Striking the balance between what everyone looks for in a book review has always been a difficult one for me. There’s so many tastes to cater to whilst still keeping the review readable and respectful towards the author. I’ve always wondered what others look for in the perfect book review. I’m only a small book blog, but what I lack for in followers I make up for in opinions. Here’s what I look for in a book review.
The Basics
The foundation of any review is usually made up of the following:
– Rating
– Summary
– Review
But a lot of reviewers have taken to including publication dates, genres and author information in their reviews. And if you’re writing a sponsored (lucky you!) review – links to places where you can buy the book. But how much of this information is actually useful to the review-reader?
Personally, I don’t mind how much of this statistical information is included, as long as it’s presented in an easy to read format. Also did you know that review plugins exist? Plugins to make writing reviews easier? It didn’t even occur to me that this was a thing until I saw someone using a widget as part of their WordPress review.
Look how cool these are. Technology really is the future.
How Long Should Your Review Be?
I think this is all dependent on where you’re posting the review. Personally, I think the Bookstagram review should be no more than a couple of paragraphs, whilst the blog review can get up to 1000 words! Goodreads reviews tend to be a mixture of the two.
Ultimately, as long as your review is more review than summary then that’s ideal.
Layout & Readability
I love seeing the different layouts people use in their reviews! I’ve taken to dividing my reviews into four sections to keep things nice and simple. I’m also a huge fan of using:
quotes
and
Subheadings
in reviews, just to spice it up a lil ya know. If it’s available to you, I really recommend using an SEO tool – this one is really good for letting you know when your writing is getting a little paragraph heavy.
The Fancy Insta Photo vs the Standard Book Cover
The question on everyone’s mind – do I have to be a pro photographer to review my books?
The answer? Of course not. If you’re not a huge fan of photography, taking the perfect Instagram image can be draining. This might be a controversial – but I don’t think your review has to have the ~perfect~ featured image, even if you’re reviewing on Instagram. I’m far more interested in the actual book than the props you use in your photos.
This is a great post! I agree with everything you mentioned!
I primarily write book reviews so this was a super interesting post to read! I’ve never used plugins before, but I definitely will check them out because they seem like such a time-saver~
Agreed, I’m gonna start using them haha! Thank you for your comment 💕
Great post! I like to keep my reviews relatively short, but it’s hard when I’ve really enjoyed a book, or there’s a lot to say
Thank you! I agree, sometimes you just have so much to say about a book that it’s difficult to put it into words haha
This is a really informative post, I’m only recently starting to become more of a bookstagrammer and am working towards writing my first online review so I have found this article really helpful! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thank you so much! Best of luck with writing your first review 😊 x
Thia is a really good post, really interesting
Thank you so much 😊
Love this post! I mainly write reviews or at least I hope that’s the case. I’ve been slacking on them but this was such a good post to read!
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed this 🙂
I didn’t know book review widgets existed but I will definitely have to look further into using them. I tend to include the synopsis, my review, quotes, my rating and book information (not in that order though) and I do sometimes include a photo but most of the time I’ve use my photo as the featured image and wonder if having it twice would be a bit much.
They exist and they’re amazing! Thank you so much for your comment 😊 x
Loved reading your thoughts on book reviews, especially about the differences between bookstagram and blogs. I find the review is usually the easier part on bookstagram since it’s so much shorter than my blog reviews, but I agree that taking the pictures can take some time. I also love including some of my favorite quotes in reviews. I think it helps me explain why I love or dislike an author’s writing style.
I’m glad you enjoyed reading! I agree, including quotes is so helpful for explaining about writing style. I also think it just looks better aesthetically haha!