What Makes a Good Book Review?

It's a tricky question, that of reviews. The thoughts swishing around my brain suggest that if you have a books blog, reviews are like the foundation stones. A lot of people may disagree with me. And that's fine. I'm an open-minded kind of gal, and one of these days I may change my mind on a whole host of things.

But what makes a good review?

I actually really like reading reviews which are well-written, sometimes humorous, and/or thought-provoking.

A good review is readable, as far as I'm concerned, for its own sake, whether or not you have any real interest in the book that's being reviewed. That, in itself, means that I might consider a book, after reading a review, that I wouldn't have considered previously. And that's pretty awesome.

I also like reviews to do a little more than just give me a synopsis, a blurb, a plot-line, whatever. I can flip the book over and read the back for that. I can get hold of it on any number of websites - Goodreads, Amazon, whatever - what I want is a review.

If I'm going to read 250+ words about a book, then you need to write well.

You need to mention the good points, the bad points, and the points up for discussion.

In short, I need to feel like I'm getting your honest opinions about what's going on between front and back covers. I don't want you to just repeat what everyone else has said, or provide extracts that take up more than half the post. If you want to provide an extract, that's fine - but one or two paragraphs is plenty.

But, as with everything in this world, this is just one opinion (in this instance, mine.)

Just like there's no one-size-fits-all book, there's no one-size-fits-all book review. I just hope that some of the reviews you enjoy reading are mine ;)