Tips on Writing a High-Quality Book Review

Writing a high-quality book review, especially when it comes to analyzing novels, is not the most complicated assignment ever. However, lots of students make some typical mistakes when composing a book analysis. First and the most common one, is writing a book review based on your own perception, emotions and attitude towards the plot and techniques used by the author.

A student’s opinion is important, but is not fundamental for a book review writing. Dealing with this assignment, you should follow a particular structure and do it properly. I have asked expert academic writers from WriteMyPaperHub.com – professional writing service to share the extended guide they use when writing high-quality book reviews. I hope you and your students will make good use of it!

Themes, Problems, the Pathos

When analyzing a book, it is necessary to distinguish between the content and artistic form. While you are analyzing the content, you should pay attention to the following:

• the themes of the book — the chosen by a writer socio-historical characters and their interactions;
• problems — the most significant for the author properties and sides of the already reflected characters, highlighted and strengthened by the artistic means;
• the pathos of the work — the ideological and emotional attitude of the writer to the depicted social characters (heroism, tragedy, drama, satire, humor, romance, and sentimentality).

Pathos is the highest form of ideological and emotional assessment revealed in the book. The affirmation of the greatness of the hero’s deed or the whole collective is an expression of heroic pathos and the actions of the hero. A prerequisite for the heroic in fiction is the heroism of reality, the struggle with the elements of nature, for national freedom and independence, for the free work of people, the struggle for peace, etc.

When the author affirms the affairs and experiences of people who have deep and irresistible contradictions between the pursuit of a grand ideal and the fundamental inability to achieve it, then we face tragic pathos. Tragic forms are quite varied, historically changing. The tragic nature is always marked by an exceptional moral height and significance.

Elaborate On The Artistic Form

• Details of the subject image: portrait, characters, their experiences and speeches (monologues and dialogues), home environment, landscape, plot (sequence and interaction of external and internal characters of characters in time and space);
• Composition details: order, method, and motivation, narrative and description of the depicted life, author’s considerations, indentations, insertion episodes, framing (composition of the image – the ratio and location of the objective parts within a separate image);
• Stylistic details: pictorial-expressive details of the author’s speech, intonational-syntactical and rhythmic-strophic features of poetry in general.

Sequence for a Literary Work Review

1. History of creation;
2. Subject;
3. Problems;
4. The ideological orientation of the work and its emotional pathos;
5. Feature genre;
6. The main artistic images in their system and internal connections.
7. Central characters;
8. Plot and features of the structure of the conflict;
9. Landscape, portrait, dialogue and character monologues, interior, the environment of action;
10. Language construction of the work (author’s description, narrative, indent, reasoning);
11. The composition of the plot and individual images, as well as the overall architectonics of the work;
12. Place of work in the writer’s work;
13. Place of work in the history of national and world literature.

Character Analysis

Writing a book review, choose a character and analyse him or her thoroughly according to the given scheme:

1. Social and financial situation;
2. Appearance;
3. The peculiarity of worldview and outlook, the range of intellectual interests, inclinations, and habits: the character of activity and basic life aspirations; influence on the surrounding area (main sphere, types of influence).
4. Area of senses: type of attitude towards the surrounding; peculiarities of experiences.
5. The author’s attitude to the character.
6. What features of the personality of the hero are found in the work: a portrait; the author’s description; the characterization of other actors; prehistory or biography; a chain of deeds; language characteristic; the “neighborhood” with other characters; the surrounding environment.

7.  Conclusion. What social problem led the author to create this character.

If you don’t have enough time to finish your book review before the submission date, you can address a professional writing service to help you out. However, if you write this paper yourself, make sure to proofread it thoroughly, because even the best content can be killed by the series of mistakes and omissions.

Good luck!