How to Write a Critical Book Review

book review summary section preview

Unlike many essay types, a critical book review relies on your opinion. In fact, with the exception of a few quotes from the book itself, your critical book review is more about your experience, your analysis and your opinion that it is about searching through other books and journals to do your research and fill out a bibliography section. When considering how to write a critical book review, your aim is to give your analysis and evaluation and to inform the reader about the content of your book. your goal is to provide analysis and evaluation and to inform the reader of the content of your book, and the purpose of our professional writing services is to provide the best assistance.

How to Write a Critical Book Review Summary

Your introduction should offer an overview of the book, and the introduction should feature as part of the book’s summary. The introduction should also give a general idea of your judgment of the book, which may offer a slight nod to your evaluation of the book. For example, you may indicate your judgment by claiming the book is self-indulgent or rushed at the end, and you may hint towards your evaluation by mentioning how you noticed the book is self-indulgent because of the repeated sections where the author is self-aggrandizing.

How to write a critical book review introduction:

  • An overview of the book
  • Plays the part of the book summary
  • The general idea of your judgment of the book
  • A hint of your evaluation

We at our PaperWritingPro book review writing service know that your summary should take up about one-third of your paper, and that includes the bit of summarizing that you did in the introduction. While your book review, remember that summary should contain trends, features, concepts, characteristics, themes, and ideas within the book. Describe the book in your own words, and maybe organize the summary into themes without turning it into a chapter-by-chapter summary.

If you decide to use quotes in your critical book review, give the page number and maybe the chapter from the book. However, if you are reading this because you want to know how to write a critical book review for the university, then be aware that you will lose points on your summary if you feature too many direct quotes. However, our service provides professional book review help, so you can just contact our writers using the button below.

Universities installed this rule because of students trying to plump up their word count with quotes. Be sure to offer at least one direct quote during the summary, especially if it works as a summary quote on its own. For example, a good quote from Jurassic Park would be “Life finds a way,” because it typifies the core issue around which the book revolves. Movies do this sort of thing all the time, such as the movie “Chicken Run” (2000) with its tag line “Escape, or die frying,” which quickly and efficiently describes core theme of the story.

How to write a critical book review for university summary section:

How to write a critical book review for a summary section

  • Make it less than 1/3 of your paper word count
  • Describe the book in your own words
  • Do not give a chapter-by-chapter summary
  • Include at least one direct quote from the book
  • Give the page number of the direct quote from the book
  • Do not fluff up your word count by adding too many direct quotes
  • Try to pick a direct quote that summarizes something about the book

Give Your Thoughts, Reactions, and Responses

Critique doesn’t mean negative. You could critique a book and find only good things. In which case, your critique would be valid despite the fact you couldn’t find anything wrong with the book, and it would be valid because you would provide proof that your position was correct. For example, you may take the position that the last scene in your book offered a well-crafted and well-deserved twist, and you would have to explain why you think the twist is well-crafted and well-deserved.

Logic and observation are just two ways in which you may prove your point. For example, if you were critiquing the movie Avengers Infinity War, you may offer the opinion that it was clever of the writers to remove the most powerful Avengers at the beginning of the movie in order to raise the stakes of the movie and raise the threat level to its characters. You may then “Prove” this point with logic and observation. Your logic may suggest that it is difficult to raise the suspense or threat if certain characters are present because they are almost indestructible. Your observation may be used as evidence when the powerful characters are unleashed later in the movie and how they help to subdue the threat.

  • Cherry pick points in the book that you liked or disliked and then discuss them
  • Examine the book as a whole and by its themes, ideas, and even by its plot points
  • You can take a positive, negative, and/or mixed view if you wish
  • Justify the reasons for your view and your opinion
  • Logic and observation are fine sources of evidence for your points

Why Do Teachers Offer an Elementary Book Review Template?

Teachers may offer an elementary book review template to younger students, and usually, it consists of a number of different questions the student may answer in order to complete the book critique. Teachers do this because younger children have not had the chance to develop analytical skills yet, so they need a few questions to answer about the book in order to give them a starting point.

If you are wondering how to get book reviews for your book, then consider offering it for free to students. Many book reviews and critiques are not done as part of a curriculum, many book reviews and critiques are set by teachers in order to help students learn how to review and critique books. That is how to get book reviews for your book if you are aiming for a younger audience.

If you are looking for good book reviews examples, or you are simply looking for a professional to write your book critique for you, then consider the PaperWritingPro Service. They offer custom written book reviews and book critiques that stand as good book reviews examples that you may use yourself, or that you may hand in and pretend you wrote. They are all custom wrote and original, so you need not worry about plagiarism.

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