book reviews on novels

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Author Interviews

Book reviews.

• Best Books Of The Year
• NPR Reader Favorites
• Books Podcast
• Subscribe to Books Newsletter

Gather 'round — we have some fall reading recommendations for you. Above, children listen to a story in Central Park on Oct. 23, 2017. Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Here are the new books we're looking forward to this fall

September 4, 2024 • Bad news: Summer's over. Good news: Fall books are here! We've got a list of 16 titles — fiction and nonfiction — you'll want to look out for.

Death at the Sign of the Rook Penguin Random House hide caption

A light-hearted murder mystery weekend turns deadly in Kate Atkinson's cozy thriller

September 20, 2024 • Death at the Sign of the Rook is an expansive novel that pokes fun of baroque, classic murder mysteries — but also delivers a fully satisfying, all-the-pieces-click-together ending.

Sean "Diddy" Combs in 2018. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images hide caption

It's Been a Minute

Is diddy hip-hop's weinstein plus, brittany gets rejected.

September 20, 2024 • On Monday, the embattled rap mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs was arrested and charged with sex trafficking and racketeering. He's been denied bail twice, and is facing a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Host Brittany Luse is joined by NPR Music editor Sidney Madden and legal affairs reporter Meghann Cuniff to understand what this indictment means for Combs and if this could be the beginning of a #MeToo movement in hip-hop.

Entitlement Penguin Random House hide caption

'Entitlement' disappoints — 'Leave the World Behind' was a tough act to follow

September 19, 2024 • Rumaan Alam’s previous novel was an inspired swirl of suspense, social commentary and apocalyptic disaster. His latest is about a young Black woman working for a uber-rich white philanthropist.

Connie Chung, shown here in 2023, says watching a bad interview is painful: "I want to throw my shoe at [the television] if somebody isn't asking the question ... that I would ask." Hachette Book Group hide caption

Connie Chung says booze and bawdy jokes helped her break into journalism's boys club

September 18, 2024 • In a new memoir, Chung reflects on the decades she spent covering the news, her marriage to Maury Povich and the prominent figures who acted inappropriately with her — including President Carter.

A customer browses titles at JF Books on September 17, 2024. Maansi Srivastava for NPR hide caption

A bookstore too controversial for China finds home in D.C.

September 18, 2024 • This Shanghai bookstore, now in D.C., was revived by its owner, who hopes to create a space for open discussions in the diaspora community, where people can sit and read together.

Popular Shanghai bookstore

'Brothers and Ghosts' is a multi-generational saga of the Vietnamese diaspora

September 18, 2024 • Khuê Phạm's debut novel follows a young Berlin journalist whose parents emigrated from South Vietnam. A message from an estranged uncle in the U.S. prompts her to explore her family history.

Code Switch

Fighting back on book bans.

September 18, 2024 • B.A. Parker brings us around the country to see what access to books is looking like for students in Texas, librarians in Idaho and her own high school English teacher in Pennsylvania.

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

September 17, 2024 • Eve is an icon in hip-hop, a west Philly rapper whose flow, style and production helped define the genre in the early 2000s. She's released three incredible albums–all of which reached either gold or platinum–and stands out as the first lady of rap collective The Ruff Ryders. Eve covers it all in her new memoir, Who's that Girl? . It's about Eve's journey in hip-hop, acting, motherhood, and mental health. We talk all about it and so much more on Bullseye.

Listen to this Episode

Richard B. Hays is the co-author of The Widening of God’s Mercy. Fuller Seminary hide caption

His work was used to exclude LGBTQ people from the church. Now he argues the opposite

September 15, 2024 • Prominent Christian theologian Richard B. Hays' work was often cited as a reason for not allowing same-sex relationships in Christian churches. In a new book, The Widening of God's Mercy , co-written with his son Chris Hays, he reverses course, and cites Biblical support for allowing LGBTQ relationships in Christianity.

A theologian’s work was used to exclude LGBTQ people from church. In a new book, he and his son argue the exact opposite.

Anne Lamott reflects on aging. Sam Lamott/Sam Lamott hide caption

Perspective

Consider this from npr, anne lamott has some ideas on getting older in the united states.

September 12, 2024 • Getting older has been a punchline for as long as anyone can remember. And while there are plenty of jokes to be made about aging, it can also have some negative implications for how we see ourselves and others.

Hanif Abdurraqib on Wild Card with Rachel Martin Megan Barnard/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Hanif abdurraqib is a 'genius.' his friends aren't impressed.

September 12, 2024 • Hanif Abdurraqib's writing has earned him a MacArthur "genius" grant. His most recent book, There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension , landed a spot on Barack Obama's summer reading list. But those accolades don't matter to him as much as being a good friend and neighbor. Abdurraqib talks to Rachel about a youth spent unhoused and incarcerated, and the zen of making mixtapes.

