#BookBloggerHop: Do you write long or short reviews?

Posted on by BonnieReadsAndWrites

The Book Blogger Hop was originally created by Jennifer @ Crazy-For-Books in March 2010 and ended on December 31, 2012. With Jennifer’s permission, Billy @ Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer relaunched the hop on February 15, 2013. Each week the hop will start on a Friday and end the following Thursday. There will be a weekly prompt featuring a book-related question. The hop’s purpose is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, befriend other bloggers, and receive new followers to their own blog.

My review writing changed somewhat in late 2019 or early 2020. Back then I was only reviewing on Goodreads and Amazon, but I joined the Historical Novel Society and contacted them about doing reviews for their magazine. They looked at some of my Goodreads reviews and accepted me, but it was then that I learned that print magazines only have so much space, and I would have to limit all of my reviews to 300 words, and some of them to 200 or 250. After a couple of years of doing that, I almost always write in the style they require, which is a short synopsis of the book followed by an honest and interesting review. The whole finished product can be no more than 300 words. I’m quite comfortable with that style now. So I would say my reviews are on the shorter side compared with some other bloggers out there.

Here is a link to all the reviews I’ve done for the Historical Novel Society. I haven’t counted, but I might be close to 100 now.

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Published by BonnieReadsAndWrites

I love to read and write book reviews in my free time. I review advance review copies of books on Netgalley for various publishers. I am also a reviewer for Historical Novels Review Magazine, the magazine of the Historical Novel Society. I review books from publishers of all size, large to small. I have a special place in my heart for indie authors. I will sometimes post a little writing that I might dabble in occasionally. I also am lucky enough to live in the Smoky Mountains, so I'll be sharing photos of the beauty around me from time to time.

21 thoughts on “#BookBloggerHop: Do you write long or short reviews?”

  6. I write fairly short reviews as I myself won’t read a long review. Folks are busy and don’t have time to read long reviews. I think it’s best to write enough to encourage others to read the book (or not). There is no point in writing a summary of the book, they can read the blurb themselves. I took a course on writing reviews and we were encouraged to write a three or four-sentence review in a concise manner.

    1. I’ve almost always written a small summary. Sometimes the blurb doesn’t emphasize what I want it to, and I have to do a short summary for the reviews I do for HNS. Sometimes if I post the full blurb from Amazon on my blog, I won’t do the summary, but sometimes I do it anyway.

  7. Very interesting about the evolution of your reviews, Bonnie. I used to write what I thought were reviews, but they were basically just a synopsis of the story. Now, my reviews include a brief synopsis, then my thoughts. They are not too long, about 2 decent paragraphs. I tend to skim reviews if they are too long.

  10. I would always have said long reviews, though the term “long” is somewhat subjective. For arcs, I try to write at least 3 or 4 paragraphs. However recently I have been struggling to write more than 3 or 4 sentences for some books.

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