On Book Reviewing And Booktube

When I started reviewing books, I didn’t know doing book reviews was a thing. I am that kind of internet user who stays away from research and blocks out everything until and unless she needs to know.

So, I never knew about book reviewing. I had read some Indian books and foreign ones, and I was a blogger. Then, one day, I did a book review. And there I started. I started talking about books on this blog. Of course, now, it has spread to YouTube and I run a Booktube channel which definitely makes this blog baby jealous but what can I do?

Back to book reviewing, I never learned how to do it. I just talked about books. I loved it. My process?

My Book Reviewing Process

Well, the moment I finished a book, I would sit down to pen down my thoughts. They were deeply emotional reviews which were more like thought-sharing than actual reviews.

Then, people started reading them. I felt more responsible. I started developing a new process, my current process of reviewing books.

I started breaking it down – story, plot, characters and writing style. I would talk about them. To be honest, I talked about the latter three, mixed with the story. I never really knew the true difference between a story and plot, up until a few months back when I opted for a short course in learning how books are structured. I told you, I never learned to review books. I just started doing it and improvised.

I considered every comment I got on these reviews and tried to improve my book reviewing style. Things came and went. For example, the author profiles. It was a big dilemma for me whether to put them in the review or not. Does it matter? Well, my current opinion is, it does, at times.

It matters a lot when the book is a non-fiction. You need to know the identity of the author. However, with fiction books, it’s hard to decide. Sometimes, it does and sometimes, not so much.

Even now, I experiment with how I do my book reviews. It changes. Change is good.

My way of book reviewing is different than others – I don’t like the reviews which give away too much about the plot or conceal way too much. I don’t like the reviews which are mostly about how you felt and not about how the book was. I don’t like the reviews that seem biased. I try not to do all the things I don’t like in book reviews.

It has been a good journey, especially after I started my BookTube channel. I love doing this. I love capturing my thoughts about a book and save them, to revisit and to cherish them one more time.

What about you? Do you like to review books – maybe, not publicly but for personal use – somewhere in your diary or on your goodreads profile? Tell me in the comments.