After buying Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk changed the company's name to X. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

What Musk's Twitter takeover could tell us about a possible government appointment

September 11, 2024 • After buying Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk instituted sweeping changes — including rebranding the social media platform as "X." Authors Kate Conger and Ryan Mac recount the takeover in Character Limit.

The StraightForward Foundation helps Russian authors publish abroad. Here are the French and Russian edition covers of a book about the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, by Ilia Barabanov and Denis Korotkov. Edition Flammarion; Meduza.io hide caption

In exile, Russian book publishers revive Soviet-era tactics to defy Kremlin censors

September 11, 2024 • In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, writing about the war in Ukraine, the church or LGBTQ+ life could land you in jail. A new organization helps authors publish books in Russian they couldn't back home.

Russian publishers in exile release books the Kremlin would ban

Crater Lake Simon and Schuster hide caption

Rachel Kushner's new espionage thriller may be her coolest book yet

September 10, 2024 • In Creation Lake, a hard-drinking American spy infiltrates a radical farming collective in a remote region of France. Kushner challenges readers to keep up with her and not to flinch.

By the time he left 10 Downing Street in 2007, Tony Blair had gone from being Britain's most popular prime minister when he entered office to a deeply divisive leader a decade later. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images hide caption

Tony Blair urges leaders to ignore 'waves of populist opinion'

September 10, 2024 • Tony Blair's On Leadership: Lessons for the 21st Century is the political leadership guide he says he would have wanted in 1997, at the start of his 10-year tenure as British prime minister.

ON LEADERSHIP - TONY BLAIR

'We're Alone,' but together, in Edwidge Danticat's remarkable essays

September 9, 2024 • With clear, concise prose that delves into harsh topics without losing its sense of humor, Danticat once again proves that she is one of contemporary literature's strongest, most graceful voices.

'Colored Television' is an ungentle satire set in post-post-racial America

September 9, 2024 • Danzy Senna's new novel is an exhilarating yet poignant riff on the struggling artist as a wannabe middle-aged sellout. The writing is endlessly quotable and meaningfully provocative.

Everything is the worst in this 'Banal Nightmare'

September 8, 2024 • Novelist Halle Butler understands our worst enemy is sometimes our own brain. Her dark, chaotic novel manages to be often hilarious yet relentlessly uncheerful.

Picture This

Some babysitters are forever — just ask 'señora mimí'.

September 8, 2024 • Ana is so excited that her abuela is coming to live with her — until it means saying goodbye to her babysitter. No More Señora Mimí is an ode to caregivers from Meg Medina and Brittany Cicchese.

PICTURE THIS: No More Señora Mimí

Ian Frazier's Paradise BRonx Farrar, Straus and Giroux hide caption

The history of the Bronx with writer Ian Frazier

September 6, 2024 • Ian Frazier, is a writer who, for lack of a better term, does the thing. If there is a place that fascinates him he goes to that place, immerses himself in it, and writes about it. And that's exactly what he did for his new book about the Bronx called Paradise Bronx . He joins us to talk about the history of the New York borough and even tells us how he mapped out the radius in which residents can smell cookies from a local bakery. Plus, he shares what items he brings with him when he goes out to explore a city.

'I Just Keep Talking' is a refreshing and wide-ranging essay collection

September 5, 2024 • Scholar, historian, artist and raconteur Nell Irvin Painter is the author of The History of White People and Old in Art School. Her latest book is an insightful addition to her canon.

The cover of the Yup'ik alphabet coloring book. Courtesy of Nikki Corbett hide caption

These Alaska moms couldn’t find a Yup’ik children’s book. So they made one themselves

September 4, 2024 • Yup’ik is the most spoken Native language in Alaska, but finding Yup’ik books for young children can be almost impossible. These moms created their own – and now they’re fielding nearly 1,000 orders.

Yup'ik mom in Alaska creates her own books to teach her kids the Yup'ik language

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is sworn-in during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 21, 2022. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson shares the poem she's kept in every one of her offices

September 4, 2024 • The first Black woman appointed to the Supreme Court says Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Ladder of Saint Augustine," has been a guiding principle. Jackson's new memoir is Lovely One.

9 Twisted Science Fiction Novels About Time Travel

The Biggest Book News of the Week

10 Great Middle Grade Reads for Hispanic Heritage Month

Enter to Win a Copy of THE MOST FAMOUS GIRL IN THE WORLD by Iman Hariri-Kia!

Enter to Win a Copy of THE STORY OF GUMLUCK AND THE DRAGON’S EGGS by Adam Rex!

Book riot's daily deals.

All The Books

Book Riot: The Podcast

Read or Dead

Why Teens Across the Country Are Acquiring Brooklyn Public Library’s Free Digital Cards: Book Censorship News, September 20, 2024

Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned program has made a real impact on the lives of young people nationwide.

Why Doctor Doom Is the Greatest Supervillain of All Time

Who else marries actual threat with actual absurd?

