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Writing a book review can be a blessing, and it can be a disaster. You may like a particular book extremely, but still make many mistakes in reviewing it. We, of course, can't oversee all the potential errors a student can make when dealing with this writing assignment, but here will cover ten most common mistakes to avoid.

Taking the Tone of a Professional Critic

You are writing a college or university book review, you are not a professional, highly esteemed Critic, and it is good to humble yourself and remember it. Your professor will be irritated if you don't do it. The fact that this book made it to your program means that it is worth something, so treat it with enough respect. Even if you address a professional writing service with your write my book review for me request, and it will surely be written by an expert, the tone still will be very moderate, calm, not a snob.

Repeating the Same Thoughts Numerous Times

You have some brilliant ideas, we get it. However, it is not good to repeat them again and again during the review. Even if something impressed you beyond belief it is better not to emphasize it more than twice in your text. You have read the whole book at least twice, you should have fresh ideas to put in your writing.

Retelling the Plot

When in high school, you had assignments which implied that you should retell the story the way you understood it. Your ability to remember and later retell what you have remembered in a concise way was checked. Writing a book review is entirely different. You don't have to explain plot lines, give many quotes, or elaborate on each important character before you actually get to the review part.  

Emotionally-Driven Uncalled for Arguments

Good books provoke emotions. It is good if you feel emotional while and after reading a book assigned in class, as it is often that students stay completely cold regarding things they need to read. However, you should be very careful not to make that book review of yours a blog post more suitable for Facebook discussion, not a class. It is accepted to express your sympathy to heroes in a correct manner, but you can't "hate," "love," "detest" heroes. You can, though, use phrases like "I suppose the author used these means to make readers sympathetic to this character."  

Excessive Length

When you just start writing, you feel like you will never be able to write that book review, that the needed number of pages is too much, and there is just nothing to say. However, soon you may notice that you've almost exhausted the allowed number of words and still didn't express yourself enough. Start editing. Don't hope that your professor will be impressed by two extra pages, he or she will just cross them away or won't accept your paper at all.

Too Many Extra References

You like to read, we got it. Still, it is not the best idea to put all the books you've written recently into your paper to boast and show off. Be humble, include only references and allusions which are truly relevant. You are also not supposed to include every book of the same author into comparison, that is too much.

Lack/Excessiveness of Originality

This one is good, and that one is bad, the narration is long, and the ending is sad. This is a short description of most of the reviews written by not enough diligent students. Such analysis is boring and predictable; you should do better than this.

Not Enough Criticism

Even if you like the book entirely, you should find something to criticize in a professional, well-thought-out way. Remember, criticism is not actually about saying mean or even harmful things. It is more about spotting some questionable places and elaborating on them.

Ignoring the Author or Focusing Only on Him/Her

Some students solely focus on the author; some overlook the author and only analyze the Plot. Both strategies will lead you to failure, as the book and its author are genuinely interconnected, but assessing this connection, you should not put the Plot and the artistic means behind.

Broken Logic

This mistake is inherent to texts written either in a hurry, or part by part with long pauses. For example, you received this assignment weeks ago, wrote third, later gave up and finished writing two hours before the submission, not even reading much what you have written before.


Writing a book review, don't neglect following rules for this task stated by your professor and in your handbook for this course. Step-by-step guides are truly useful in such situations.

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