the means book review

The Picky Bookworm

Books – Authors – Community

• Book Reviews

The Means by Amy Fusselman [Book Review]

Honestly, I read The Means in about a day and a half. It wasn’t really the subject matter, or the characters that kept me reading… it was the storytelling, and the obsessive behavior of the main character that I found endearing.

This post may contain affiliate links. I’ll receive a small commission through your purchase, and I’m so grateful!

Table of Contents

Shelly Means is a stay-at-home mom. Her husband makes pretty good money, and she’s been on the PTA for years. That is, until she disgraces herself with the PTA, and her husband loses a lucrative voice-acting job.

Shelly decides that the one thing she wants in life, the one thing that will give her life meaning and contentment, is a beach house in the Hamptons. She sets her sights on having her house, despite lack of money, lack of planning, and especially lack of understanding from the homeowner’s association.

The Means is a satirical look at what it means to be rich and what it means to have everything you want.

Thank you to Netgalley for a free copy of The Means by Amy Fusselman, in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My Thoughts

Ok, my review won’t be very long on this one, because it’s seriously way too hard not to give spoilers for The Means . I will say, however, that I really liked the book. It was such a funny story. Shelly’s obsession with getting her beach house, and the lengths she goes to in order to get it, are pretty insane. Funny, but insane.

Even though her husband struggles to provide for them, Shelly is so determined to elevate their status through a “house in the hamptons” that she ignores almost everything he says. She hires a realtor/architect who convinces her to use storage crates (you know, those big metal pods on the barges?). While she thinks it a great idea, the history of the containers means way too much to her. If they didn’t come from a fancy location, and hold something really interesting, she doesn’t want to use them to create her dream house.

Did you Enjoy this Review? Share on Twitter!

Recommendation

Seriously, you should read The Means . One, it’s funny. Two, it will honestly make you feel better about your own life. I struggle to market my business some days, and I struggle to write blog posts on time most days, but at least I’m not struggling to build the perfect house on the beach made out of shipping containers.

The Means by Amy Fusselman is on Amazon!

Have you read The Means by Amy Fusselman? Do you think you will? I’d love to know your thoughts, so leave a comment below. Bloggers love comments, just like authors love reviews. They let the internet gods know more about us, so I’m incredibly grateful for every single one, and reply as often as I’m able.

If you liked this review, and want to support this blog and what I’m about, I’d love if you left a donation. I have a donate button in my sidebar, which will take you to my PayPal. There is no minimum, and no obligation, but I am incredibly grateful for your support. Whether you share a blog post, leave a comment, or donate, your support is is above and beyond, and I’m thankful for anything you’re able to do.

Until Next Time, Friends!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

 Yes, add me to your mailing list

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

• Member Login
• Library Patron Login
• Get a Free Issue of our Ezine! Claim

Book summary and reviews of The Means by Amy Fusselman

Summary | Reviews | More Information | More Books

by Amy Fusselman

• Critics' Consensus:
• Genre: Literary Fiction
• Publication Information
• Write a Review
• Buy This Book

About this book

Book summary.

The debut novel from "wholly original" ( Vogue ) memoirist Amy Fusselman, a tragicomic family saga that skewers contemporary issues of money, motherhood, and class through a well-to-do woman's quest to buy a Hamptons beach house.

Shelly Means, a wealthy stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Who would have guessed that Shelly, the product of frugal Midwesterners, or her husband George, an unrepentant thrift shopper, would ever be living among such swells? But Shelly believes it's possible. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons. But Shelly has a vision board, an architect, and a plan. But what should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly's new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that George's lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. But Shelly is dogged. She knows how to go into beast mode. But will it ever be enough to realize her beach house dreams? A novel of real estate, ambition, family, and money from "one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live" (Dave Eggers), The Means is also a fantastical, fast-moving and very funny exploration of class, wealth, and the value of work.

• "Beyond the Book" articles
• Free books to read and review (US only)
• Find books by time period, setting & theme
• Read-alike suggestions by book and author
• Book club discussions
• and much more!
• Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
• More about membership!

Media Reviews

Reader reviews.

"With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman's latest will appeal to fans of Marcy Dermansky....With its satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons, including homeowners associations, graft, and garbage and recycling practices, Maria Semple....We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "With Shelly, Fusselman creates a character determined to see her vision to completion without regard for impediments of any kind, and the supporting roles (like a therapist who's also a real estate broker and party planner) will leave readers laughing. Recommended to anyone who enjoys humorous fiction." - Library Journal "This charming novel bears the Fusselman touch that makes all of her books so brilliant: touching, uncanny, and deceptively simple observations that dismantle complex assumptions about the world." - Sarah Manguso, author of Very Cold People "Amy Fusselman's The Means is an absolute delight! Anyone who's ever wanted more than they had—so, all of us—will be unable to turn away from this wise, funny, page-turning story of relationships, motherhood, and real estate ambitions." - Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane "Location, location, location: that is the real estate chant. In Amy Fusselman's The Means those words are intermingled with laugh, laugh, laugh. Fusselman is a prescient observer chronicling one couple's desire to live near where the other half live. She deftly captures the absurdity of the everyday and the American quest for more. The Means is funny, playful and at times painfully accurate." - A.M. Homes, author of The Unfolding and May We Be Forgiven

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Author Information

Amy fusselman.

Amy Fusselman is the author of four nonfiction books: Idiophone; Savage Park: A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die; 8; and The Pharmacist's Mate . Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post , the New York Times , the Atlantic , McSweeney's , and many other outlets. She lives with her family in New York City where she teaches creative writing at New York University.

More Author Information

More Recommendations

Readers also browsed . . ..

• Liars by Sarah Manguso
• The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates
• Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler
• Bright Objects by Ruby Todd
• The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas
• There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
• Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski
• Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
• The Most by Jessica Anthony
• Henry Henry by Allen Bratton

more literary fiction...

BookBrowse Book Club

Members Recommend

Everything We Never Knew by Julianne Hough

A dazzling, heartwarming novel from Emmy winner Julianne Hough and Rule author Ellen Goodlett.

The Fertile Earth by Ruthvika Rao

A love story set against India's political turmoil, where two young people defy social barriers.