These reads are perfect for anyone, middle grader or not.

Just When You Think You’ve Seen Everything the Slasher Genre Has to Offer…

Throw this fresh take on the slasher story on the top of your TBR this season.

Prison Banned Books Week: Mark Twain Goes to Prison

"I treated each book I examined like it was a precious gem."

8 of the Best New Funny Kids’ Books

If you know a young reader who loves funny books, here some of the best funny kids' books that have been published recently.

8 of the Best Literary Mysteries and Thrillers

These literary mysteries and thrillers often lean more toward flowery prose and scenery descriptions, and have a character-driven focus.

The Most Requested Fall Historical Fiction on Netgalley

Everybody's requesting these fall historical fiction books—will you?

• Craft and Criticism
• Fiction and Poetry
• News and Culture
• Lit Hub Radio
• Reading Lists

• Literary Criticism
• Craft and Advice
• In Conversation
• On Translation
• Short Story
• From the Novel
• Bookstores and Libraries
• Film and TV
• Art and Photography
• Freeman’s
• The Virtual Book Channel
• The Lit Hub Podcast
• The Critic and Her Publics
• Fiction/Non/Fiction
• I’m a Writer But
• Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
• Write-minded
• First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
• Behind the Mic
• Lit Century
• Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
• Beyond the Page
• The Cosmic Library
• Emergence Magazine
• The History of Literature
• The Best of the Decade
• Best Reviewed Books
• BookMarks Daily Giveaway
• The Daily Thrill
• CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2022

Merve emre on gerald murnane, casey cep on harry crews, maggie doherty on cormac mccarthy, and more.

Way back in the mid-aughts when I first started writing about books, pitching a print publication was the only reliable way for book critics to get paid, and third-person point of view was all the vogue. Much has changed in the years since: Newspaper and magazine book sections have shuttered, many digital outlets offer compensation when they can, and first-person criticism has become much more pervasive.

I don’t celebrate all these changes, but I’m certain of one thing in particular: I love book reviews and critical essays written in the first-person. Done well, they are generous invitations into the lives of critics—and into their memory palaces. With that in mind, most of my picks for the best book reviews of 2022 were written in the first person this year.

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

Adam Dalva on Stefan Zweig’s Chess Story , translated by Joel Rotenberg ( Los Angeles Review of Books )

Dalva’s review of Chess Story is a great example of the power of a first-person point of view—he doesn’t just examine the book, he narrates his own journey to understand it.

“In my own quest to understand Chess Story, I gradually realized that I would have to learn the game it centers on. And that has led me into a second obsession, much more problematic: I have fallen passionately in love with online bullet chess.”

Merve Emre on Gerald Murnane’s Last Letter to a Reader ( The New Yorker )

Merve Emre’s analysis of Gerald Murnane’s final book is a beautiful piece of writing. I love how she opens on a note of suspense, pulling you into a story you can’t stop reading.

“On most evenings this past spring, the man who lives across the street sat at his small desk, turned on the lamp, and began to write as the light faded. The white curtains in his room were seldom drawn. From where I sat, I had a clear view of him, and he, were he to look up from his writing, would have had a clear view of a house across the street, where a woman with dark hair and a faintly olive complexion was seated by a window, watching him write. At the moment he glanced up from his page, the woman supposed him to be contemplating the look, or perhaps the sound, of the sentence he had just written. The sentence was this: ‘Since then I have tried to avoid those rooms that grow steadily more crowded with works to explain away Time.’”

Minyoung Lee on Joseph Han’s Nuclear Family ( Chicago Review of Books )

Lee brings her own experience to bear in this insightful review of a novel about Korean Americans in the diaspora. (Disclosure: I founded the Chicago Review of Books in 2016, but stepped back from an editorial role in 2019.)

“In diaspora communities, it’s not uncommon to find cultural practices from the homeland, even after they’ve become unpopular or forgotten there. This is colloquially referred to as ‘the immigrant time capsule effect.’ It can be experienced in many of the ethnic enclaves in the U.S. My first impression of Los Angeles’ Koreatown when I visited in the 2010s, for example, was that it felt very much like Seoul in the 1980s. Grocery stores were even selling canned grape drinks that were popular when I was a child but that I haven’t seen since.”

Chelsea Leu on Thuận’s Chinatown , translated by Nguyen An Lý ( Astra )

Astra magazine’s “ bangers only ” editorial policy led to some spectacular reviews, like this Chelsea Leu number that opens with a fascinating linguistics lesson.

“It was in high school Latin that I learned that language could have moods, and that one of those moods was the subjunctive. We use the indicative mood for statements of fact, but the subjunctive (which barely exists in English anymore) expresses possibilities, wishes, hopes and fears: ‘I wouldn’t trust those Greeks bearing gifts if I were you.’ More recently, I’ve learned there exists a whole class of moods called irrealis moods, of which the subjunctive is merely one flavor. André Aciman’s recent essay collection, Homo Irrealis, is entirely dedicated to these moods, celebrating the fact that they express sentiments that fly in the face of settled reality.”

