Book Blogging Tips: How To Write Reviews For Your Book Blog & Other Post Ideas

Another book blogging advice post that hopefully will prove useful to some of you! I know when I started out blogging, and even now sometimes, I found the “how to write a book review” posts to be very helpful because let’s face it: we all get writer’s block every now and then! This post will give you some ideas as to what you can include in your book reviews as well as give you some other post ideas for your book blog.

Remember: this post is just advice and tips and should in no way be taken as what you NEED to do with your book reviews or posts.

Try and keep your reviews spoiler free, no one likes to be spoiled! Most people read reviews to see if they want to give a book a try and if the plot is spoiled in the review, they may not bother with it after that. If you want to include spoilers then please be sure to tag a warning in your post somewhere so no one is accidentally spoiled.

This should go without saying but I’d like to say it anyways: please always be respectful in your review whether you loved the book or hated it. Being disrespectful and trashing a book or author is a turn off to readers and you should remember how hard the author worked on the book in the first place. I’m not saying sugarcoat your opinions on a book or lie about them, just be respectful.

Always be honest about your opinion on a book! That’s what your readers want after all, your honest opinion which they will come to trust. If you didn’t like a book, say so, and if you loved a book tell us why! Don’t ever be worried about writing a negative review either, your readers will still want to know why you didn’t enjoy a book.

I know I said you didn’t NEED to necessarily follow anything in this post if you don’t want to (it’s your blog after all!), but including the following things is helpful for your readers!

1. Book Title
2. Book Series & Number in the Series (If Applicable)
3. Author
4. Number of Pages
5. Publication Date
6. Publisher
7. Picture of the Book Cover
8. Your Rating of the Book

I personally like to include the book’s synopsis but since most people like to summarize it in the review itself this isn’t really necessary. I’m kind of lazy so I don’t like summarizing the book sometimes!

I also like to have all of this information on a blog graphic as shown below just because it’s a bit easier and looks nice too! I usually make these graphics on Canva, in case you’d like to give it a try.

Now down to business! Here’s a list of things to help get those thoughts flowing for your review!

The Plot

1. Was there a ton of action?
2. Any good plot twists that you didn’t/did see coming?
3. Was the story predictable?
4. Did the story make sense and flow well?
5. Was there anything you felt was too convenient?
6. Was the ending too abrupt or rushed?
7. What did you think of the world building? Was it lacking or well developed?
8. What did you think of the writing? Was it bland and boring or pretty and lyrical?
9. Was the setting interesting?
10. Was the pacing too fast or too slow for you?
11. Were there multiple POVs? What did you think of them?
12. What did you think of the dialogue? Did it flow well or feel really choppy and forced?

The Characters

1. Were the characters flat or complex?
2. Did they develop throughout the story or stay the same?
3. Were they too perfect or did they have their flaws?
4. Did they make awful decisions throughout the story or smart ones?
5. Was there a villain, if so, what did you think of them?
6. Any side characters? Thoughts on them?
7. Did the characters have a lot of personality?
8. Any favorite characters?
9. Positive family or friend relationships shown? If so, what did you think of them?

The Romance

1. First of all, was there any romance?
2. Did you find that it was too focused on/overshadowed the plot?
3. Any tropes? Insta-love, love triangles, forbidden romance, enemies to lovers?
4. If there were tropes, how did you feel about them?
5. Was it a slow burn romance?

Other

1. Did you find that the synopsis was misleading or contained spoilers?
2. Thoughts on the cover, beautiful or not so much?
3. Were there any quotes that you liked? (If so, share some in your review!)
4. Were the chapters short or long?
5. Did you feel that the book overall was too long, too short, or just right?
6. Would you recommend this book to people? Why?

 

Some other things you may want to keep in mind are trigger warnings, these aren’t required but I find that including them can be helpful to not only myself but other readers as well. It’s a very considerate thing to include, I feel. I usually include the trigger warnings at the beginning of the review and may explain them in the review or I may not, it depends on if I have a lot to say about them individually.

Trigger Warnings Can Include:

• Sexual Assault
• Abuse/Child Abuse
• Incest, Pedophilia, Molestation
• Animal Cruelty or Death
• Death or Child Death
• Self Harm or Suicide
• Fat shaming, eating disorders, or any kind of body hatred
• Violence
• Kidnapping or Abduction
• Miscarriages or Abortion
• Albeism (discrimination against people with disabilities mental or physical)
• Racism (discrimination against people of other races)
• Sexism and Misogyny (discrimination against gender)
• Transphobia and Homophobia (discrimination against transgender and homosexual people)

Another thing I personally like to include in my reviews are little mini bullet point lists of the things I liked and disliked about the book. I usually put this in at the end of the review as a sort of recap!

I also like to include links at the end of the review as well that I think readers will find useful. Examples of links to include: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Book Outlet, or Amazon. Pretty much anywhere someone can go to either get more information or purchase the book.

There are lots of other post ideas you can include on your book blog, even though it may not feel like it sometimes! I know I get into that blogging slump sometimes where I feel like I have no ideas, hopefully this can help you out!

Book Blogging Tips/Advice

Kind of like this post! If you have tips on any aspect of blogging then share them, there are tons of fellow book bloggers out there that I’m sure would appreciate the help. Your post can help with anything such as starting a blog, creating blog graphics, requesting ARCs, using sites such as Netgalley, or even how to get more blog traffic.

Discussion Posts

Discussions are always fun posts since it gives you a chance to share your opinion about certain things as well as interact with other people! You can do a discussion post on pretty much everything like the good old fashioned ebooks versus physical books or even book hype. You can do a discussion on anything currently rocking the book blogging world as well, I’ve seen discussions on author/blogger relationships and even ARC abuse (i.e. selling them illegally). Whatever you want to discuss, go for it!

Lists

Lists are by far my favorite type of blog posts, I just love lists in general so that may be why! Kind of like with discussion posts you can do a list on WHATEVER you can think of! Here are a few ideas:

• Book Recommendations
• Books on Your TBR (Longest, Shortest, 5 Star Predictions)
• Favorite Book Settings or Charaters

Memes

Memes are super, duper fun to do and very simple since the idea is supplied for you most of the time! These are usually a weekly list you do up that follows whatever theme the meme host came up with. My only warning with memes is don’t get to wild with them, as fun as they are you should try and include your own ideas on your blog too. Plus publishers don’t like to see a blog filled with only memes if you’re looking to request ARCs ( I have an entire post dedicated to that).

Here are some fun memes to try:

• Top Ten Tuesday
• Top 5 Wednesday
• Waiting on Wednesday
• Hype or Like Friday

Book Tags

A lot like the meme these are super fun ways to discuss books and usually focus around a certain theme or type of questions. Once again I’ll say don’t get too wild with the book tags, do a couple every now and then but don’t do them every day!

Examples of Book Tags:

• Unpopular Opinions Book Tag
• The TBR Book Tag
• Reader Problems Book Tag
• The Ruler of Books Tag
• The Sims Book Tag

That wraps everything up then and hopefully you found this helpful! Please let me know if you’d like to see any other tips posts or what you would like to see. Let me know what you thought or if you have any other questions in the comments.

Other Book Blogging Tips Posts:

• How To Start A Book Blog: Steps, Advice, and Tips All In One!
• Not All Fun and Games: The Pressures of Book Blogging
• How To Request (And Hopefully Receive) Physical ARCs

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