Your easy-to-use book review format and why it works! Unsure how to structure your book review? Look no further. I’m sharing with you my tried-and-true template for crafting a substantive, helpful book review, no matter if it’s a nonfiction book or fiction book. I’ll also let you peek into my traffic to see why you should be publishing book discussion guides, not reviews, and then I’ll include the steps you need to write one.
This book review format is intended for anyone looking to write a substantive book review for a blog, for school, or for review sites like Goodreads and Amazon.
First… dive deeper into book reviewing with my book
(Or just skip to the review template)
If you want to learn much, much more about writing a book review, be sure to check out my bestselling book, How to Write a Book Review.
This essential book, which expands on book reviews and discussion guides, is available on Amazon.
And now for the book review template!
Each of these components in the book review template serve a purpose. I’ve learned over the years through SEO optimization and keyword research that these components of a book that readers look for the most.
Here’s the book review format:
Part 1: Introduce the book and the author: 1-2 paragraphs
- Include any background you can find about the book.
- Briefly summarize the author’s biography.
Introducing the book you’re reviewing provides necessary context. Don’t expect that readers have already heard about the book, much less the author. This is also a good time to add in details about any buzz the book has; for example, if it’s been picked for a national book club, is already a bestseller, or is a noteworthy review.
Part 2: Plot Summary: 3-5 paragraphs
- If you’re writing a review that must include all aspects of the plot, be sure to include a spoiler warning.
- Summarize the plot in no more than 3-5 paragraphs.
- Add 3-5 key takeaways (for nonfiction only).
One of the most important components of a book review is the plot summary. Readers in book clubs rushing to get the basic framework of what happens in the book are going to hunt for your plot summary first and foremost.
In no more than 3-5 paragraphs, summarize the book’s key events.
Not sure how much to add? Divide how many pages the book is and write one paragraph per each 100 pages.
If you’re reviewing nonfiction, be sure to write 3-5 takeaways that extract the core theses of the book.
For example, in Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers, here are 3 takeaways you could extract for a book review’s summary section:
- More often than not, we resort to believing people even when they are lying to our faces, a tendency Gladwell calls the “Default to truth.”
- “Coupling” is a phenomenon that finds links between two factors that can be unpaired, like a rise in suicides by gassing and changing the way ovens are made.
- Criminologists were able to beat back crime in inner cities by making more stops to check for weapons. However, other, more rural and car-dependent urban areas misapplied the findings, leading to an unnecessary increase in motor vehicle stops.
My tip: if you’re feeling overwhelmed by having to distill the key takeaways, reread the beginning and the final chapter and see what themes and ideas repeat between the two.
Interlude: A Quick Note on Writing Discussion Guides Instead of Book Reviews
My How to Write a Book Review guide actually sets you up to write book discussion guides, too.
Wait a second—you may be saying—isn’t that a book about how to write book reviews, not book discussion guides?
The fact is, as I’ve mined my own traffic and data over the years, book discussion guides (also known alternatively as book group guides, book club guides, study guides, or reading group guides) bring in the most consistent traffic to my site vs. traditional book reviews.
Check out how much traffic two of my book guides brought in over a period of 30 days:
This traffic suggests there’s a market for these evergreen topics. People don’t want just reviews anymore. They want substantive content to help them take it to the next level and prep for book clubs, essays about books, and reading groups.
Now let’s do some SEO research to see what kind of book discussion topics are trending on Google.
Here’s a screenshot that shows you what are the top searches for content that go easily into a book discussion guide for Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls, the book I write a complete guide of in How to Write a Book Review. Take a look at the search traffic for City of Girls, the novel we will be using in this book as we work through the parts of a book review. Courtesy of the Chrome extension Keywords Everywhere, we can see what people look for when you search Google for: “city of girls”:
You see? The top results for City of Girls are, after the top spot goes to review, all components of a book discussion guide.
The main difference between book discussion guides and book reviews, as laid out in this blog post and in my book, are three components: Discussion Questions (Part 3 of this guide), Quotes (Part 4 of this Guide) and Similar Books (Part 7).
Now back to the guide!
Part 3: Discussion Questions (Optional)
- Include 5-10 discussion questions.
This part is optional. But if you’re writing book reviews that you hope will also work as book group guides, you’ll want to come up with 5-10 questions that stir up discussions.
Example
Check out my discussion guide to Jenny Offill’s Weather. Here are four questions from that article, which was published here on the blog:
Here are four discussion questions from the Weather guide:
1. Why do you think Offill named her novel Weather? In what ways does weather show up as a theme in Offill’s novel?
2. Weather is written in micro-moments. Lizzie’s narrative is comprised of sentence and sometimes paragraph-long segments that build into a larger story. What was the experience like to read a narrative like that? How does this unique format serve the story and its contemporary, zeitgeisty setting?
3. How does Lizzie change over the course of the story? What specific examples did you see of her changing, or lack thereof?
4. How would you characterize Lizzie’s relationship with her brother, Henry? Compare and contrast it with other relationships Lizzie has a duty to uphold, such as with her husband, Ben, and son, Eli?
See that?
Pretty easy!
If you’re already writing a plot summary, consider taking your guide to the next level by including some discussion questions for a reading group guide.
