Hello everyone and happy Monday!! I hope everyone is doing well, staying safe and staying warm. I am currently on March break and catching up on pretty much everything which includes book reviews; let’s talk about them today – here are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind when reviewing books:
Give a quick synopsis
Keep in mind that whoever is reading your review might not have a single clue what the book is actually about. Giving a quick synopsis is a great way to start you r review, it gives you a full intro and a smooth transition to your thoughts and opinions.
Pros/Cons
Before or during the process of writing a review for an ARC or just a regular book, I like to make a list of pros and cons of what i liked about the book and what i wasn’t the biggest fan of. This is quick and easy and tells the reader exactly what you based your opinions on. You can do it simply in point forms or you can expand and discuss them in a paragraph, the decision is yours, do whatever you feel most comfortable with.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!!
This is an easy but very important one – if your review contains spoilers for the boo make sure you mention it at the very top of your review so that it will be the first thing readers will see before reading your review.
Trigger Warnings
This is something I personally like to add to my reviews, sometimes it’s hard to find if a book as triggers or not, most book synopsis don’t include trigger warnings and most amateur reviews tend to focus more on ”I liked the book or I didn’t like the book” so when reviewing a book for a publisher, for a blog etc. I like to include TW just so the audience can be made aware of them and avoid the book if necessary.
Be honest
it’s important to stay honest when reviewing a book. It’s okay if you didn’t like the book or if the bookk wasn’t for you, as long as you are honest and explain why you didn’t like the book, everythign is good.
Be specific
tied with the previous tip, your opinions are you own and you are entitled to liking or disliking any books you read but please be specific as to why you are rating the book the way that you are. Most of us, when we are looking for book reviews, we don’t want to see if people liked the book or not, we want to see what they liked or what they disliked, it’s the whole point of reviewing books. Plus, it’s makes the work of the publisher much easier when they know why the book isn’t doing as well as they might have thought it would have (especially ARCs)
That is it for today's post. Please let me know in the comments down below if you have any other useful tips to keep in mind when reviewing a book! As per usual, thank you for reading - likes, comments, shares and follows are always greatly appreciated. Until next time, xoxo
seven late night thoughts with zoe 
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