Five Easy Steps to Write A Book Review:
Introduction
Want to write a book review? You are at right place. here we show you with an example five easy steps to write a book review. We'll be
talking about how to do a book review. For this, we'll use one of Stephen
King's best known novels to give you practical tips and examples of what to do
and what not to do. When reviewing a book stay tuned to find out which of his
works we’ll be looking at. We're going to teach you how to write a book review
in five simple steps. After reading this article, you will be able to pick up
any book, critique it, and review it. As if you've been doing it your whole
life. Reading a book is easy. But, reviewing a book is a completely different story.
Definition:
A book review is a detailed description, critical analysis, and/or
assessment of a book's quality, meaning, and relevance, generally based on
earlier research on the subject. Reviews are usually between 500 and 2000 words
long, although they might be greater or shorter depending on the length and
complexity of the book under review.
Kinds of Book Reviews:
There are two kinds of book reviews:1.
Critical
Review
2.
Descriptive
Review
How to make a book review Effect?
To review a book, and appreciate why its characters do what they do, you must have a very thorough understanding of plot, and why it developed the way it did. Here at webbooks.org we came up with a five simple step process that you can use to review your favorite book. This review technique will work for any book, so for the purpose of making this article and to make it practical for you guys. We're going to use Stephen King's Salem's Lot. Let's get to it.
Five Easy Steps To Write a Book Review:
Here are Five Easy Steps to Write A Book Review. It is very simple
and illustrated step by step.
Step 1: Summary.
Fiction books
tell a story through the eyes of one, or many characters. Sprawling fantasies
like the Harry Potter books, for instance, you have dozens of characters
in them. More minimalist works, like Kafka's Metamorphosis or Richard
Matheson's, I Am Legend have just one or two. What these characters do becomes
the book's plot.
If you have interest in reading Fiction books, you should read my
article " How
Reading Fiction Will Change The Way You Think" also give your
comments. So, we are talking about a book review.
Now, a good way to start your book review is by summarizing the
book's story by mentioning its main plot points. You do not need to go into
much detail. Remember: Details do not belong in summaries. What you're
doing here is outlining the book's story, its characters, and major conflict. So,
the readers have a good idea of what to expect.
How Conflict is Important Part is Book Review:
One word stands out here: Conflict. Let's analyze this concept a
little deeper. Conflict refers to the struggles and challenges that stand in
the way of characters to achieve their goals. These challenges drive the story
forward as characters fight to overcome them. Simply put, conflict in a story
is like a tug-of-war between two opposing forces. Without conflict, there is no
story. The central theme in Salem's Lot is the age-old conflict between good
and evil, personified by Ben Mears and the vampire Barlow respectively. These
two opposing forces engage in deadly conflict throughout the story. Ben Mears
and other characters want to save the town of Salem's Lot from being overrun by
Barlow and his vampires. Mears's love interest, Susan Norton, adds an extra
layer of conflict to the plot.
Tips: Your summary
must reflect the central conflict of the book you're reviewing. In the case of
Salem's Lot, the conflict is good versus evil. Light against dark.
Include the main characters, too. In our example, the summary
should mention, at the very least, Ben Mears, the vampire Barlow, Susan Norton,
and perhaps Barlow's human familiar, Straker. There's a whole lot of cast of
secondary characters that are important to the plot at one point or another,
but the central cast is right there.
Now, there is something crucial that we must mention at this point.
Make sure that your summary does not contain any spoilers! While you should
comment on plot points, do not mention plot twists like deaths or characters or
any other major events that affect the outcome of the story.
Tips: Five Do's and Don'ts
to write a precise summary:
·
Do
mention the story's conflict;
·
Do
include the main characters;
·
Do
outline the important plot points;
·
Do
not delve into details, as details do not belong in summaries;
·
Do
not, under any circumstances, include spoilers.
Step 2: Overview.
Reading a book
requires a certain degree of emotional involvement. The story is bound to make
you feel something. Whether it is fear, shock, happiness, hope, or perhaps
disappointment, the reader is likely to turn the page and be left with a
feeling. If that's the case, the writer accomplished what a writer is meant to
accomplish: To produce emotions through a story. Keep those emotions in mind,
when you create your overview. Express how the story made you feel, and tie in
your personal appreciation about the story itself.
Tips: Question you
should ask yourself:
1.
Does
the story make sense?
2.
Are
the characters well defined?
3.
Is
there logic to their motivations?
4.
What
moves the story forward?
5.
Is
the ending really the ending?
6.
Could
there be more to it?
The story you read should have given you the answers to all these
questions, and so your over view should be a personal recollection and opinion
of what happened; and what might have happened, had the characters behaved
differently.
Now, while the summary is objective, since you're talking about
what actually happens in the story, an overview is subjective. The overview is
about what you felt, and what you feel would have enhanced your enjoyment of
the book in question. The overview is likely to contain a lot of conditional
sentences written in the first person:
Tips: The story WOULD
have been more enjoyable if..., It WOULD have made more sense for this
character to..., I WOULD have liked the end to be..., and so on. Remember,
this is an overview. It should be as brief as it can be, while mentioning all
the feelings and ideas that the story inspired in you.
Keep in Mind: Do's and Don'ts For Overview:
·
DO
express the feelings that the story inspired in you;
·
DO
include your own views about what would have made the story more enjoyable to
you;
·
DO
use the first person;
·
DON'T
write an overly long overview. Keep it brief.
Step 3: Strengths and Weaknesses:
Did you ever
read a book and think, wow! the writing was poor? Or the opposite? you were
amazed at the writer's linguistic craft. Every book has its strong and weak
points. These may be the characterization, plot logic, themes, or the way it
was written. You may notice a lot of repetition, the inclusion of too many
adverbs, an over-abundance of 'fancy' words (that is, words which would not
usually be heard or spoken in conversation), too much dialogue or lack of it,
and so on.
Another well-known horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft, was guilty
of at least two of these attributes. His prose is too overelaborate, often
using arcane and obscure scholarly terms, and there was hardly any dialogue at
all in his tales. This type of descriptive narrative can become boring very
quickly, and there is little to no characterization, since the characters hardly
ever talk.
Tips: Be objective
when you reflect the book's strengths and weaknesses. Use quotes from the book
to illustrate your points. Salem's Lot has a lot of adverbs peppered all over
the text. Pick one or two quotes to make your point. It is recommended that you
use the first person when you write about a book's strengths and weaknesses. Use sentences like “I think that one of Salem's
Lot's strongest points is,” or “One of the worst aspects of the story is.” Try
to talk about weak points first, and then the stronger aspects after. This way,
the audience will remember the stronger points better.
Tips: When
describing the book's strong and weak points:
·
DO
be objective;
·
DO
use quotes to illustrate the text;
·
DO
use the first person;
·
DO
talk about weak points first, then the strong ones;
·
DON'T
use too many quotes. Remember, quotes are someone else's work. You want to
highlight your own work.
Step 4: Closing summary:
A closing summary is the icing on the cake. Use it to tie all your
previous points together. Do a recap on what you liked about the book, what do
you did not like about it, along with an overall opinion about the story and
the book itself (its presentation, quality, etc.)
A good idea to wrap things up is to mention one or two other books
with a similar story, or in the same genre. For instance, Salem's Lot has
obvious links with Bram Stoker's Dracula. Mentioning other works will add value
to your review, and stimulate the readers to at least think about reading those
other novels. Keep your closing summary brief. One or two paragraphs should be
more than enough.
Tips: So, for your
closing summary
·
DO
link your whole review together here;
·
DO
mention other literary works with similar story or theme, for comparison
purposes;
·
DON'T
make your closing summary too long.
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