Casey Cep on Harry Crews’ A Childhood: The Biography of a Place ( The New Yorker )

Cep is a magician when it comes to capturing a sense of place, as evidenced by her book about Harper Lee, Furious Hours , and this review of a book about another Southern writer, Harry Crews.

“Dehairing a shoat is the sort of thing Crews knew all about, along with cooking possum, cleaning a rooster’s craw, making moonshine, trapping birds, tanning hides, and getting rid of screwworms. Although he lived until 2012, Crews and his books—sixteen novels, two essay collections, and a memoir—recall a bygone era. The best of what he wrote evokes W.P.A. guides or Foxfire books, full of gripping folklore and hardscrabble lives, stories from the back of beyond about a time when the world seemed black and white in all possible senses.”

Victoria Chang and Dean Rader on Roger Reeves’ Best Barbarian ( Los Angeles Review of Books )

Last year I professed my love for “reviews in dialogue” between two critics, and Chang and Rader continue to be masters of the form in this conversation about Roger Reeves’ second poetry collection.

“Victoria: Do you have thoughts on the flow of the poems or allusions? I have a feeling you will talk about the biblical references. But I’m most curious to hear what you have to say about the purpose of the allusions and references. Is the speaker agreeing with them, subverting them, both? Is the speaker using them as a way to press against or think against, or toward? I know you will say something smart and insightful.”

“Dean: That is a lot of pressure. I’ll try not to let you down.”

Maggie Doherty on Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger and Stella Maris ( The New Republic )

I didn’t think anyone could persuade me to read another Cormac McCarthy novel after The Road, but Maggie Doherty makes every book sound fascinating by making it part of a bigger, true story.

“Such is the paradox of The Passenger , a novel at once highly attuned to the pleasures of collective life and resistant to the very idea of it. Unlike the violent, stylized books for which McCarthy is best known, this new novel is loose, warm, colloquial. It explores the sustaining, if impermanent, bonds formed among male friends. It’s full of theories and anecdotes, memories and stories, all voiced by some of the liveliest characters McCarthy has ever crafted. The Passenger is McCarthy’s first novel in over 15 years; its coda, S tella Maris , is published in December. Together, the books represent a new, perhaps final direction for McCarthy. The Passenger in particular is McCarthy’s most peopled novel, his most polyphonic—and it’s wonderfully entertaining, in a way that few of his previous books have been. It is also his loneliest novel yet.”

Allison Bulger on Vladimir Sorokin’s Telluria , translated by Max Lawton ( Words Without Borders )

I’m always interested in how critics find new ways to start a review, and Bulger’s opening lines here are a particularly sharp hook.

“Of all the jobs esteemed translator Larissa Volokhonsky has rejected, only one text was physically removed from her apartment on the Villa Poirier in Paris.

‘Take it back,’ she said. ‘Rid me of its presence.’

“The cursed title was Blue Lard (1999) by Vladimir Sorokin, known to some as Russia’s De Sade, and Volokhonsky’s revulsion was par for the course. It would be twenty years before another translator, Max Lawton, would provide eight Sorokin works unseen in the West, including Blue Lard , in which a clone of Khrushchev sodomizes a clone of Stalin.”

Summer Farah on Solmaz Sharif’s Customs ( Cleveland Review of Books )

Farah’s nuanced review of Solmaz Sharif’s new poetry collection further illustrates the potency of a first-person voice.

“Our poets write of our martyrs and resist alongside them; sometimes, I wonder, what life will be like after we are free, and what a truly free Palestine looks like. Last spring, the hashtag “#غرد_كأنها_حرة” circulated on Twitter, a collection of Palestinians imagining life as if our land was free; people imagined themselves moving from Akka to Ramallah with ease, returning to their homes their grandparents left in 1948, and traveling across the Levant without the obstacle of borders. This stanza acknowledges there is more work to be done than just ridding ourselves of the obvious systems that oppress us; decolonization and anti-imperial work are more holistic than we know. Sharif’s work is about attunement to the ways imperialism is ingrained into our lives, our speech, our poetry; this moment is direct in that acknowledgement.”

Nicole LeFebvre on Dorthe Nors’ A Line in the World ( On the Seawall )

LeFebvre opens this review like she’s writing a memoir or a personal essay—an unexpected joy that would be very hard to do in third-person.

“Each morning when I wake up, I hear the gentle crash and lull of waves on a beach. ‘Gather, scatter,’ as Dorthe Nors describes the sound. My eyes open and blink, adjusting to the dark. The sun’s not up yet. I scoot back into my partner’s body, kept asleep by the rhythmic thrum of the white noise machine, which covers the cars idling in the 7-Eleven parking lot, the motorcyclists showing off their scary-high speeds. For a few minutes, I accept the illusion of a calmer, quiet life. ‘Gather, scatter.’ A life by the sea.”

• Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Adam Morgan

Previous article, next article, support lit hub..

Join our community of readers.

to the Lithub Daily

Popular posts.

It’s a Wonderful, Weird Life: Writers Recommend Their Favorite Holiday Movies

• RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

Sign Up For Our Newsletters

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter

For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

Become a member for as low as $5/month

• Biggest New Books

Non-Fiction

• All Categories
• First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
• How It Works

• Member Login
• Library Patron Login
• Get a Free Issue of our Ezine! Claim

Top Book Reviews

We Solve Murders

British TV personality and author Richard Osman takes a break from his Thursday Murder Club books with the thriller We Solve Murders , the first entry in a new series. The plot revolves around three ...

Beyond the Book

A Brief History of Close Protection Agencies

In Richard Osman's thriller We Solve Murders, a series of murders surrounds Maximum Impact Security, a close-protection agency, or a company that provides bodyguards to paying clients. The concept...

The Night Guest

Most mornings, Iðunn wakes up bloodied, bruised, and battered, sometimes missing fingernails. She doesn't remember what happened during the night to cause this. She isn't addicted to drugs or ...

Isolation, Alienation, and Escapism: Observing Two Thriller Narratives

It's 2024. COVID-19, while still dangerous, is no longer the unknown factor it once was, and extended quarantines are no longer mandated as in the earlier days, pre-vaccination. Though the world has ...

Colored Television

In Danzy Senna's Colored Television , writing professor and author Jane reflects on the advice of Dennis Mulholland, the "literary dinosaur" in charge of her MFA program who she thought was "hokey, a ...

Weather, Film, and Television in Sunny Los Angeles

In Colored Television by Danzy Senna, Jane, a novelist turned aspiring TV writer from the East Coast, reflects on her inability to get used to the warm springs of Los Angeles while also considering ...

The Bookshop

Evan Friss's paean to bookstores, booksellers, and readers, The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore , is a delightful romp through time reflected through the lens of this brick-and-mortar ...

The Women's National Book Association

In The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, Evan Friss talks about one of the few women in the book trade in the early 20th century: Madge Jenison, who opened The Sunwise Turn bookshop in ...

There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven

While it is common for children of immigrants to reflect on their ancestors' struggles through literary or historical fiction, or family memoir, it is more unusual for writers to turn to speculative ...

Displacement and Migration as a Theme in Speculative Fiction

In Ruben Reyes Jr.'s short story collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, speculative fiction is a way to rediscover the experiences of first- and second-generation Latinx immigrants. Alternative ...

There Are Rivers in the Sky

Elif Shafak's novel There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three disparate individuals separated by time and location. Arthur Smyth (whose full name is "King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums") is born in ...

Cuneiform and Ashurbanipal's Library

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak begins with the story of King Ashurbanipal (c. 685–631 BCE) of Ninevah, an ancient city on the eastern bank of the Tigris in part of what is now ...

Join BookBrowse

For a year of great reading about exceptional books!

Genres & Themes

Read-alikes, young adults, members recommend.

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

Discover the bestselling Japanese novel celebrating the healing power of cats.

The Book Club

Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See Lisa See's latest historical novel, inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China.

Featured Book Club

New In Paperback

Solve this clue:

and be entered to win...

• Reading Guides

Bookclub Giveaway!

Both epic and intimate, this debut announces a brilliant new talent for readers of Imbolo Mbue and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

• Slovakia targets ‘wealthy’ book buyers with steep VAT rise
• Academic publishers hit with antitrust suit over Peer review
• Biographies
• Author Read-Alikes
• Name Pronunication Guide
• How to Write a Good Book Review: The BookBrowse Guide for Book Reviewers
• 9 New Books to Read this Fall

Your guide to exceptional           books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info and giveaways by email.

Free Weekly Newsletters

Discover what's happening in the world of books: reviews, previews, interviews, giveaways, and more plus when you subscribe, we'll send you a free issue of our member's only ezine..

Spam Free : Your email is never shared with anyone; opt out any time.

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

Discover Books

So many books, so little time. - Frank Zappa

• Select Genre BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR BUSINESS CHILDREN'S CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES FICTION GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS HISTORY MYSTERY & DETECTIVE NONFICTION ROMANCE SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY TEENS & YOUNG ADULT THRILLER & SUSPENSE

• Genre BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR BUSINESS CHILDREN'S CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES FICTION GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS HISTORY MYSTERY & DETECTIVE NONFICTION ROMANCE SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY TEENS & YOUNG ADULT THRILLER & SUSPENSE

Filter results by

This Week’s Bestsellers

• Popularity Release Date (Coming Soon) Release Date (Available Now)

ALGONQUIN YOUNG READERS' BEST BOOKS OF 2022!