Solve this clue:

The A O M E

and be entered to win..

Win This Book

Follow the Stars Home by Diane C. McPhail

A reimagining of the intrepid woman who braved treacherous waters on the first steamboat voyage to conquer the Mississippi River.

Your guide to exceptional           books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info and giveaways by email.

Free Weekly Newsletters

Discover what's happening in the world of books: reviews, previews, interviews, giveaways, and more plus when you subscribe, we'll send you a free issue of our member's only ezine..

Spam Free : Your email is never shared with anyone; opt out any time.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Picture This

'the dictionary story' is a kids' book that defies definition.

Samantha Balaban

Have you ever read a children's book where the main character is… the book?

Dictionary has noticed that even though her pages contain all the words that exist, she doesn’t really tell a story like all the other books on the shelf do. So one day, Dictionary decides to change that and bring her contents — guts? pages? definitions? — to life.

A hungry alligator bursts out of the pages ready for a snack — and finds a donut several pages later. But Donut doesn’t particularly want to be eaten, so he rolls off further into the alphabet. Alligator gives chase and the story soon goes off the rails — they crash into Queen who slips on Soap. And that’s all before Tornado shows up! Definitions go flying, no one is in the right place. Can Dictionary put herself back together again?

"It's a book about chaos. Chaos and order. Fine line," says Oliver Jeffers who — along with Sam Winston — wrote and illustrated The Dictionary Story. The two previously worked together on 2016’s A Child of Books (where the main character is a child, not a book). They’ve been working on The Dictionary Story pretty much ever since.

"But not working on it full time, seven years total" clarifies Oliver Jeffers. “Maybe if you were to add it all up, I don't know. I don't even want to think about that.”

(Sam Winston likes to joke that they knocked this one out in a week but he’s very much kidding — this book took work ).

For example, how do you make a book into a character that the children and adults reading the book can have a relationship with? "It was a real challenge because we had to literally make a book," explains Sam Winston. Luckily, his partner Haein Song is a bookbinder . "We had her literally make us two physical copies, which we then photographed and drew on and aged and then distressed in different ways." While the prop dictionary starts out all nice and new, by the end of the book she’s looking very beat up. "But it’s told a pretty wild story," says Winston.

Haein Song also sent Jeffers the paper that she used to bind the dummy book. "She sent enough of that to me that I was able to do the paintings on the same paper. So it looked seamless," Jeffers explains. Then he scanned the sheets of paper with his illustrations on them. The end result is a combination of photography, painting, ink handwriting, and typography, for the dictionary definitions.

Author Interviews

In this 'alphabet,' 'o' is for helpful owl and 'c' is for escapist cup.

"It looks like a real dictionary," says Jeffers. "But if you pay close attention, you'll see that all of the definitions have been rewritten." Like:

zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/ Zero is a word that means nothing . Nothing is a word that means nothing . Even though zero is a different word for nothing , both mean nothing . This definition has just told you nothing .

miracle /ˈ mɪr.ə.kl / Something that is amazing or magical for which there seems to be no scientific or common-sense explanation. Often associated with finding a parking space or getting homework done.

The definitions are not not true, but they are a little sideways.

The Dictionary Story Copyright © 2024 by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston hide caption

As the characters in the book — like puddle /ˈpʌd.əl/ A small pool of water. Puddles are often made by rain and they love to look up at the sky — come to life (and, in Puddle’s case, make friends with Ghost), they disrupt the text on the page. Puddle, who Cloud made by crying, soaks through the definition for "power." Alligator makes a hole in the "a"s as he escapes from inside the book. When Queen slips on Soap, some of the "s" words go tumbling off the page entirely. Letters end up out of order, or jumbled up in a pile. Definitions are in the wrong column. Sentences go all wonky.

"The idea behind the book is that you’ve got this very rigid structure," Sam Winston says, of a typical dictionary. "So where some of the humor and the playfulness and the fun comes from is that this is a book doing something it shouldn’t do." Essentially, coming alive.

And to circle back to why it took Winston and Jeffers so many years to make this book: there’s not much software designed to do this in the way they needed it to be done. "Imagine a column of type in a newspaper accidentally becoming a waterfall of type," says Winston. "Everything gets knocked off its grid and its axis and out that waterfall emerges, say, a crocodile."

From 'F-Bomb' To 'Photobomb,' How The Dictionary Keeps Up With English

You'll probably never see that in a newspaper — or a normal, boring dictionary — because that is not what publishing software typically does. "We have all of these typographic structures that are not meant to be bent and then to bend them is like cutting out thousands of single letters and then sticking them back on the page," Winston says.

There was a lot of back and forth to get to the finished product — a lot of half completing drawings and half writing definitions, and then a lot of destroying an illustration and or a definition and sending it back again.

"It's a dance," says Sam Winston. "But you know, we like it. There's a lot of trust in the room, so we have fun."

And, by the way, the story itself is fun. While a lot of thought and work and planning went into making it, at its heart The Dictionary Story is just a good old fashioned chase story with a lot of chaos and a heartwarming ending (can Dictionary put herself back together? Maybe with a little help from some friends!)

"I think what you're looking at when you see these books are two individuals who have a deep respect for storytelling and the physical objects of books. Having fun together and playing well together and sharing that with the world," agrees Oliver Jeffers. "It's a pure joy."

• children's books
• picture books

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

by Douglas Brunt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 2014

A Machiavellian political thriller that makes Heilemann and Halperin’s nonfiction Game Change look sedate by comparison.

A reluctant politician learns that codes of honor never survive the vicious process of electing an American president.

