Academic Book Review

Writing a book review is one of the common tasks assigned in high schools and colleges. No wonder, this assignment significantly enhances the student`s writing, research, and critical thinking skills, as well as the ability to organize the material carefully. If you do not know how to write an academic book review, feel free to learn our simple tips and secrets and create an amazing piece that will impress your instructor by its originality.

What Is an Academic Book Review?

According to the well-known book review definition given by many trusted dictionaries, it is a certain form of criticism in which the chosen or suggested book is analyzed taking in account its merits, benefits, style, as well as content. An academic book review can be written for newspapers, magazines, or other periodicals that are either published or placed on the internet. The length of an academic book review can be different, from a one paragraph to a 5-pages essay.

Writing an academic book review is a challenging and time-consuming process and if you want to get a satisfactory grade, you need to follow the common algorithm. As such, when working on your book review, start with writing a full bibliographic citation of the book, which should include the author of the book, full title, date of publication, publisher, etc. Make sure to follow the referencing style indicated by your professor. The referencing styles that are frequently used in writing book reviews are APA, MLA, Harvard, AMA, and Chicago. If you need to write your book review in some of these styles, feel free to study the manual thoroughly.

Service Features
300 words/page
instead of 270 words/page
Discount System
VIP Services
Free Revision
(on demand)
Affiliate Program
Plagiarism-Free Papers

How to Write an Academic Book Review?

When writing your book review, you need to provide the reader with the following information:

  • Who is the author of the book?
  • What this particular book is about?
  • How well does the author cover the topics?
  • What are the author`s messages and perspectives?
  • Is the evidence appropriate within the topic`s scope?
  • To whom this book can be recommended? Why?

Such an approach to the writing process requires the author`s engagement with the book and its topics. Thus, the author should be well versed with the characters, their motivation, conflict, etc. As a researcher, you should also look at the validity of the author`s claims and evaluate the methods the author uses to reach his/her goals.

The authors usually write their books for various purposes – to entertain, teach, amuse, warn the readers, etc. Your primary aim as a reviewer is to recognize the author`s goals and give them the objective assessment. Also, make sure to support your argument with the text evidence as it will help you persuade the reader that you clearly understand the text and can easily navigate in it.

Do not know how to write an academic book review? We assure you that there are many scholarly book review examples of successful book reviews that were already submitted by other students, which, nevertheless, can become your source of inspiration. Use these examples and you will understand how to develop your ideas in the right manner.

For instance, if you need to review the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, try to focus not only on the plot and main characters but also on their motivation, as well the important topics touched by the author. What is more, relating these topics to the author`s biography will also bring you additional points. Now when you know how to write an academic book review, remember that only constant practice will help you reach the desired results!

Nowadays, many educational institutions, such as colleges or universities, and even high schools, may ask their students to complete academic book reviews. According to the statistics provided, about 40% of freshmen are not knowledgeable about a book review how to write. It is evident that writing a book review on any book is a problematic task, as the chosen book should be read; some analysis should be made; important notes should be taken; and then a book review should be completed. In case you cannot handle your academic book review due to specific reasons, why not search for assistance or support online?

Try our VIP Support
Benefit from the incredible opportunity at a very reasonable price

Help Me Write Greatest Book Review

Our specialists that have been working at our online academic writing company have prepared the list of practical steps that need to be followed to complete the best academic book review. In case you do not understand some points provided below, you can easily find a book review template on our website free of charge.

  1. Before reading the chosen book, first of all, look for the information that relates to its writers, the epoch of its creations, certain circumstances or background. Then, you should have a close and scrupulous look at its cover as it can give you some essential hints concerning the book under study.
  2. Don’t read the chosen book right away. Open it and scan through it. Look attentively at how the words, sentences and paragraphs are arranged on its pages. Pay close attention to such characteristics as pages or chapters number, illustrations or comments provided. This information will help you in understanding how the writer structured his / her book.
  3. Consider your strategy aimed at taking notes. Decide what features or details you would like to write your academic book review about. The more notes you take, the easier it will be for you to write your review as you can always refer to them.
  4. Read the chosen book. While doing this, you should…
  5. Pay attention to what you are reading, as well as your impressions from the book.  In the majority of cases, it is the most difficult challenge for those who do not like reading. For instance, sometimes it is complicated and unbearable to read a 500 pages book to write an academic book report.
  6. The next step is to apply your taking notes strategy, which can turn out to be a tough task. Consider that taking notes is effective when you are reading a book and not after you finished doing this.
  7. Try explaining how the chosen book as a whole influenced you.
  8. Give an explanation on how the writer managed to achieve the effects she or he did.
  9. Find the correlation between content and form.
  10. Explain all the relationships of characters to one another.
  11. Summarize the book. It is one of the easiest parts of a book review. Continue making a summary of it until you manage to cover all the most significant aspects or characters in a clear way. You can utilize this so as to start your academic book review.
  12. Present your judgment. It is also one of the complicated parts of book review writing. Here you should clearly state your position concerning the worthiness of the book under analysis. Do your best to prove your point of view to convince your future readers of your rightness. You apply some examples, quotes, etc. from the book so as to explain your viewpoint.
  13. Check whether you managed to reach your aim. Read your academic book review several times to understand whether you indicated all the essential aspects. If you failed to do this, then make a revision of your review and add all the missing elements or parts.
  14. Edit and proofread you academic book review very attentively or ask your close friends or our online writing service to assist your with this.

If you have any questions concerning academic book review writing, contact our company right now! You can always make an order of academic book review writing, formatting, and editing whenever there is an urgent need.

decor decor
decor
Ready to start?
Fill out the order form and we will help you solve your academic problems
Get Started