to say about a book I didn’t like. If something stood out to me as a bright light in an otherwise unlikable book, I’ll write that down. I make notes of what I thought was done well and what I thought wasn’t.

Last step: Sum it all up. I do like giving books a star rating. I use same five-star rating scale that Goodreads uses, even if I’m not entering my brief review into the Goodreads environment, because the purpose—for me—of giving this rating is so I can keep track of how much I liked or disliked this book relative to other books. I’m not rating each book independently based on how well it lived up to the potential it contained, but to be able to look at the book on a spectrum of books I’ve read from worst to best and see, generally, where it falls.

When I talk with someone who shares some of the same five-star, favorite books with me, it’s a good sign that I can rec some of my faves to them and absorb their faves onto my to-read list. If someone’s favorite books include titles that I don’t like at all, then it stands to reason my recommendations wouldn’t do much for them, either.

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