After flushing out the filth of Wall Street in his debut novel, Brunt ( Ghosts of Manhattan , 2012) turns his attention to the seductive world of American politics. Our entree into this scene comes via Samantha Davis, an attorney who has parlayed her skills and looks into a job as the White House correspondent for UBS, a major news network. In this fiction, the U.S. is under the leadership of President Barack Obama’s successor, a bizarre and domineering Democrat named Mitchell Mason. Meanwhile, a conservative attorney named Tom Pauley is tapped by GOP leadership to take a term as governor of North Carolina and ultimately agrees to take his shot at the big job. Brunt takes his time weaving together the stories of these three players, who ultimately prove to be far more connected than they might seem. The book’s primary crisis surfaces when Samantha comes under the sway of Conner Marks, a political fixer who shares with her the crumbs of a political scandal that could send Mason’s comfortable lead tumbling down if it surfaces. As this drama unfolds, Pauley—a fiscal and social conservative with middle-class American values—finds his own beliefs crumbling under the weight of obligatory ethical concessions as Election Day draws near. There are a few well-worn tropes (the first lady’s lesbian affair joins a host of torrid liaisons that always seem to inhabit this kind of closed ecosystem), but they don't derail the narrative tension. Overall, the novel presents a well-researched portrait of the incestuous relationships between the media and Beltway power players while avoiding the broad humor of Joe Klein’s Primary Colors . Tonally, it’s much closer to Beau Willimon’s play  Farragut North , which itself was memorably adapted to film as  The Ides of March .

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4767-7257-8

Page Count: 336

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: July 30, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014

LITERARY FICTION

Share your opinion of this book

More by Douglas Brunt

BOOK REVIEW

by Douglas Brunt

THINGS FALL APART

by Chinua Achebe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 23, 1958

This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.

Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.

Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger .

Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958

ISBN: 0385474547

Page Count: 207

Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky

Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958

More by Chinua Achebe

by Chinua Achebe

THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

More by Donna Tartt

by Donna Tartt

More About This Book

SEEN & HEARD

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

What High Achievers Need from Their Mentors

• Ruth Gotian
• Andy Lopata

Three ways to support people who have already accomplished a lot on their own.

Even the best-performing individuals need guidance to avoid complacency, continue growing, and reach new heights. High achievers need mentors who encourage them to embrace continuous learning and improvement with a growth mindset, develop a deeper understanding of their own emotions and those of others through emotional intelligence, and embrace a more intentional approach to broadening and strengthening their network.

Mentoring high achievers can be one of the most rewarding yet challenging aspects of leadership. These individuals have already achieved significant success , possess a wealth of experience, and have a steady track record of accomplishments. But even the best-performing individuals need guidance to avoid complacency, continue growing, and reach new heights. What do high achievers need to ensure they keep advancing? Mentorship catered to their precise needs.

• Ruth Gotian is the chief learning officer and associate professor of education in anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, and the author of The Success Factor and Financial Times Guide to Mentoring . She was named the #1 emerging management thinker by Thinkers50. You can access her free list of conversation starters and test your mentoring impact . RuthGotian
• Andy Lopata is the author and co-author of six books on networking and professional relationships, including The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring and the host of The Connected Leadership podcast .

Partner Center

Subscribe to Our Newsletter!

Search form

• Advanced Search

The Means: A Novel (Paperback)

• Description
• About the Author
• Reviews & Media

" The Means  is such a fast-paced, breezy comedic novel that you may find yourself surprised that Fusselman deftly and directly leads you to existential dilemmas and the absurdity of capitalism and striving for more." – The Millions

Shelly Means, a stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Surely, once she has her beach house, Shelly will at last feel at peace, in control, and content. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons, but Shelly is hell-bent on achieving this idea of paradise. 

But what should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly’s new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that her spouse George’s lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. When George wants to cancel the beach house, Shelly goes deeper down the rabbit hole of capitalism: it’s an investment property! It's a community! It’s a place for their children to thrive! And, for a woman whose labor has buoyed her family for years, this beach house might just be Shelly’s last stand.

The debut novel from “one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live” (Dave Eggers), The Means is a comedy about the suffering inherent in desire, capitalist delusion, and the value of unpaid labor.

"With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman's latest will appeal to fans of Marcy Dermansky....With its satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons, including homeowners associations, graft, and garbage and recycling practices, Maria Semple....We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history." –  Kirkus Reviews  (starred review)

Amy Fusselman is the author of four nonfiction books: Idiophone; Savage Park: A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die; 8 ; and The Pharmacist’s Mate . Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post , the New York Times , the Atlantic , McSweeney’s , and many other outlets. She lives with her family in New York City where she teaches creative writing at New York University. 

• Fiction / Literary
• Fiction / Humorous
• Fiction / Women
• Kobo eBook (September 5th, 2022): $12.99
• Hardcover (September 6th, 2022): $27.99
• More…

“A fast-paced and funny send up.” — People

"Delicious." — Zibby Owens, gma.com

“A plucky jaunt of a novel.” — New York Times Book Review

"With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman's latest will appeal to fans of Marcy Dermansky....With its satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons, including homeowners associations, graft, and garbage and recycling practices, Maria Semple....We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history." — Kirkus Reviews   (starred review)

"Just like its title, Amy Fusselman’s new novel is breezy-sharp, super-funny, and full of second meanings and surprising insights into The Means , and what it means to have and lack them. You don’t have to want to live in a shipping container in the Hamptons to understand Shelly Means and the yearnings that drive her hilarious desperate measures. But if you need a hint, Twix the socialist dog will yell it at you. (SPOILER, but look: Maria Semple and David Sedaris are brilliant, but have they written a talking dog as funny as Twix? The answer, my friends, is no. You can only find this, and so much else, in The Means )." — John Hodgman, author of Vacationland and Medallion Status

"This charming novel bears the Fusselman touch that makes all of her books so brilliant: touching, uncanny, and deceptively simple observations that dismantle complex assumptions about the world." — Sarah Manguso, author of  Very Cold People

“Amy Fusselman’s The Means is an absolute delight! Anyone who’s ever wanted more than they had—so, all of us—will be unable to turn away from this wise, funny, page-turning story of relationships, motherhood, and real estate ambitions.” — Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane

"Location, location, location: that is the real estate chant. In Amy Fusselman’s  The Means   those words are intermingled with laugh, laugh, laugh. Fusselman is a prescient observer chronicling one couple’s desire to live near where the other half live. She deftly captures the absurdity of the everyday and the American quest for more.  The Means  is funny, playful and at times painfully accurate." — A.M. Homes, author of The Unfolding and May We Be Forgiven

" The Means  is such a fast-paced, breezy comedic novel that you may find yourself surprised that Fusselman deftly and directly leads you to existential dilemmas and the absurdity of capitalism and striving for more." — The Millions

“ Fusselman ( Idiophone,  2018) delivers a well-paced story with gentle humor, compassion, and a sparkling, original look at the absurdities of everyday life in a world filled with inequities, financial and otherwise.”  — Booklist

"[An] entertaining debut. ... Recommended to anyone who enjoys humorous fiction." — Library Journal

"Damn funny. ... Fusselman presents a hilariously heightened reality." — Shelf Awareness

Book Reviews

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you write a book review, a report or essay that offers a critical perspective on a text. It offers a process and suggests some strategies for writing book reviews.

