One of the important aspects of becoming knowledgeable about how to write an effective book review is in learning to strike a balance between discussing the merits, or what you like about the book you are reviewing, and the shortcomings, or what you did not like about the book.
This is assuming that the book you are considering reviewing has some good qualities you find worth passing on in your review. The good qualities you find in the book will be brought out in your review more emphatically and will appear more balanced by the reader if you temper your review with comments on various ways in which you believe the book also “fell short.”
Joseph Addison*, a respected 17th Century critic and essayist stated, “A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.”
As a starting point, if you are reviewing a particular novel, for example, you might want to highlight for either (a) praise or as (b) “areas that could be improved” any number of aspects of the novel such as:
- Is the dialogue natural, effective, and believable?
- Is there enough dialogue or is there more “telling” than “doing”
- Does the author do a good job of developing characters?
- Are the actions of the characters natural, or false-seeming?
- Are exposition/descriptive passages image-evoking?
- Does the plot move along naturally or is it “forced” and improbable?
* Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine.
You can read more about Addison at this link to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Addison
No comments:
Post a Comment