A year or so back, someone wrote to me with a series of questions for an article they were writing about book reviewing. I’ll confess, I don’t remember who the person was or what they were writing the piece for. (For some reason, I think maybe it was an academic thing.) I did, however, save the questions, and my responses to them. Here are the first two, for your reading pleasure.
Question 1: If someone wants to be a book reviewer, where do they start?
The first step is to read as many books as possible. I think it’s advisable to focus on a particular area or genre of books (e.g., mysteries, science fiction, American History). If you try to read and review books from across the spectrum, your chances of becoming sufficiently proficient in any one area are very small. There are just too many books published and too much going on in the different genres.
After you begin to read books in your area, you need to start thinking about them critically and analytically. You should ask yourself questions along the way: What works in this book and what doesn’t? What parts do I like and what parts do I not? Are the characters believable and well developed? Is the plot familiar or original? Does it strain the suspension of belief too far? Is the pacing consistent or does it drag? Does the author tell or does s/he show? (There are a million others.)
The key is to be able to determine what the book’s strengths and weaknesses are, both in terms of the story and the craft, and then be able to explain them in such a way that is intelligible to someone who hasn’t read the book.
Once you can do that, you’re ready to write a review. It’s important to note that writing the review is the more perfunctory part of the task. It’s the thought behind it that’s most important. We're assuming here that any potential reviewer has at least adequate writing skills. Therefore, this is the factor that separates a good reviewer from a mediocre one.
Question 2: How do you write a book review?
I believe that the purpose of a book review is to give the reader a sense of what the book is about, and to offer a reasoned opinion as to its relative merits and demerits. A review should help guide the reader into deciding whether or not the book in question is one that they would like to read themselves. Ideally, it will also give the reader some things to think about with regards to the book.
A review should provide a concise summary of the book’s plot, characters and themes, being careful not to reveal too much. A skillful review will usually incorporate analysis into the presentation of the summary, thus accomplishing two things at once.
The balance of a review should be composed of analysis of the book, including what was good about it and what was not, what worked and what did not. A good review will often place the book in some context, whether in terms of literature as a whole, the book’s genre or the author’s career.
Although there are some exceptions, any review that is an unqualified rave or a merciless pan should probably be reconsidered. Remember, balance and perspective are crucial. Above all, reviews should be fair, reasoned and give justification for their positions.
Too often the things I see masquerading as book reviews are really just book reports, the kind of things we used to write in high school. They’re long summaries of the story finished off with a very brief critique that usually reads something like “I thought this book was really good because…” That’s fine for what it is, but it’s not a book review.
To be continued...