What is a review?

A review is a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon. Reviews can consider books, articles, entire genres or fields of literature, architecture, art, fashion, restaurants, policies, exhibitions, performances, and many other forms. This handout will focus on book reviews. For a similar assignment, see our handout on literature reviews .

Above all, a review makes an argument. The most important element of a review is that it is a commentary, not merely a summary. It allows you to enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with other audiences. You can offer agreement or disagreement and identify where you find the work exemplary or deficient in its knowledge, judgments, or organization. You should clearly state your opinion of the work in question, and that statement will probably resemble other types of academic writing, with a thesis statement, supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Typically, reviews are brief. In newspapers and academic journals, they rarely exceed 1000 words, although you may encounter lengthier assignments and extended commentaries. In either case, reviews need to be succinct. While they vary in tone, subject, and style, they share some common features:

• First, a review gives the reader a concise summary of the content. This includes a relevant description of the topic as well as its overall perspective, argument, or purpose.
• Second, and more importantly, a review offers a critical assessment of the content. This involves your reactions to the work under review: what strikes you as noteworthy, whether or not it was effective or persuasive, and how it enhanced your understanding of the issues at hand.
• Finally, in addition to analyzing the work, a review often suggests whether or not the audience would appreciate it.

Becoming an expert reviewer: three short examples

Reviewing can be a daunting task. Someone has asked for your opinion about something that you may feel unqualified to evaluate. Who are you to criticize Toni Morrison’s new book if you’ve never written a novel yourself, much less won a Nobel Prize? The point is that someone—a professor, a journal editor, peers in a study group—wants to know what you think about a particular work. You may not be (or feel like) an expert, but you need to pretend to be one for your particular audience. Nobody expects you to be the intellectual equal of the work’s creator, but your careful observations can provide you with the raw material to make reasoned judgments. Tactfully voicing agreement and disagreement, praise and criticism, is a valuable, challenging skill, and like many forms of writing, reviews require you to provide concrete evidence for your assertions.

Consider the following brief book review written for a history course on medieval Europe by a student who is fascinated with beer:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600, investigates how women used to brew and sell the majority of ale drunk in England. Historically, ale and beer (not milk, wine, or water) were important elements of the English diet. Ale brewing was low-skill and low status labor that was complimentary to women’s domestic responsibilities. In the early fifteenth century, brewers began to make ale with hops, and they called this new drink “beer.” This technique allowed brewers to produce their beverages at a lower cost and to sell it more easily, although women generally stopped brewing once the business became more profitable.

The student describes the subject of the book and provides an accurate summary of its contents. But the reader does not learn some key information expected from a review: the author’s argument, the student’s appraisal of the book and its argument, and whether or not the student would recommend the book. As a critical assessment, a book review should focus on opinions, not facts and details. Summary should be kept to a minimum, and specific details should serve to illustrate arguments.

Now consider a review of the same book written by a slightly more opinionated student:

Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 was a colossal disappointment. I wanted to know about the rituals surrounding drinking in medieval England: the songs, the games, the parties. Bennett provided none of that information. I liked how the book showed ale and beer brewing as an economic activity, but the reader gets lost in the details of prices and wages. I was more interested in the private lives of the women brewsters. The book was divided into eight long chapters, and I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to read it.

There’s no shortage of judgments in this review! But the student does not display a working knowledge of the book’s argument. The reader has a sense of what the student expected of the book, but no sense of what the author herself set out to prove. Although the student gives several reasons for the negative review, those examples do not clearly relate to each other as part of an overall evaluation—in other words, in support of a specific thesis. This review is indeed an assessment, but not a critical one.

Here is one final review of the same book:

One of feminism’s paradoxes—one that challenges many of its optimistic histories—is how patriarchy remains persistent over time. While Judith Bennett’s Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600 recognizes medieval women as historical actors through their ale brewing, it also shows that female agency had its limits with the advent of beer. I had assumed that those limits were religious and political, but Bennett shows how a “patriarchal equilibrium” shut women out of economic life as well. Her analysis of women’s wages in ale and beer production proves that a change in women’s work does not equate to a change in working women’s status. Contemporary feminists and historians alike should read Bennett’s book and think twice when they crack open their next brewsky.

This student’s review avoids the problems of the previous two examples. It combines balanced opinion and concrete example, a critical assessment based on an explicitly stated rationale, and a recommendation to a potential audience. The reader gets a sense of what the book’s author intended to demonstrate. Moreover, the student refers to an argument about feminist history in general that places the book in a specific genre and that reaches out to a general audience. The example of analyzing wages illustrates an argument, the analysis engages significant intellectual debates, and the reasons for the overall positive review are plainly visible. The review offers criteria, opinions, and support with which the reader can agree or disagree.

Developing an assessment: before you write

There is no definitive method to writing a review, although some critical thinking about the work at hand is necessary before you actually begin writing. Thus, writing a review is a two-step process: developing an argument about the work under consideration, and making that argument as you write an organized and well-supported draft. See our handout on argument .

What follows is a series of questions to focus your thinking as you dig into the work at hand. While the questions specifically consider book reviews, you can easily transpose them to an analysis of performances, exhibitions, and other review subjects. Don’t feel obligated to address each of the questions; some will be more relevant than others to the book in question.

