How Do You Review Books?

I’m here with a discussion type post with a special guest. I am here with Heather from The Frozen Book Blog to answer a few questions on how we review books.

Reviewing books is something us book bloggers can do but have you ever wondering on how we actually do it? I’ve been seeing a lot of different ways people do it and have then created three little questions I asked myself and Heather before getting this blog post written out. So here are our answers: 

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When reading a review book, do you make notes on certain aspects while you are going through the book?

H: Yes, I do…kind of. I just write down my thoughts on the book as they are happening. You know, basically fangirling. 😛 And then I write my reviews by using my notes and try to figure out what my general feelings on specific categories were, like the writing style, characters, plot etc., based on what I wrote.

A: Yes I do. It’s quite hard to do, especially when a book is just TOO DAMN GOOD to put down. But it’s the perfect way to fangirl about certain scene or characters when you write it down. I just have to remember that no one will see the notes apart from myself, so obviously I just fangirl the hell out of it. 

Do you use a certain notebook to make notes on a book you want to review?

H: Yes! I love my review notebook I’m using this year. It’s so pretty! It has like a vintage-looking Paris theme with gold leaf pages! (insert heart eyes here LOL)
Inside I made a title page that says “2018 Reviews” and a “master list” of books I want to get to this year with the title, author, and a place to put my rating. Then on the rest of the pages I make sections for each book, making sure I have enough space for the page of the book that has a place to write the title, when I started and finished reading it, a space to write down any quotes I like, and about 6-8 pages for my general notes, depending on the length of the book and how many I think I’ll need. 

I usually stop to write down my thoughts as I’m reading if I have it with me, but if I don’t feel like actually writing it down or if there is a lot going on in the book and I don’t want to stop reading for long, I’ll quickly type up a note in my phone and then transfer it later. 🙂

A: I actually just have one notebook for all of my blogging needs, i.e. notes on future blog posts and obviously review notes. But recently I have thought about having two separate books to just have purely on reviews so I can expand more deeply on books instead of giving myself 2-3 pages for each review I need to do. 

Do you use sticky tabs to highlight certain sections of the book so you can go through them once you are ready to review the book? 

H: No, I don’t use sticky tabs. But maybe I should. Then I wouldn’t have to stop to write down my notes while I’m actually reading. I’ve never actually thought of that before. XD

A: I don’t but I think it might make my reviews a bit better I think. Especially when finding amazing quotes from the books themselves. Maybe in the future, I will, but for the time I like my notebook aha. 

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Thank you to Heather, for taking part in this discussion post I thought of. If you would like to see the Q&A that is live on my blog, that I’ve done with Heather, make sure you click here to find it. 

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Till then readers!

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