• THE MONEY TRAP Alok Sama

• RUNAWAY TRAIN Eric Roberts, Sam Kashner

• CONNIE Connie Chung

• THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP PRESENTS THE BEST MYSTERY STORIES OF THE YEAR 2024 Anthony Horowitz, Otto Penzler

• WE SOLVE MURDERS Richard Osman

• THE ALASKA SANDERS AFFAIR Joël Dicker, Robert Bononno

• NIGHT OWLS A.R. Vishny

• SPELLS TO FORGET US Aislinn Brophy

• SEASONS OF FLESH AND FLAME A.G. Howard

• FEAR THE FLAMES Olivia Rose Darling

• ALIEN CLAY Adrian Tchaikovsky

• WILLIAM Mason Coile

• KARAOKE QUEEN Dominic Lim

• ROLAND ROGERS ISN'T DEAD YET Samantha Allen

• WESTFALLEN Ann Brashares, Ben Brashares

• ELLIE'S DELI Lisa Greenwald, Galia Bernstein

• IZZY WONG’S NOSE FOR NEWS Marty Chan

• THE GENIZAH Wayne Karlin

• A HELL OF A STORM David S. Brown

• HIGHER ADMISSIONS Nicholas Lemann

• THE UNSEEN TRUTH Sarah Lewis

• PRECIPICE Robert Harris

• HAMPTON HEIGHTS Dan Kois

• THE NIGHT WE LOST HIM Laura Dave

• PRECIOUS Helen Molesworth

• VOTE WITH YOUR PHONE Bradley Tusk

• THE HIGHEST LAW IN THE LAND Jessica Pishko

• SOMETHING LOST, SOMETHING GAINED Hillary Rodham Clinton

• BEIRUT Barrack Zailaa Rima, Carla Calargé, Alexandra Gueydan-Turek

• THE ROAD Cormac McCarthy, Manu Larcenet

• CAPITAL & IDEOLOGY Thomas Piketty, Claire Alet, Benjamin Adam

NEW RELEASES

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes

Book Reviews

Join Discovery, the new community for book lovers

Trust book recommendations from real people, not robots 🤓

Blog – Posted on Friday, Mar 29

17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.

It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?

As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!

In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.

Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

What must a book review contain?

Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)

In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:

• A review will offer a concise plot summary of the book. 
• A book review will offer an evaluation of the work. 
• A book review will offer a recommendation for the audience. 

If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.

Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.

How much of a book nerd are you, really?

Find out here, once and for all. Takes 30 seconds!

Book review examples for fiction books

Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .

That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.

Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :

An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.

His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.

This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.

Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:

YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.

I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]

The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :

Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.

The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.

Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]

Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :

In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.

As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.

This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.

Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :

I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.

Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim.  To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :

♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.

In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.

♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]

The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :

Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.

Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.

“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]

James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!

This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.

The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.

Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :

This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.

Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.

Examples of genre fiction book reviews

Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:

4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.

I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.

The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.

I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.

Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:

“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”

Holy hell, what did I just read??

➽ A fantasy military school

➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history

➽ Shamans and gods

➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters

➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors

That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.

Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).

Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:

In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?

In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.

Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :

Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.

Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.

Book review examples for non-fiction books

Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.

Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!

The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :

The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”

Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.

All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]

Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.

The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.

Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]

Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :

Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.

In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.

To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]

Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

SUBJECT: 4/5

CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5

RELEVANCE: 3.5/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.

Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]

Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:

Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better idea of how to write a book review. You might be wondering how to put all of this knowledge into action now! Many book reviewers start out by setting up a book blog. If you don’t have time to research the intricacies of HTML, check out Reedsy Discovery — where you can read indie books for free and review them without going through the hassle of creating a blog. To register as a book reviewer , go here .

And if you’d like to see even more book review examples, simply go to this directory of book review blogs and click on any one of them to see a wealth of good book reviews. Beyond that, it's up to you to pick up a book and pen — and start reviewing!

Continue reading

More posts from across the blog.

Kindle Cloud Reader 101: What It Is and How to Use It

Much has been made of the eBook’s rise this decade. More of them are being published than ever, and the vast majority are sold through Amazon, the dominant player in online book and eBook retailing. From self-published titles to New York Times bestseller...

The 10 Best Post-Apocalyptic Books to Read Before the World Ends

We’ve all got books on the bedside table we’ve been meaning to read for months — but what if the apocalypse were tomorrow? Luckily for those who’d need some quick survival tips, we at Reedsy have compiled a list of the...

The 25 Best Places to Find Free Ebooks in 2024

In recent years, the ebook format has exploded in popularity. Today, it only takes a few clicks to find the ebook version of almost any title. And while you can always sa...

Heard about Reedsy Discovery?

Trust real people, not robots, to give you book recommendations.

Or sign up with an

Or sign up with your social account

• Submit your book
• Reviewer directory

Want to be a book reviewer?