• What is the thesis—or main argument—of the book? If the author wanted you to get one idea from the book, what would it be? How does it compare or contrast to the world you know? What has the book accomplished?
• What exactly is the subject or topic of the book? Does the author cover the subject adequately? Does the author cover all aspects of the subject in a balanced fashion? What is the approach to the subject (topical, analytical, chronological, descriptive)?
• How does the author support their argument? What evidence do they use to prove their point? Do you find that evidence convincing? Why or why not? Does any of the author’s information (or conclusions) conflict with other books you’ve read, courses you’ve taken or just previous assumptions you had of the subject?
• How does the author structure their argument? What are the parts that make up the whole? Does the argument make sense? Does it persuade you? Why or why not?
• How has this book helped you understand the subject? Would you recommend the book to your reader?

Beyond the internal workings of the book, you may also consider some information about the author and the circumstances of the text’s production:

• Who is the author? Nationality, political persuasion, training, intellectual interests, personal history, and historical context may provide crucial details about how a work takes shape. Does it matter, for example, that the biographer was the subject’s best friend? What difference would it make if the author participated in the events they write about?
• What is the book’s genre? Out of what field does it emerge? Does it conform to or depart from the conventions of its genre? These questions can provide a historical or literary standard on which to base your evaluations. If you are reviewing the first book ever written on the subject, it will be important for your readers to know. Keep in mind, though, that naming “firsts”—alongside naming “bests” and “onlys”—can be a risky business unless you’re absolutely certain.

Writing the review

Once you have made your observations and assessments of the work under review, carefully survey your notes and attempt to unify your impressions into a statement that will describe the purpose or thesis of your review. Check out our handout on thesis statements . Then, outline the arguments that support your thesis.

Your arguments should develop the thesis in a logical manner. That logic, unlike more standard academic writing, may initially emphasize the author’s argument while you develop your own in the course of the review. The relative emphasis depends on the nature of the review: if readers may be more interested in the work itself, you may want to make the work and the author more prominent; if you want the review to be about your perspective and opinions, then you may structure the review to privilege your observations over (but never separate from) those of the work under review. What follows is just one of many ways to organize a review.

Introduction

Since most reviews are brief, many writers begin with a catchy quip or anecdote that succinctly delivers their argument. But you can introduce your review differently depending on the argument and audience. The Writing Center’s handout on introductions can help you find an approach that works. In general, you should include:

• The name of the author and the book title and the main theme.
• Relevant details about who the author is and where they stand in the genre or field of inquiry. You could also link the title to the subject to show how the title explains the subject matter.
• The context of the book and/or your review. Placing your review in a framework that makes sense to your audience alerts readers to your “take” on the book. Perhaps you want to situate a book about the Cuban revolution in the context of Cold War rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union. Another reviewer might want to consider the book in the framework of Latin American social movements. Your choice of context informs your argument.
• The thesis of the book. If you are reviewing fiction, this may be difficult since novels, plays, and short stories rarely have explicit arguments. But identifying the book’s particular novelty, angle, or originality allows you to show what specific contribution the piece is trying to make.
• Your thesis about the book.

Summary of content

This should be brief, as analysis takes priority. In the course of making your assessment, you’ll hopefully be backing up your assertions with concrete evidence from the book, so some summary will be dispersed throughout other parts of the review.

The necessary amount of summary also depends on your audience. Graduate students, beware! If you are writing book reviews for colleagues—to prepare for comprehensive exams, for example—you may want to devote more attention to summarizing the book’s contents. If, on the other hand, your audience has already read the book—such as a class assignment on the same work—you may have more liberty to explore more subtle points and to emphasize your own argument. See our handout on summary for more tips.

Analysis and evaluation of the book

Your analysis and evaluation should be organized into paragraphs that deal with single aspects of your argument. This arrangement can be challenging when your purpose is to consider the book as a whole, but it can help you differentiate elements of your criticism and pair assertions with evidence more clearly. You do not necessarily need to work chronologically through the book as you discuss it. Given the argument you want to make, you can organize your paragraphs more usefully by themes, methods, or other elements of the book. If you find it useful to include comparisons to other books, keep them brief so that the book under review remains in the spotlight. Avoid excessive quotation and give a specific page reference in parentheses when you do quote. Remember that you can state many of the author’s points in your own words.

Sum up or restate your thesis or make the final judgment regarding the book. You should not introduce new evidence for your argument in the conclusion. You can, however, introduce new ideas that go beyond the book if they extend the logic of your own thesis. This paragraph needs to balance the book’s strengths and weaknesses in order to unify your evaluation. Did the body of your review have three negative paragraphs and one favorable one? What do they all add up to? The Writing Center’s handout on conclusions can help you make a final assessment.

Finally, a few general considerations:

• Review the book in front of you, not the book you wish the author had written. You can and should point out shortcomings or failures, but don’t criticize the book for not being something it was never intended to be.
• With any luck, the author of the book worked hard to find the right words to express her ideas. You should attempt to do the same. Precise language allows you to control the tone of your review.
• Never hesitate to challenge an assumption, approach, or argument. Be sure, however, to cite specific examples to back up your assertions carefully.
• Try to present a balanced argument about the value of the book for its audience. You’re entitled—and sometimes obligated—to voice strong agreement or disagreement. But keep in mind that a bad book takes as long to write as a good one, and every author deserves fair treatment. Harsh judgments are difficult to prove and can give readers the sense that you were unfair in your assessment.
• A great place to learn about book reviews is to look at examples. The New York Times Sunday Book Review and The New York Review of Books can show you how professional writers review books.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Drewry, John. 1974. Writing Book Reviews. Boston: Greenwood Press.

Hoge, James. 1987. Literary Reviewing. Charlottesville: University Virginia of Press.

Sova, Dawn, and Harry Teitelbaum. 2002. How to Write Book Reports , 4th ed. Lawrenceville, NY: Thomson/Arco.

Walford, A.J. 1986. Reviews and Reviewing: A Guide. Phoenix: Oryx Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

• To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

book review

Definition of book review

Word history.

1837, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Love words?

You must — there are over 200,000 words in our free online dictionary, but you are looking for one that’s only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.

Start your free trial today and get unlimited access to America's largest dictionary, with:

• More than 250,000 words that aren't in our free dictionary
• Expanded definitions, etymologies, and usage notes
• Advanced search features

Dictionary Entries Near book review

book reviewer

Cite this Entry

“Book review.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/book%20review. Accessed 31 Aug. 2024.

