If you're looking for a good
book to read—either for your own enjoyment or a book club suggestion—what's
one of the first things you do? You can ask a friend. But word-of-mouth
recommendations depend to a large extent on personal taste. If you want a more
reliable gauge, you'll want to find book reviews.
Let's say you're at a bookstore and you're holding a book in your hand.
Invariably, you turn to the back cover where you find excerpts of mainstream
media reviews. They're glowing, of course— "Characters with heart!" "A non-stop
page-turner!" "A major new voice in fiction!"
When looking for a good book review, look for one that turns a critical eye
on a book's style and content. A genuine book review considers the following
elements:
Characters—are main characters convincing? Do they have emotional and
psychological complexity and act according to authentic motivation? Or are they
flat and one-dimensional with little detail of their inner lives?
Plot—is the plot predictable or does it surprise, going where you least
expect it? Are there interesting plot twists? Do events unfold organically,
naturally? Or are they forced—leaving you feeling manipulated. Does the ending
wrap up loose ends? Does it wrap up things too neatly, to the point of being pat
or trite? Or does it leave issues unresolved, open to different
interpretations?
Ideas—does the book offer an exploration of ideas—perhaps a moral or ethical
problem, or the meaning of relationships (familial, romantic, or
friendship-based)? Does it offer interesting insights or a fresh
perspective?
Style—is the writing heavy handed,...uninspired with over-written or even
cliched phrases . Or is the writing feel fresh, even inspired? Is the writing
funny or witty?
Where do you find helpful reviews? The best, most in-depth are from major
daily newspapers: the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los
Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune or Sun-Times, just to mention some.
Look also in periodicals like Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and
Atlantic Monthly.
You can head to your public library and dig through past issues of newspapers
and periodicals. Better yet, many libraries subscribe to online databases that
carry the full texts of articles from the major papers and magazines.
You can also go online at home. But most newspapers and magazines require
subscriptions to get into their archives, so you won't always have access to
full articles—although sometimes you get lucky and find them on right on
Google.
You can also go to customer reviews at the big online booksellers—Amazon and
Barnes & Noble. But customer reviews tend to be all over the place and are
highly idiocentric. They can be helpful but not always reliable.
The best bet is to find an online book site you can trust, a website with an
index of titles, reading guides, and book reviews. Look especially for ones that
carry complete reviews—not just blurbs—by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and
especially Kirkus Reviews. Libraries subscribe to these review publications, so
they tend to be forthright in their assessments of books—after all, it's what
libraries pay them for.
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