Review new books and start building your portfolio.

• Log in/Log out (Opens in new window)
• All content
• Rural Alaska
• Crime & Courts
• Alaska Legislature
• ADN Politics Podcast
• National Opinions
• Letters to the Editor
• Nation/World
• Film and TV
• Outdoors/Adventure
• High School Sports
• UAA Athletics
• National Sports
• Food and Drink
• Visual Stories
• Alaska Journal of Commerce (Opens in new window)
• The Arctic Sounder
• The Bristol Bay Times
• Today's Paper (Opens in new window)
• Legal Notices (Opens in new window)
• Peak 2 Peak Events (Opens in new window)
• Educator of the Year (Opens in new window)
• Celebrating Nurses (Opens in new window)
• Top 40 Under 40 (Opens in new window)
• Alaska Spelling Bee (Opens in new window)
• Alaska Craft Brew Festival
• Best of Alaska
• Spring Career Fair (Opens in new window)
• Achievement in Business
• Youth Summit Awards
• Make it Alaskan Market Giveaway (Opens in new window)
• Oktoberfest Ticket Giveaway
• 311 Ticket Giveaway
• Teacher of the Month
• 2024 Alaska Summer Camps Guide (Opens in new window)
• Holiday Bazaar Guide (Opens in new window)
• 2024 Back to School (Opens in new window)
• Alaska Visitors Guide 2024 (Opens in new window)
• Bear Paw Festival 2024 (Opens in new window)
• 2023 Best of Alaska (Opens in new window)
• Alaska Health Care (Opens in new window)
• On the Move AK (Opens in new window)
• Senior Living in Alaska (Opens in new window)
• Youth Summit Awards (Opens in new window)
• Alaska Visitors Guide
• ADN Store (Opens in new window)
• Classifieds (Opens in new window)
• Jobs (Opens in new window)
• Place an Ad (Opens in new window)
• Customer Service
• Sponsored Content

Book review: The story of husband-and-wife missionaries in Fort Yukon is told in ‘Hospital & Haven’

“Hospital & Haven: The Life and Work of Grafton and Clara Burke in Northern Alaska”

By Mary F. Ehrlander with Hild M. Peters; University of Nebraska Press, 2023; 360 pages; $34.95.

In 1885, the Presbyterian cleric Sheldon Jackson, who came to Alaska with the intent of evangelizing, recognized the enormous size of the recently purchased territory and saw the futility of trying to usher his church to its every corner. Wishing to bring Christian teachings to the Native population, he devised a plan to divide the lands and peoples into regions, and to cede each one to a different Christian denomination for mission work that would include not only religious teachings, but health care and education as well. In the absence of federal interest, it was the only available means of providing the latter.

Under Jackson’s plan, the vast Interior was given over to the Episcopal Church, and this led to the arrival of Archdeacon Hudson Stuck, a titanic figure in Alaska’s history. In 1904 he reached the territory, and within little time was drawing missionaries northward in his wake. Among those who heard the call was Grafton “Hap” Burke, a newly minted physician whose education Stuck had overseen since his childhood.

Burke reached Alaska in 1908, where he was assigned by Stuck to oversee the mission in the Han Gwich’in village of Fort Yukon. Along his pathway to the tiny town, Burke passed through Allakaket, where he met Clara May Heintz, a young and adventurous woman who had been there for a year, intending to leave after a short stint of mission work herself.

Burke and Heintz, in what would almost seem to be a foreordained partnering, fell in love and were married in 1910. For the next 28 years, the couple ran St. Stephen’s Mission, both experiencing and contributing to the rapid changes that swept over Alaska Native communities as Americans flowed into their ancestral lands.

The story of how the Burkes interacted with a village that welcomed them in and was greatly served by them is recounted in “Hospital & Haven,” a deeply researched history by Mary Ehrlander and Hild Peters that explores both the development and impacts of missionary work in early 20th century Alaska.

Among the denominations that sought to bring Christianity to Alaska Natives, the Episcopal Church was in some ways unique. This owed heavily to Stuck, who greatly admired Native cultures and, aside from a wish to convert them, sought to protect them from the diseases, alcohol and sexual appetites brought by white miners, trappers and settlers.

The Burkes followed Stuck’s example as they built the mission in Fort Yukon. Religious outreach was certainly a priority, we learn, and services were held in both English and Gwich’in. But more important to both, service to the community as an example of Christian faith was what took precedence. No one in need, Native or white, would be turned away. Ehrlander and Peters follow the Burkes through their decades in Alaska as they rendered assistance in numerous ways.