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

Plural and possessive names: a guide, 31 useful rhetorical devices, more commonly misspelled words, why does english have so many silent letters, your vs. you're: how to use them correctly, popular in wordplay, 8 words for lesser-known musical instruments, it's a scorcher words for the summer heat, 7 shakespearean insults to make life more interesting, birds say the darndest things, 10 words from taylor swift songs (merriam's version), games & quizzes.

Search the blog

Browse by topic, blog alerts, get notified about new posts.

SIGN UP FOR EXCLUSIVE UPDATES

Join my newsletter and be the first to hear about new releases, special giveaways, and other perks. plus get 3 free ebooks not free on any retailer.

Reviews: What Those Stars Mean to Authors (or When Should I Give 5 Stars)

As an author, I occasionally read the reviews of my books on Amazon, and sometimes this is a torturous event. I’m going to share with you what those stars mean to authors. But first let me give you a little background.

See the screen shots from my novel  Tell Me No Lies. I have a lot of great 4-star reviews, but every 4-star review has brought my overall rating down. I had to get 100 more reviews, with enough of them 5-stars to bring it back up to 4.5 overall.

One time a reviewer told me how much she’d enjoyed my book, and that she’d LOVE to review another one on her website, if I’d send her a copy. But she’d given me only 3 stars, which to me means a C book (boring, neutral, just okay—at least according to Amazon ratings). I’d have grounded my children for bringing home such a grade unless there was a very good reason for it. Part of her reasoning was that she’d expected the book to be a different genre, but that reasoning did nothing to help my book. I wasn’t interested in sending her another book. I’ll get enough three-star reviews without her help.

Reviews help sell or stall books

Many readers have no idea of the importance other readers give to reviews. But consider what you check for the next time you are looking for a book from an author you’ve never heard of before. I bet one of the things you do is to read the reviews to see if others liked the book or if there are any serious issues with it. So in a very real way, reviews help determine the wage the author earns. Reviews also decide whether or not certain companies will accept advertising for a book (some will not accept books rated below four stars), so your rating is important and it affects the author in serious ways.

Oh, and if you think an author will never see your review, think again. Authors are people, too, and I can’t tell you have many of my friends have been the recipient of really mean and ugly comments in thoughtless reviews.

What Those Stars Mean to Authors (and to Booksellers and Advertisers)

5 stars is an A, A-, or even a B+.  Great for authors. This means you enjoyed the book. It fulfilled the measure of its creation. Meaning that a romance isn’t judged as a general fiction, a teen story as an adult novel, or genre fiction as a literary novel. The 5-star novel was enjoyable, didn’t have any major plot holes, and the writing was good enough that you’d recommend it as a nice read. These 5-star reviews help balance the 1 and 2 star reviews from people who picked up the wrong genre or wanted sex in a clean book (or vice-versa). Or the picky reviewer who found one typo and therefore decided the entire book was poorly edited (if that was the case, EVERY published book would be junk). Five stars doesn’t mean the book has to be the best you’ve ever read, or even better than the last one you reviewed. It just has to be a good novel. This rating could also be given to a novel you would have rated only 4 stars but one feature (world-building, a character, or plot element) was so cool that you reward the author’s effort by giving them that extra star (and you can say this in the review).

4 stars is a B, B-, or even a C+ novel. Okay for authors, but if they have an overall rating more than 4 stars, keep in mind that you are taking down their rating. The 4-star rating is for novels that you liked but had at least one issue with. A plot hole that disturbed your reading enough that you didn’t enjoy the overall story. Maybe a few too many typos. Too much repetition. But you still found the story compelling enough to read in a short time and you enjoyed it. The novel doesn’t have to be the best one you’ve read in the genre, it just has to hold your attention. Think of yourself as a teacher giving a grade. Again, if you had been going to give the novel 3 stars, but something cools really stood out, give the author the benefit of the doubt—and the extra star.

3 stars is a C or a C-. So only average or NEUTRAL. You neither liked it or disliked it. This really is the kiss of death rating. The “okay” novel. If you give a novel this rating, there should be SERIOUS issues because, remember, many advertisers won’t accept novels with this overall rating. So the 3-star novel should be one you didn’t feel compelled to finish, or one whose overall plot didn’t quite make sense (and you feel wouldn’t make sense to others). This is a novel that you wouldn’t recommend unless it was the only thing someone had to read and they were stuck in an airport for two hours.

2 stars is a D or a D-. This is a novel that has at least three major negative issues and you feel these issues will prevent others from enjoying it at all. There are sex scenes in a supposedly clean novel, the character thinks about their college literature classes entirely far too much, or the character isn’t consistent. Maybe there are typos on every other page, or repeated use of wrong words. A 2-star rating could also be a book that you felt you really wanted to give one star to, but because it had some redeeming feature (great world-building, a character you really enjoyed), you gave it an extra star to encourage the author.

1 star means F. The author completely and utterly failed. You hated it totally and absolutely. That means there was no plot, it was riddled with grammar errors, and everything about it was boring, boring, boring. The author should throw the book away. Never give an author a one-star review unless you feel they really should give up writing and get a job at the local grocery instead.

Are my rating descriptions correct? You may not feel so when rating a book, but I bet you feel that way when reading reviews! And I assure you that’s what book advertisers and sellers see—and it’s certainly what those stars mean to authors (or most of them).

DOs and DON’Ts of Reviewing

1. If you have a real issue, mention that, but rate the overall book not that one thing.

2. Don’t give the book a terrible review because it’s not a genre you like. Just don’t review it. For instant, if you hate romance, people who love romance won’t be helped at all by your review.

3. If a review contains explicit scenes (or violent, or religious, or whatever), don’t give them a bad review because you hated that part UNLESS it goes against what was in the book description. So if a book description talks about fighting, don’t be shocked if there’s violence. If it mentions faith, don’t be shocked if the characters see things through a religious point-of-view. If it says romance, don’t be surprised if there is a love story. In these cases, your review will only make you sound like an idiot for not reading the description. And it’s not fair to authors.

