Examples of Good Book Reviews

What makes a good book review? With the growth of reader reviews like those on Amazon or Goodreads alongside dedicated book review sites (like BookBrowse), there are more book reviewers and would-be book reviewers than ever. Maybe you're one of them, contributing your opinions on your own blog, on a consensus site, or to a publication. Maybe you want to support the reading community, enjoy reviewing books in exchange for receiving them gratis, or have aspirations to review professionally. Or maybe, as an invested reader of books and book reviews, you just like thinking about aspects of criticism and analysis. No matter your level of interest in reviews or the reasons behind it, you may find it enriching to consider good examples of book reviews written by others. With this in mind, we've put together some excerpts from our own reviewers' work that demonstrate what certain worthwhile elements of a review can look like. We hope you find them helpful.

First and foremost, of course, is the opening. A great review grabs the reader’s attention while providing enough information regarding the book’s plot or story to make the piece accessible to someone with no previous knowledge of the content. Rebecca Foster’s review of Delia Owens’ novel Where the Crawdads Sing is a case in point:

Where the Crawdads Sing was a hit even before being chosen for Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine Book Club — and it's easy to see why so many have taken this debut novel into their hearts. It's a gripping mystery but also a tender coming-of-age story about one woman's desperately lonely upbringing and her rocky route to finding love and a vocation. Not only that, but its North Carolina marsh setting is described in lyrical language that evinces Delia Owens's background in nature writing.

Effective reviews often give a sense of the reading experience by mentioning a book’s structure and/or pacing. Rachel Hullett’s take on Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is an excellent example of how to accomplish this:

The first two-thirds of the novel are split into a dual timeline, bouncing back and forth between the week of Hamnet's death (the present), and the blossoming romance between William and Agnes (the past). It's a tender yet fraught courtship, and the pacing here is slow and deliberate. The final third speeds up and takes place after the death of their son. Both parts are equally as successful — the languid pace is sustained by O'Farrell's lyrical prose, and the more frantic pace is made tense and urgent by it.

Reviewers might also choose to focus on themes the author highlights, which can provide rich opportunities for analysis. Regarding Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist, reviewer Lisa Butts writes:

One of the most significant themes in the book, skillfully considered from multiple angles, is assimilation and respectability politics. In this context, respectability politics refers to the argument by Black leaders, thinkers and others with influence that engaging in irreproachable moral conduct will earn Black people respect and success. Likewise, white assimilationists believe (overtly or subconsciously) that Black people should make every effort to conform to the behavioral standards of white society. Again, neither of these attitudes takes into account the history of racism and how it is woven into the very fabric of American culture and institutions.

The author’s writing style and character development often feature in informative reviews, such as this one of Colm Tóibín's Long Island [subscribers only] by Kim Kovacs:

Part of what makes Tóibín such a remarkable author is his ability to make his readers care about unremarkable people and situations. There's a richness to his characters, a depth that few other novelists are able to achieve. He captures the interior world of each with amazing realism...The author evokes deep empathy for each character he describes, even those that might appear for just a page or two. 

Many reviewers examine a book's language and aspects of craft. In reviewing Franny Choi's poetry collection The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, Lisa Ahima addresses issues of grammatical tense, word choice, and their effect:

In "Comfort Poem," the speaker of the piece is sitting at home curled up with a cat, using the present tense through the first two stanzas. In the third stanza, the poem moves into the past tense as the speaker comforts someone through a life-altering surgery. Throughout the next section, Choi uses variations on the phrase "comfort woman" to detail explicit moments of sexual violence in the past. That section is very visceral and seems like it is occurring in the speaker's present because of it. Here, I feel a level of uncomfortable intimacy with the speaker; I am transported to generational memories, ruminations of lived experiences, and conversations about devastation she has borne witness to.

While not required, adding details of one’s personal experience to a review can be impactful. Valerie Morales’ writing on All That She Carried by Tiya Miles is an elegant and affecting example:

I visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture the second day it opened, and Ashley's Sack was surrounded by a crowd. In front of me I heard a lot of sobs. The imagery of the lines in the embroidery was poignant. Rose telling Ashley goodbye and then handing her the bag, saying it was filled with Rose's love for her, as if love was coffee beans. Nearby, an auction block reinforced the point of Ashley as property. It was a piercing exhibit of love and loss…Miles' retelling is similarly haunting.

Insightful reviews often place a work within a context greater than the book itself. One way to do this is by drawing parallels to other titles, which may give readers helpful reference points. In a review of The New Earth by Jess Row, Chloe Pfeiffer compares and contrasts the book with Valeria Luiselli's Lost Children Archive, painting a vivid and resonant picture of both texts:

It reminded me a little of Valeria Luiselli's Lost Children Archive, another Trump-era story of the border crisis and historical genocide, refracted through the story of a bourgeois nuclear family. But Lost Children Archive seemed to me to be a little harder and sadder than The New Earth, and hazy images of the family's road trip have stuck with me for years. The New Earth may be slightly too straightforward, or lacking in subtlety, to stick in this way, not because the world it depicts isn't complex but because everyone, with one standout exception, is basically honest about what they've done and what they want; they talk to each other like they have nothing to lose. The result is that things can only go up from here, and so nothing will break your heart.

Thorough book reviews are frequently not completely positive, even if the reviewer feels the book is worth recommending. Rebecca Foster’s criticism of The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is a good model of how negatives can be included in a way that is specific and enlightening:

A danger with an episodic narrative like this one is that random events and encounters pile up but don't do much to further the plot. At nearly 200 pages in, I realized little of consequence had happened yet, and there were later points, too, where the book seemed endless (I felt the same about A Gentleman in Moscow). Despite the condensed timeframe here, it's a meandering story that can try one's patience.

The conclusion is a critical piece of a review, because it shows the final thoughts about a book the reviewer chooses to leave with readers. For Henry Henry [subscribers only], Rachel Hullett pens a thoughtful wrap-up that briefly summarizes what makes the novel worthwhile and includes the audience for which she recommends it:

In Henry Henry, Bratton deepens the Henriad's motifs of legacy, succession, and responsibility by exploring them through a lens of queerness and trauma. Henry Henry is a bold, dark, and witty feat from debut author Allen Bratton, who seems to be off to a promising literary career, as he expertly explores myriad complicated themes without sacrificing the weight of any. Though the ways in which Bratton transposes the Henriad's narrative to its 2014 pre-Brexit setting are certain to excite readers with a penchant for Shakespeare's histories, his reimagining doesn't alienate those who don't share that same literary background. Henry Henry stands on its own as an undeniable masterwork of queer literary fiction, perfect for fans of Brandon Taylor and Garth Greenwell.

Happy reading and reviewing! For a deep dive into how we write book reviews, check out our guide for book reviewing.