Upon arrival, the Burkes encountered a village where the cultural unity was strong, but health and sanitation were poorly wanting. The two wasted no time getting to work. Among the responsibilities they assumed was the safe keeping of children. Education to prepare them for the impending intervention of the outside world was paramount, and Clara was soon teaching school. More demandingly, there were children in need of homes. Among them were orphans, mixed-blood offspring whose white fathers had abandoned them, and those whose parents lacked the resources to provide proper care. The Burkes took dozens of them into the mission house, where sometimes in excess of 25 would live temporarily or for the long term. Clara, according to the authors citing letters and records from the time, kept watch over them all even as she tirelessly aided Hap in his duties.

Much of Hap’s work centered on medical aid. With the assistance of the indefatigable Stuck, and with financing from the national church mission fund, he built and opened St. Stephen’s Hospital (later renamed Hudson Stuck Memorial Hospital after the archdeacon’s death in 1920), the only hospital that accepted Native patients along an 800-mile stretch of the Yukon River.

There he dealt with deadly epidemics that stormed through Native settlements across Alaska. Influenza, measles and smallpox were rampant at times, and tuberculosis rates were sky high. All were leading causes of death. Hunger owing to increased pressure on food supplies by white settlers was also prevalent. Liquor amplified the problems. In some places, mortality rates reached 50%. By 1911, Native deaths rates in the Yukon drainage region outpaced birth rates. All of this led to intergenerational trauma that wasn’t recognized until decades later. “To mitigate these threats to Alaska Native lives and well-being,” the authors write, “Episcopal missionaries urged maintenance of traditional lifeways, with health-related adaptations and avoidance of alcohol and corruptive outside influences.”

Hap also tended to victims of gunshot wounds, frostbite and other injuries, and those stricken by chronic diseases, sanitation-borne illnesses and bacterial infections. He received only minimal compensation from the church for his efforts. And under mission rules, Clara, as his wife, was paid nothing. The mission itself was perpetually underfunded, and more than once Hap reached into his own pocket to cover expenses. They worked fully out of devotion and nothing else.

The Burkes became adept in Native lifeways themselves and integrated so deeply into the community that they became beloved. But the authors stress that by their very presence, they caused change. Although unintentional, the Western customs they brought with them inevitably left the Gwich’in people wondering if their own culture was inferior. Disease and sanitation problems were worsened by gathering a people who had traditionally moved about the land into one permanent settlement. And education drew children away from their heritage.

On balance, however, the Burkes were incalculably beneficial for Fort Yukon, where they are still remembered well. As the authors note in their closing line of this fascinating study on the role of missions in post-Gold Rush Alaska, “Hap and Clara cast their lot among the Gwich’in people and conducted real mission work — saving lives.”

[ Book review: The lives and work of Yup’ik Elders animate and inform ‘The Flying Parka’ ]

[ Book review: A gifted storyteller shares her early Yukon River life ]

[ Book review: Landscapes of family and place flourish in this Alaska memoir ]

David James

David A. James is a Fairbanks-based freelance writer, and editor of the Alaska literary collection “Writing on the Edge.” He can be reached at [email protected].

Supported by

Book Reviews

Descorriendo el telón de silicio: reseña de ‘Nexus’ de Yuval Noah Harari

El estudio de Harari sobre la comunicación humana podrá ser todo menos breve, pero si consigues llegar a la segunda mitad, te entretendrá y te asustará a la vez.

By Dennis Duncan

First He Spoke for the Trees; Now He Speaks for the Sea

The wonders of the ocean and the terrors of A.I. meet in Richard Powers’s new novel, which considers the future of an environmentally challenged Polynesian island.

By Alexandra Jacobs

What Happened When an Ohio Megachurch Decided to Tackle Racism

In “Undivided,” the political scientist Hahrie Han follows members of a mostly white congregation that resolved to fight bias and promote racial justice.

By Ruth Graham

This Family Is Miserable. You Should Meet Them Anyway.

The domestic drama runs high in “A Reason to See You Again,” Jami Attenberg’s latest novel.

By Leah Greenblatt

When the Only Screens Were Big

A massive, two-volume coffee table book revisits the heyday of classic Hollywood glamour as seen in Life magazine.

By Gilbert Cruz

Remember ‘Frindle’? Andrew Clements Had a Sequel Up His Sleeve.

More than 25 years later, the pen of another name meets a new generation of wordsmiths.

By Jon Agee

Karl Marx, Weirder Than Ever

What good is one of the communist thinker’s most important texts to 21st-century readers?

By James Miller

Why Is the Far Right Gaining Support Among Latino Americans?

In “Defectors,” the journalist Paola Ramos interviews MAGA supporters, Proud Boys and others to investigate a constituency long thought reliably Democratic.

By Jennifer Szalai

Can Americans Have Democracy, Freedom and Other Nice Things?

In “On Freedom,” Timothy Snyder looks at what kinds of societies help people thrive.

By Geoffrey Wheatcroft

How Donald Trump Learned to Pass the Buck

In “Lucky Loser,” two investigative reporters illuminate the financial chicanery and media excesses that gave us the 45th president of the United States.

By Alexander Nazaryan

Advertisement