4. Unless you are a reviewer and received the book in exchange for a review, don’t point out that you “bought” the book for free or for a discounted price. Sometimes publishers will offer a book for free or at a discount as a way to advertise the book. But it is unlikely the book will be free for long. If you say you got the book for free, people will feel cheated when they have to pay, and that’s simply not fair to the author or the publisher. You are reviewing the book not the price. However, if you were GIVEN the book from the author or publisher for the purpose of reviewing, then by all means you need to state that, but not everyone is chosen as a reviewer so this is different than saying you downloaded the book at a discount. I can’t tell you have many time reviewers will say something cruel like “This was junk, but fortunately I downloaded it for free so all I wasted was my time.”

5. Be kind with your wording. Authors are real people with real feelings. I’ve known promising authors who never published the third in a series because of cruel reviews. I loved the books and am still waiting to read that third novel.

6. If you were having a bad day when you read the book, consider not reviewing it at all.

7. If there is a certain subject you hate, and it happens to come up in the book, consider not reviewing it at all, or at least mention your bias in the review. Again rate the entire book, not just that scene.

8. Don’t tell everyone what happens in the book unless you put SPOILER ALERT. Even then, I wouldn’t do it. Readers won’t buy the book if you tell what happens. The author was careful in the blurb not to give it away, and you shouldn’t either. Remember, this is the author’s JOB. They get paid on how many books they sell. Careless reviews make it hard for authors to keep writing.

9. Do say what in particular you liked about the book. Use specifics without giving away plot. Tell us WHY you are rating the book this way.

10. Do give a 5-star review if the book fulfills its purpose. It doesn’t need to be earth-shattering or the best book you’ve ever read. It just needs to be a good, compelling novel, comparable with a novel of that same genre. You can be very glowing in your review if you feel it deserves more than 5 stars, but don’t knock a good novel down to four just to say it’s not as good as that brilliant novel. If we all read only brilliant novels, there would be only a few dozen books to read. Some people feel they’re not being critical enough if they rate something with 5 stars. I say baloney. If you enjoyed it and would lend the book to someone, give it a good rating.

11. Do click to report reviews you feel are abusive. These would include reviews that attack the author as a person or that attack a group of people, a religion, etc. Or anything that is not a review. Example: “I’m giving this one star because I couldn’t download it and Amazon wouldn’t give me a refund for the Kindle I don’t know how to use.” Yes, this is real review on one of my books.

12. Do comment on other reviews if you disagree or feel they are being too harsh. But do so KINDLY. Better yet, write your own review and rate the book higher to even out their negativity. But don’t hassle other reviewers, even the rude ones. Everyone has a right to their opinion.

13. Do comment on other reviews to thank the reviewer for good information they’ve included.

14. If your review is 3.5 stars, say that in your review, but always round up not down.

So now you know what those stars mean to authors. Please let me know if you think of any more Do’s and Don’ts and I’ll add them. Thanks for reading, and please feel free to share the link to this post on social media or with a friend.

Copyright 2017 Teyla Rachel Branton

Reuse notice: you are free to print for personal use or non-commercial use with friends, share this post link anywhere, quote a short excerpt with attribution and a link to this site, but you may not use this post in its entirety on your own page. Thank you for caring about copyright.

53 Responses to “Reviews: What Those Stars Mean to Authors (or When Should I Give 5 Stars)”

How to write a useful & fantastic book review | browzly.

[…] a view on what most readers thought about a book. These are very important to authors, here is an article that can tell you how important these are for the author. So, be mindful when you give your book a […]

Nadine Berger

Very insightful, thank you for posting this. I do have a different rating system for my blog and goodreads than I do for retailers. If I rate a book three stars on my blog (and goodreads) for me it’s a good read, not great, but I will automatically turn it into four stars on retailers because I don’t think it rated the five stars but for books that I rate four stars there are times I keep the rating the same and others that I will turn it to five stars on retailers depending on how I felt about the book and why I rated it four stars. There are very few times I will post anything less than three stars on retailers because of the negative impact unless its something that needs to be addressed, for example paying $7.99 for a book that has sooooo many errors it was hard to read the book. If I am paying that much for a book it should be edited and the story should flow I shouldn’t have to figure out what the author is trying to get across to the readers.

Teyla Rachel Branton

Thanks for the comment. It’s interesting to see your reasoning. I think you make a valid point about the cost of the book vs errors. My feeling is that all books should be edited by at least three editors before being published. Yeah, a $7.99 price AND errors would be a no-go for me!

I agree overall with this article. Some reviewers have said that they will give 5 stars only if the book changes their life, but how many books are there like that? I am in my sixties and been an avid reader throughout my life and yet only a handful of books have changed my life. Does this mean I should have marked the other hundreds of books (books that I loved) 4 stars or less? No way! If I love a book, whatever the reason, it gets 5 stars. If a book changes one’s life that can be mentioned in the review. In fact, the words “change my life” are not even really true, not if one looks back years later. A book can affect you, but the book alone cannot change you even if you feel that way for a short while.

Thank you so much for your comments, and you make a good point. The few books that stand out in my mind fade and new ones take their place all the time. I change and so does my perception. I think the older we get, the more we understand that there is place for all kinds of literature, and that good books don’t have to mean life-changing.

I don’t agree with your rating system. I would be more on a par with Lyndzee as well but truthfully, the stars are too subjective to hold much meaning. If I am giving a half star, I already rounded up, otherwise it would have been the lower number. I would not give a 5 star review to a book that just fulfilled a purpose. I am sorry to hear that a 4 star review lowers the author’s standing but I feel it’s a solid number and a positive rating. Reviewers are people who all rate differently and this whole system is about as imperfect as can be. I agree with being kind but truthful and honest about what a reviewer did not like as well as not giving away too much of a fictional plot. I will also say that author’s/writers need to develop a thick skin because no longer writing due to bad reviews is not a reviewer issue at all. Some authors may do better with not reading their reviews and continuously reminding themselves of why they are writing and publishing in the first place. Putting your work out there means accepting that not everyone will like it or necessarily be nice about it.

