Hi, everybody, welcome back. In today's lecture, you will be learning how to write a helpful book review. When you are choosing your book or short story, you went through and read book reviews about it. So I know that you guys already have a pretty good understanding of what a book review is supposed to look like. But I think the most important thing to remember about writing a book review is that you're not just writing a summary of what happened in the book, you are giving an evaluation of the author's writing and the plot and the characters and everything that you read. To help other readers determine whether or not they might like to read that same story.

There's a handout in the resources that you can print off and look through to help guide you through writing your book review. And here are some of the questions that I'd like for you to ask yourself before you start writing. What was your favorite part of the story? What was your least favorite part of the story? Did you find the characters believable? Or were they hard to see as real human beings?

Which character Did you like the most? And why? Which character? Did you like the least? Probably the antagonist, right? But it might have also just been another character that was a minor character in the story, or even a major one.

And if you didn't care for them, Why Why didn't you like that person? How was the pace of the story? Did it move along nicely? Or did it slow down at times and make you feel a little bit bored, most authors try to write a quickly paced story that keeps moving and keeps the reader's attention. Some more literary stories have a little bit slower pace because they have a lot of descriptive details. And that's okay, if you were reading more of a literary piece, it was a little slower, but hopefully it still kept moving enough that you weren't getting bored or wanting to fall asleep or anything like that.

So That's the difference between like commercial fiction and literary work is usually commercial fiction moves more quickly. Was the writing smooth and descriptive. Could you really imagine yourself in the setting and really picture the characters in your mind? Because the author did a good job describing them? Hopefully that was the case. But if not, that might be something that you'd like to include in your review.

How did you feel at the end of the story? Were you satisfied that everything was wrapped up where you left wondering? A few things and maybe feeling like the author could have tied things up more neatly? Or was it a cliffhanger? I know that's something that people in reviews usually say they do not appreciate. Unless it is a series and then they know the next book is coming out soon.

One of the worst things that happens is when you read a book in a series and you realize that you have to wait like six months until the next book comes out and you're just left hanging, wondering what happens. And I know that may have happened to some of you even if you're watching like a television series. So it happens with books as well. But if it was a cliffhanger and it's part of a series, then you can be a little more forgiving to the author for leaving you hanging because you know that they're going to have the next sequel out hopefully soon. And then ask yourself what kind of reader would enjoy this story is that a person who would want to be feeling a certain type of emotion or someone who's looking for an adventure? Someone who just wants to relax at the beach with a fun summer read?

Or someone that really enjoys complex science fiction or fantasy? So be thinking about what type of reader might like your story. And then lastly, think about whether or not you truly would like to recommend this story to other readers and why don't just say this is good, everybody should read it. Try to go into detail and explain specific Things that you liked about it or things that you'd like to see changed. So next let's look at the structure for a typical book review for a work of fiction. In the first paragraph you want to in your first sentence, try to hook the reader say a statement about whether or not you like the book and something that would be catching their attention.

Like, if you like to read a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat and make you wonder what's going to happen next. Then this is the book for you something like that. Or maybe something like if you're looking to read an epic story about love that will make you laugh and cry. This is the book for you. And in that first paragraph also mentioned something about the writers style and writing ability, maybe something about how their writing is very smooth and detailed and captivating and how they have a gift for making you feel better. certain emotions and just give them a recommendation like, go buy this book today you're going to love it or something like or read this book, not necessarily buy this book today you're going to love it, or something like that, or maybe even give a give some kind of praise to the author saying such and such is an incredible author, and I can't wait to read their next book, something like that.

So in the last paragraph, which type of reader would enjoy the story and then whether or not you recommend it and why. So again, this is just a basic format you can use if you want some structure, some help with structuring your review. You could write it using a different format if you'd like. That's just something I put together. That's kind of what the typical book review looks like for a fiction book. The nonfiction books have a little bit different style and if you end up taking the nonfiction course we'll get into that.

But this was a good style for fiction. For your activity. What you will do write a review for your novel or short story and post it on Amazon. Or if you joined Goodreads, you could post it on Amazon and Goodreads. And please let me know if you have your review posted in the q&a so that I can go check it out. And I would love to see what you guys thought about your books and whether or not you'd recommend those authors because hey, I might read one of those books that you guys are recommending some please go ahead and share that.

And Congratulations on finishing your book and taking all the steps that we took in this course you should feel really proud of yourself. Hopefully this has really helped you as a reader. And you feel more confident in what you're reading and being able to choose a good book, remember what you read and recommend it to others. Thank you so much for working your way through all of the activities and reading your novel or short story and challenging yourself setting goals for yourself to become a Better reader. And I hope that you are going to now that you finish this story or novel, I hope that you're going to go right back out there and get another one and start reading another story right away and that you're excited about reading. And you really want to keep going with this because it really will open your mind to so many things that are out there in great literature that are going to entertain you and challenge you.

And just really make you learn a lot of things give you wisdom that you can't find any anywhere from just your own experiences in life, but that you can find from studying literature and learning what happened to characters and stories. And I really hope that you're going to embrace that and make it a part of your life for the rest of your life. Thanks so much guys for working hard and doing a great job and good luck with your reading. Congratulations.