One Does Not Simply Write a Review

Trying to write a book review for Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was difficult because I was so worried about sounding like an idiot. I gladly did some perusing of others’ reviews on Amazon and Goodreads in order to get a better grasp on what makes a good review. I found that the best reviews contained at least one of three essential things – personality of the reviewer, quotes from the book, and a reason for the rating.

A personality is someone’s outlook on life, an attitude, a way of thinking and doing. I could take a book summary review and form an opinion of my own, but I’d rather read purposeful sentences written by another human being about why he or she loved or hated a book. A review should have a personalized view of what the book meant to you, the reader. 

Next to personality is the importance of quotes in a review. For example, a review that says something like “Heart of Darkness was dark, dreary, and powerful” doesn’t actually show that the reviewer read the book (SparkNotes, anyone?). Providing evidence from the text to show why it’s dark or why it’s powerful gives the author of the review credibility and an edge. I say edge because those quotes are typically preceded by or followed by a solid reason of how that specific quote affected the book reviewer’s life or how that specific quote centralized the main message of the book.

Last, but certainly not least, is that a good review must provide a reason for the rating. If I give a 1-star rating, I better back it up. For example, let’s say your friend walks into your room and asks, “How does this shirt look with these pants?” and all you say is “bad”. Your poor friend is going to walk away dejected and not sure why he or she doesn’t look good. But if you say “it doesn’t look good because your shirt is on backwards”, your friend is going to walk away with the decided purpose of fixing the problem. The same goes for a review; the rating given needs to be back up by good reasoning. Quotes and explanation of the quotes are great ways to provide that reasoning.

When I found reviews with these essentials, I automatically liked them. The personality aspect lead me to want to find out more about the author of the review. I went to profile pages of the reviewers and found that the most credible reviewers contained several books on their virtual bookshelves, but more specifically those bookshelves contained several different genres – this shows that the author of that review is experimental in their reading and will be able to compare and contrast different books. Another important aspect in a reviewer’s credibility is their “about me” section on their profile. It shows their level of education, their love of books, or even their love of critiquing books.

After my study of reviews I was ready to post my own review of Heart of Darkness on Amazon and Goodreads, and then Facebook via Goodreads. I tried engaging people in their reviews, but it’s all one-sided at this point, and I haven't received much feedback on either platform for my own review. I did, however, receive 3 “likes” on my Facebook (one from my sister and two from friends in Las Vegas)! Hey, it all starts somewhere. I also decided to join a network called Literature Network Forums so that I could try and get some more feedback on my specific review. I created a profile and posted a new thread on the forum called “Write a Book Review”. I got one comment! I thanked the commenter for his comment and asked him a question too, but haven’t heard back yet. I like this forum because you can also see how many people have viewed your thread or post (106 views for my review!).



It’s exciting and a little nerve-wracking to post a review because it shows a lot about who you are as a person. I tried to shape my review after the essentials I found in my research of good reviews. Here's a link to my review! Let me know what you think!