And if you’re stumped for what questions are right, How to Write a Book Review has a list of 30 book discussion questions anyone can easily adapt to fit their book review.
Part 4: Quotes (Optional)
- Include 5-10 key quotes from the book with speaker and page numbers.
Adding quotes is another optional component of a book review or book discussion guide. All you have to do is list 5-10 quotes from the book that you felt warrant special attention. You might also want to go so far as to analyze each quote, but it’s not necessary. You’ll want to include the speaker of the quote and the page numbers.
You could also break this out into a separate post.
My quote post of the best quotes from Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch gets traffic every day from Google and Pinterest.
Readers really look for these types of posts, so you can naturally include them in your guide.
Part 5: Pros and Cons
- Include 2-4 positive qualities or “Pros” of the book as bullet points (or plus signs).
- Include 2-4 negative qualities or “Cons” of the book as bullet points (or negative signs).
- Depending on whether your review is positive or negative, the balance between the pros and cons will be weighted differently.
There are many ways to structure the positives and negatives for the book you’re reviewing, but ultimately, the information should be clear and readable.
Keep in mind that each positive trait of a book or negative trait can be lost if they are buried in lengthy paragraphs. Your readers are mostly skimming this section or scrolling fast.
The way to fix that? Get to the point, clean and fast.
That’s why I endorse separating your Pros and Cons of the book in two separate bullet point lists.
Pro’s and Con’s lists are easily recognizable and intuitive to consumers. After all, one purpose for the book review is not just to enlighten, but to help a reader make a consumer purchase to buy the book.
Need an example? My book review of Pumpkins follows this format, albeit I switched in “strengths” and “weaknesses” for “pro’s” and “con’s”:
Here’s a “Strength” I wrote for Pumpkinheads:
Positive: Pumpkinheads Captures That Fall Mood
If you’re coming to Pumpkinheads having never gone to a pumpkin patch, don’t worry—Faith Erin Hicks fully immerses you in the setting, crammed with tiny details, vivid colors, and a cohesive visual style that immerses you there. The sensory experience translate off the page. I felt like I could smell phantom whiffs of pumpkin spice, hay, and kettle corn just by reading the novel. This book totally nails the mood of fall. Whenever you’re feeling nostalgic for the fall, pick up Pumpkinheads and get magically swept back into PSL season.
And here’s a “Weakness” I wrote for Pumpkinheads:
Negative: Josie felt a little one dimensional
Of the two main characters, Josie felt less developed to me. Deja was a great sidekick, but without her there to keep the conversation rolling, Josie would have made even less of an impression on me. It was almost like, his main motivation in the story was to find Marcy, speak to her, and give her his number. But that felt like a desire line that Deja applied to him. And certainly that is a bit forced. She’s deliberately trying to push Josie to sort through how serious he is about Marcy and dating in general. However, the result was I didn’t really know what Josie himself wanted.
However you choose to customize the language in this section: Pro’s and Con’s, Strengths and Weaknesses, “What I Loved” and “What I hated,” organize the information cleanly in bullet point lists.
Part 6: Overall Assessment
- Synthesize the points you make in Part 3. Ultimately, does the book get a favorable review?
Now it’s time to synthesize your pro’s and con’s into an overall assessment. It can be as easy as adding up how many positive and negative qualities you’ve listed and go with the one that has more. Still, in this section, you’re going to want to weigh the good and the bad to make sure you’re giving people as objective a point of view as possible.
Remember that you’re reviewing a book, not your feelings
Broke by Books
Ultimately, it’s up to you to make the judgment call and give an overall assessment. Don’t back down from whatever strong feelings you have about the book. Readers like a book review that feels passionate and earnest.
A quick note on star ratings…
If you’re an avid Goodreads reviewer, you are used to giving 1-5 stars for a book’s rating.
It’s up to you if you want to include a star rating for the book you’re reviewing. I usually do because it’s a factor that resonates with a lot of readers. If you’re using a star rating system, the Overall Assessment is the place to put that.
Part 7: Similar Books (Optional)
- Include 3-5 similar books.
This is another section that often goes in book discussion guides. People who just finished reading a book often crave similar books to deal with their book hangover. Or the subject of the book might leave them curious to learn more.
This is your spot in the book review (or discussion guide) to include 3-5 similar books to the one you’re reviewing.
For example, check out my article with discussion questions for The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy.
After the plot summary, discussion questions, and quotes, I listed five books for people who loved The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse.
Including extra books for people to read if they enjoyed the one you’re reviewing make take more time. The effect is well worth it. People look to you as an authority and your review as more than just opinion, but a trusted and useful piece of information.
Part 8: Further Information
- Include the stats of the book: pub date, publisher
- Link to other resources: author interviews, reviews on authority sites
This final part in the book review template is one of my favorites. At the very end of your book review, add further information so readers can leave your review and launch into more info on the book. That starts with the pub date and publisher, along with basic facts like page count.
But it’s also fun to include further information about the author. In my review of Weather, for instance, I embedded a YouTube video of the author promoting her book. I also included links to interviews with the author. To my surprise, I’ve seen in my blog’s traffic that people actually routinely click on the extra links to learn more about the books.
And… that’s it!
This post has everything you need to write a comprehensive book review or book review discussion guide. If you want to take it further, be sure to check out my eBook How to Write a Book Review:
