How to write a hepful book review

Charles Fudgemuffin highlights the key point that all good reviewers are aware of.

"...slow acoustic piano rubbish. 5/5"
A helpful review.

In the music press, when someone writes a negative review which proves unpopular with fans of the band, the reviewer will often defend their review by claiming that a review is just one person's opinion.

On the face of it, this seems fair enough, but what all reviewers need to realise is that no-one actually cares whether the reviewer enjoyed the book, movie or album, etc. When I read a review, all I care about is 'will I enjoy this book?'.

To give an example, I remember a few years ago a favourite artist of mine released a new single which I hadn't yet heard, and I therefore asked my mate for his opinion on the song. His reply was something along the lines of, "It's that slow acoustic piano rubbish... You'll love it!"

It probably sounds as if he was being quite cheeky, but that wasn't his intention at all. He simply understood the concept of a good review. I wasn't interested in whether or not my mate enjoyed the song. I just wanted to know whether I'd enjoy it. And so my mate reviewed the song with that in mind and explained that it was that 'slow acoustic piano rubbish' which I happen to love.

A good book review will adopt the same approach and should realise that no-one cares specifically about the opinion of the reviewer. To reiterate once again, when I read a review all I care about is whether or not I will enjoy it.

I have to admit that as an author it's a brilliant feeling when someone gives you a five star review, and conversely a negative review is always disappointing, but if you take the emotion out of the equation then the best review is one which provides a balanced report and tells both sides of the story. The first review I ever received on Amazon was excellent in this respect, and recognised that my first ever book would appeal to some readers, but other readers wouldn't get the humour at all.

Finally, if any authors are reading this and you get a bad review, just remember that at the time of writing on amazon.co.uk, 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' has 41 one star reviews! Of course it also has 1,335 five star reviews, but the point I'm making is that readers are all different and even the most popular books of all time won't appeal to everyone. So although a negative review can be disappointing, you just have to remind yourself that variety is the spice of life and unfortunately that means no book will appeal to every reader.

Update: As a follow-up post, I also took a light-hearted look at the pitfalls to avoid when writing a book review:
How not to write a helpful book review