Writing a Compelling Academic
BOOK REVIEW
Want to review an academic text and don’t know where to start? This is a common issue. Like many other skills necessary for navigating academic life, writing a compelling, readable, and approachable review of an academic text or material is rarely formally taught.
As an academic reviews editor, I have worked to identify and address common issues seen in reviews and develop some helpful strategies that make reviewing a more seamless and enjoyable process. My experience learning to identify and solve these issues is in large part due to the mentorship I received from the previous Gastronomica reviews editor, Dr. Jaclyn Rohel, and our team's managing editor, Jessica Carbone.
Reading versus Reviewing
Like many graduate students and junior academics, I first learned to approach academic texts as a critical reader. In graduate courses or when writing research papers, I tried to locate gaps in literature or framework or draw attention to inconsistencies of concepts applied. I looked for elements of the book that might be helpful for my own research projects. I also located how the book fits in with larger scholarly debates, primarily where the book departs from or builds on such debates.
However, I found that what works in a graduate seminar does not always work for book reviewing. When reading a text in a seminar or for a personal research project, I would try to develop both an understanding of the book’s main concepts and how this reading would benefit me—Do I agree or disagree with the book’s premises and arguments? What is usable about this text?
For book reviewing, the goal is a bit different. Instead, a reviewer asks: How is this book beneficial to others? Who might those others be? What is usable about this text for the field at large? What merit does the book bring on its own terms?
While selecting a text to review is one that (hopefully) benefits you as a researcher, the review itself should focus on drawing other potential readers to the book.
Books as Partial Texts
Ultimately as a reviewer, I have to accept the book as is. The author cannot add more. I cannot suggest they should have done so, as there are likely good reasons why their approach might differ from what mine would have been. Likewise, I am not able to offer constructive feedback. This text is not a work in progress. Instead, my task as a reviewer is to identify what this book, as an always already partial text, can offer in its partialness, and what possibilities may arise for this project to be deepened and connected to by other scholars.
Evaluating
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to reviewing an academic book. Academic journal book review guidelines will request specific approaches from their reviewer. While academic reviewing is necessarily generalizable across a discipline like anthropology, some might request a more critical review, while others might encourage a more celebratory tone.
Regardless of these differences, a reviewer’s goal is evaluation, and learning to find your evaluative voice as a writer and reviewer is a skill to be cultivated like any other.
Evaluation often does the following:
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Identifies the overall goals of the text, and if the author achieved those goals;
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Synthesizes key moments, sites, methods, and materials engaged by the author;
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Identifies approach, discipline, or field and any sub-disciplinary framework(s);
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Identifies potential readers and audiences for whom this book will be helpful;
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Situates the book in a wider set of concerns (not just intellectual/academic) and potential contributions.
Compelling and readable reviews will do these and more. I’ve read pieces where the reviewer locates how reading a text transformed their thinking or shocked them on an emotional or intellectual level. The reviewer may also comment on the ways that the author used rhetorical strategies and narrative to build an effective argument. Some reviewers note ways that the book can be taught beyond degree- or year-specific recommendations, and might reference their experience teaching the book. Likewise, I’ve read reviews where the reviewer comments on something in their life and research that the book helped them shed light on or clarify for them. The evaluative voice does not have to remove the reviewer from view.
These strategies not only make reading a review more interesting, but they ultimately invite the reader into a relationship with the book itself, not just the reviewer’s critical take. Ultimately, a good review compels the reader to pick up the book!
Navigating a Critical or Negative Review
Sometimes, writing a critical or even negative review, such as locating gaps, silences, glaring errors, or problematic approaches, is absolutely needed. However, it’s helpful to question before diving in: Are you the right person to publish that critique, and on what basis? Why does the book necessitate a negative review? What relationship do you want to build with the potential author or their field more generally? Do you want to spend your energy on a critical or negative review?
If you feel comfortable with the answers to these questions, then pursue the review! It’s helpful to give the reviews editor a heads-up on the nature of the review. Ask if you can get more thoughts from other editors to see if this is a piece that can move forward in the journal and to request comments on how the review can be strengthened and supported further.
If you are not comfortable with the answers to some of these questions, do not feel like you have to compromise your reading of the text by writing a disingenuous or selective review. A quick email to the reviews editor explaining that you don’t feel like you can write a good review of the book is helpful, as it signals to the editor that there may be more exciting and field-defining books that are better suited to be reviewed in their journal. You can also offer to review another book for the press!
Locate Good Examples
The best way to learn how to review (other than by reviewing) is to identify strong examples, usually published by the journal to which you are submitting a review.
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If you don't know how to identify a strong review, ask the reviews editor! Usually, they have a list, or at the very least a recollection, of their most compelling reviews. Once you've identified these reviews, locate their "moves." Highlight what they have included, how they set up the review, the tone or style of the piece, and how they keep a reader interested and engaged. As a reviews editor for Gastronomica, I often point potential reviewers to the following pieces:
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Josée Johnston's review of Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It by Sarah Bowen, Joslyn Brenton, and Sinikka Elliott, published in Gastronomica (2019) volume 19, issue 3.
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Joseph P. Feldman's review of Gastropolitics and the Specter of Race: Stories of Capital, Culture, and Coloniality by María Elena García, published in Gastronomica (2023) volume 23, issue 1.
Other Recommendations
Try to avoid drawing too heavily on quotations from the text or citations from other materials. Focus on the big picture, using smaller details when necessary to support identifying the goals, strengths, and promises of the book.
Unless requested, avoid writing a summary of or listing each chapter of the book. Focus instead on synthesizing themes.
When recommending the book, remember to answer—how so and why? “This book will be helpful for first-year undergraduate students.” Why? “This text has compelling photographs.” How so? Support your evaluation with evidence.
Try to maintain a consistent tone throughout the review. Your evaluative tone might be reflective, journalistic, impartial, etc. Having a consistent tone assures your readers that every part of the review maintains the same weight and avoids confusing the reader.