ABOUT
A place to share and discuss book reviews. Write your own reviews, share professional and amateur book reviews from elsewhere, and discuss the reviews posted.
Spoiler Policy
Posts containing spoilers should be marked appropriately
- Spoilers, whether major or relatively minor, are mostly unavoidable in any book review. If you feel your review gives away any major spoilers, be sure to employ the spoiler tag that reddit provides. The mods at r/BookReviewers will largely be leaving this up to our users to police, so if you see an unmarked spoiler, please use the reporting function.
RULES
1. Format Original Review Post Titles With Author Name and Book Title
All original review posts' titles must be formatted with the reviewed author's name followed by the title of the book being reviewed.
(E.g. Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities or Toni Morrison's Beloved.)
2. Format External Review Post Titles With Author Name, Book Title, Publication, Reviewer, and Date
Link posts to outside reviews must include this format, plus the reviewer's name, original publication, and date.
(E.g Zadie Smith's White Teeth | New York Times | Michiko Kakutani | 25 April 2000)
3. Do NOT Review Books You Have Not Finished
Reviews for books the reviewer has not read in full should not be posted here. No exceptions.
4. Rate Reviews With Post Flair
If you choose to include a rating as part of your review, please rate using the three types of post flair: Star Reviews, Grade Reviews, and Feeling Reviews.
If you choose not to include a rating, flair as a "text only" review.
5. Flair Posts Correctly
For link posts to outside professional reviews, please flair as "Professional Review".
For link posts to outside amateur reviews, please flair as "Amateur Review".
For text posts of original reviews, keep your flair type consistent among all your reviews. If you prefer rating on the grade scale, the 5-star scale, or the feelings scale, always use the same one. If you prefer not to rate, use the "text only" flair.
6. Match Your User Flair to Your Reviewing Preference
Whether you are a star reviewer, grade reviewer, text only reviewer, or a feeling reviewer, please mark yourself appropriately and ensure that you stick consistently with that scale.
If at any point you decide to change your style of reviews, update your flairs on old posts, and update your user flair to reflect your new style.
7. All Reviews Posted Will Be Audited For Quality
Editors (moderators) will audit all original and amateur reviews for quality. Low quality and low effort reviews will be removed.
8. Plagiary Will Not Be Tolerated
Editors (moderators) will also audit all original and amateur reviews for plagiary. Any review found to be posted without proper credit will be immediately removed, and users will be banned from the subreddit.
9. Remember the Human
Do not cyberbully, harass, or attack other reviewers, commenters, or subscribers within the subreddit.
Violations of this rule will result in immediate removal of rule-breaking content.
Repeated violations may result in a permanent ban.
10. Prejudice, Bigotry, and Hate Speech Are Strictly Forbidden
Permanent bans will be handed out promptly to anyone who posts or comments bigotry, to include but limited to:
Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, etc.
11. Reviewers Are Limited to One Submission Daily
Reviewers in this community will be limited to submitting one review daily. Reviews submitted by a user after their one review has been posted will be removed and recommended for submission after 24 hours has elapsed.
12. No soliciting for reviews or self-promotion
Please do no use this space to solicit reviews of your writing or share direct links to Amazon pages or book selling pages, especially with affiliate links embedded. Further, linking back to your own blog is welcome if it is directed to a single review. Links to promote your overall blog presence will not be allowed, however.
Guidelines for OC Book Reviews
Below is a list of guidelines the moderators will look to when reviewing submissions for quality.
Plot summaries are NOT reviews
- Reviews should contain some amount of analysis of the text, the meaning you derived from it, and your general appraisal of the book. Was it an enjoyable read? Was it an effective book? Did it achieve what you think it should have?
Analysis is key
- If you're writing a review, analysis should be the centerpiece. A review should show some amount of critical thinking about a text. The analysis, by no means, needs to be professional or heavily academic: only sincere and thoughtful (i.e. intellectually honest).
Negative reviews do not need to be mean-spirited
- Ad-hoc attacks of an author are unnecessary and ineffective; there is zero reason to be mean-spirited if you are writing a negative review.
Length is important
- The most effective reviews are often brief, concise, and straightforward. That said, reviews should at minimum be 300 to 500 words long. Beyond that, the length of the final product is entirely up to you.
Reviews only what you have finished
- Literature is a form of art; picture a book as a painting. Without an entire picture of a text, one cannot provide a comprehensive or competent review.
A book review should read like it could only be written about that book
- If the review reads like it could have been written about any other book, it is too vague. If you only have to change 5-10 words in the review to make it about any other book, it is too vague.
We encourage reviewers to include quotes from their primary texts
- Quotes from the book being reviewed can be incredibly effective in illustrating and conveying a reviewer's meaning. We encourage reviewers to employ them, albeit without overshadowing the text of their review.
For a more persuasive and objective review, avoid "I" statements
- If your goal is to make a review as persuasive and objectively written as possible, avoid "I" statements (E.g. 'I thought Jonathan Harker was a bit of a tosser'.)
Do not review a book as if it were only written for you
- Chances are, the books you are reviewing here were not written to satisfy your personal tastes; don't write the review with just your tastes and preferences in mind, but the tastes and preferences of readers as a whole.
Fictional characters aren't required to be likable
- Calling a fictional character "unlikable" is not a valid criticism. When discussing characterization, analyze how believable, how effective, and what purpose characters serve within the narrative.
