13 Fresh Review Formats for Your Book Blog

Reviews are an important part of any book blog. In the past we’ve shared advice on writing reviews, writing critical reviews, and writing audiobook reviews—now we want to look at creative ways to showcase those reviews on your blog so that you can strike the perfect balance of keeping your content fresh and engaging while continuing to share your insights on what you’re reading. Don’t forget to include the link to your review (on your blog) when you submit your Feedback in NetGalley!

Go classic
You can’t go wrong with a traditional review template. For this kind of post, you’ll be speaking at length about a single book. This format is best served for books that you have a lot of thoughts on that you’d like to explore such as the books’ themes, writing style, character development, and more.

 

Bite-sized reviews
Bite-sized reviews are an excellent way to concisely sum up your thoughts about a book in only a few sentences. This format allows you to share multiple reviews in a single blog post, and is easy to share on platforms like X and Instagram. Pro tip: Your bite-sized review can be sentences pulled directly from your NetGalley review!

 

Last five NetGalley approvals
If you’re looking to accomplish #NetGalleyGoals this year, this is a surefire way to do it.  For this post, read and review the last five books you’ve been approved for on NetGalley. You’ll grow your Feedback Ratio, tackle your NetGalley Shelf, and serve up blog content all at once with this format!

 

Thematic connection
Connecting books by a theme in a review roundup is a fun angle for your readers, and offers you a lot of freedom in which books you select. For example, you could pick a subgenre, a trope, or character archetype to focus on. Keeping it general opens you up to a lot of options, but going hyperspecific (such as historical fiction set during World War II with bookseller or librarian protagonists) provides a great hook!

 

Author spotlight
For this post, review two or more books by the same author! By pairing a new release with an older work (or even their debut) you can see the ways an author has changed and spot trademarks of their style. Looking at an author’s evolution can also give you more insight into discussing their craft in their latest work.

 

Frontlist backlist mashup
If your monthly TBR pile is a mix of upcoming new releases on NetGalley and backlist titles, consider pairing them together in review posts! You can compare books from the same genre, that use the same tropes, or even by the same author. For example, reviewing a new mystery novel alongside a backlist title, such as In the Woods by Tana French, allows you to review both books and also think about ways the genre has changed or evolved over the last few years.

 

Adaptation
Pair your latest read with its movie or tv adaptation for a cinematic twist on the typical review post! Start with a review of the book, a short review of its adaptation, and then include a section comparing the two and how you felt the adaptation did at capturing the story and characters.

 

Expectation vs reality
Before you start a book, jot down your expectations based on the cover, summary, and what you’ve heard. When you’ve finished, compare your experience to what you originally thought. This offers you a chance to review a book as well as take a closer look at your expectations as a reader and how they impact your reading experiences.

 

Let a friend pick your books
Feeling like you’re in a reading rut? Invite a friend to pick your next TBR to add some excitement to your reading! They might pick their favorite books for you to read, or you can have them pick books from your NetGalley Shelf. You could even make the blog post a collaboration rounding up why they picked each book and your reviews on them.

 

Monthly wrap-up
A monthly wrap-up offers the chance to give an overview of what you read in any given month. Slower reading months offer you more space to discuss each book, and for months where you read a massive stack of books, you can use the bite-size review format to keep each review short and snappy.

 

Sequels and series
Raise your hand if your TBR pile is largely made up of series you intended to finish but haven’t gotten around to yet. For this review format, you can either finish reading all of the books in one particular series or use the post to round up reviews of the next book in multiple series!

 

Narrator spotlight
Have you ever found an audiobook narrator that you love and can’t get enough of? Create a blog post where you review multiple audiobooks all narrated by the same voice actor. This could be especially exciting with a narrator who covers different genres, to give you a taste of how they approach each one.

 

Star rating
Share your rave reviews all together with review roundups featuring your last four or five-star reads! You’ll get to showcase some of your new favorite reads, and your followers will certainly find books to add to their own TBRs.

 

Find more NetGalley and social media tips here!

LIVING A BOOKISH LIFESTYLE

Kelly Gallucci

Kelly Gallucci is the Executive Editor of We Are Bookish, where she oversees the editorial content, offers book recommendations, and interviews authors and NetGalley members. When she's not working, Kelly can be found color coordinating her bookshelves, eating Chipotle, and watching way too many baking shows.

6 Comments
  1. This is such a fun post! Thank you for all the ideas about how to approach writing a review. I’m an avid reader but an infrequent reviewer. I think having a focus to how I might approach doing a review or series of reviews could help keep me on track and be a fun challenge.

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