Several years back, I began reviewing every book I read. It was triggered by a bouquet of desires: to contribute the digital landscape, to document a burgeoning compulsion to read, and to enforce deeper critical thinking. As I've progressed in this commitment, patterns emerged in how I thought about, compared, and rated my books. So I sought a way to utilize these patterns in order to add consistency to my reviews.
After much brainstorming, I decided on the following format. Below I'll explain how it will apply to the full range of books I read. As with nearly every area in my life, I expect to iterate. When posted on Goodreads, my rating will be the average of the individual categories.
Top Line: A couple sentences on what this book is and any necessary context.
Composition (rated x/5): To rate composition, I consider how the elements of a book are created and comprised. It considers the overall design of the prose and how it's executed. It's about staying in sync with the writer and sensing whether the writing led me to the place the writer intended.
Depth (x/5): A successful book has to be a swimming pool in the ocean. I need to feel the boundaries of the content while sensing its connection to a much larger body. Non-fiction books should cause me to reflect on the tenets of my human existence and challenge my actions. Fiction books need to have characters with tangible complexity and exist a world that is much bigger than the story itself.
Engagement (x/5): This measures my emotional experience with the book. It considers the flow of a book, weighing the pace of the conflict for fiction books or how the ideas unfold for a non-fiction book. It means good story-telling with relatable characters, or principles which are practical. Ultimately, my score here is dependent on how hard it was to put it down and how much I anticipated the next time I could read it, or whether I was bored for sections of the book.
Impact (x/5): My final measure of a book is whether I was inspired to think differently about myself and the world around me. This is easier for a non-fiction book that is already based in a shared reality with the author as it should coax me to expand my perspective on this reality. But it's also the real magic of fiction where even in a setting that may be fantastically different than my own, I can expect to find pieces of human experience to reflect upon, with potential to be shaped by it in some way. A good book will take me on a journey and lead me to a new understanding I have not reached before.
Bottom Line: This is a place to gather any final thoughts and summarize the overall experience with the book.
I hope adding structure to my content will challenge me in new ways. Let me know what you think.