That’s okay, we can agree to disagree. Most authors I know do avoid reading their reviews. Sadly, too many of them attack the author these days. I personally read two romances recently that I’d only give one star, but I didn’t because I know I am not the author’s target reader. I guess I feel that I don’t want to be the person throwing rocks at people who are trying to climb the cliff, you know? Thanks for your comments!

And this just to add that you are absolutely right that the system isn’t perfect. By attacking the author, I thought I should clarify. It’s not really the review but the blatant attacks on the author as a person. “This author shouldn’t write anymore. This author only does garbage. This author needs to die a painful death because they’re so stupid.” is a lot different than, “This book has too many errors. The characters didn’t grab me. Or I thought the plot was too simple and here’s why.” There is trolling and attacking and thoughtful reviews. A world of difference! By the way, Lindzee is also a writer now. I’d be interested to see if she still feels the same way from the other side of the fence! (Hint, if you’re following this, Lindzee.)

PIA MOGOLLÓN

I agree I am simply not going to give a five star review to a book that I didn’t absolutely love. I will definitely take into consideration that anything less than 4 stars is harmful though. But there are so many books that while I totally enjoyed reading them, I don’t love them. They weren’t magnificent they were juat a pleasant to read and to me giving them a 5 star review tajes away from the books that are magnificent and mind bending and consciousness shattering and all that. That said I would never attack an author as a visual and performance artist I always to applaud anyones effort at putting their creativity out there. And try to always start reviews always with what I liked about a book and spend very little time on what I didn’t like. If I absolutely hate a book, I generally just don’t review it or likely even finish it. However it is rare that I find nothing to like about a book that I’ve spent the time reading all the way through.

I think it’s good that you look for something constructive to say! That helps a lot. Much more encouraging for authors, who really do need support!

Book Review Star Ratings - Kathy L. Brown Writes

[…] ratings. Of late, I’ve thought long and hard and read what other reviewers (Inside the Inkwell, Teyla Rachel Branton, and Rosepoint Publishing all have excellent perspectives on this topic) have said about the […]

Thank you for your insights on reviews. I reposted this blog on my Twitter account.

Thank you for the tweet!

How do you fell about reviewers taking away stars for using bad language? I’m polite but I always put out the irony of a book about murder , but the F-word upsets them. Also, should the Thor be punished for the readers own personal moral bias? I don’t think so. I’ve read some very silly reviews and am tempted to tell these readers that we are adults and it’s assumed adults are the intended audience. Grow up! Also, cruel reviews when I can tell the reviewer is in a bad mood… those should be reported or taken with a grain of salt. I know this article was written a few years ago, but I’m writing this in 2019 and the country is very divided along so many lines. I find it disturbing to politicize the arts and use ratings to “punish” or push ones own agenda. That’s just me, but I’m aware of things taking a very ugly turn. Let’s hope it gets better soon! So, when reading a review be sure and read between the lines. There are nuances that are as telling about the reviewer as the book. I do this with movies and books I’ve become pretty adept at knowing when a review is relevant and when to ignore it. Thanks for the article. I agree with the way you say the ratings should be. —K

You make some good points. The swearing issue is exactly why I’ve jumped in wholeheartedly with Book Cave (mybookcave.com), because they promote books by content rating as well, so readers aren’t shocked. I wish they had even more books rated there, and that Amazon would buy them out or something, lol. There has been a huge swing toward more profanity since the onslot of indie publishing. In my research, I found there are usually less than 30 swears to a book that is published traditionally, but indie published book (unless they are sweet or religious) usually have 100+ to 500 per book. But aside from that, keep in mind that there are a whole generations that consider the f-word to be a serious offense. They’ll overlook a d-word or an h-word, but not that. Especially not when it’s used four times a page. Basically, most people over 40 or so are not fans of this kind of thing. To the younger generation, the f-word isn’t worse than the d- or h-word, and they’ll overlook it regularly. Your best best is to include in the description that the book contains adult language. That way readers are prepared. There is also the argument that if an author is getting a lot of reviews that mention profanity, maybe it’s time to shake things up when expressing anger or upset. Because most people will overlook a few swear words used with feeling, but if there is one in every paragraph (or even four to a page), it becomes repetitive, just like other words authors try to avoid (then, really, definitely, look, etc.). In that case, it isn’t so much about age or the swear words as it is about being repetitive and therefore annoying. So instead of swearing, a person might punch a hole in the wall or scream or kick a chair. I have a friend who stopped reading a book because the character was constantly pinching her nose, so repetition is death, regardless of what the word is. Since authors want to appeal to as many readers as possible, they may want to consider searching for swears just like they do any other overly used words or actions. I never saw a review that said an author didn’t swear enough, have you? Maybe not gritty enough, but never one that says they missed the swearing.

Thanks for replying! You made me think one this a little more. I agree about something like the repetition and that any language used over and over can become redundant even if it’s not profane. So, in that case it would affect the quality of the writing. I would give that add an exception. As someone definitely over 40 but not easily shocked I’m actually more tolerant. I read a lot of Celtic Noir crime and they are dark, violent and there’s dirty language. I think it would sound silly any other way. But regardless, back to taking away stars in a review based on ones own moral bias, I just don’t think it’s fair. Religion has a history of stifling creativity and one has to be careful they aren’t attempting to silence an author . That’s why I’m not a fan of leaving a cruel review under the umbrella of anonymity and possibly ruin a career. I’ve seen great books get bad ratings because of technical issues, or they didn’t approve of the main characters life choices , too many naughty words etc. The internet is the wild West and the freedom of it is often exploited for political purposes, religious purposes and pushing an agenda. I can smell those kinds of reviews a mile away but not everyone can. Again ty for replying personally. I could write a book about the way I feel about this subject and segue right into 70’s punk rock then on to caring for Pomeranians. Lol. Maybe I will! Heads up… Nasty words will be included. Regards, K

With all the books that are based on religion, make fun of religion, or create new religions (like in so many fantasies), one could argue that religion also initiates a slew of creativity, lol. But I hear what you are saying. Good luck in your writing!

Pia Mogollón

Great points ehen reading reviews of books im curious about reading I often take them with a grain of salt and as you say have gotten good at discerning whether the reviewer is giving constructive criticism or justbbeong hateful. Ad far as the rating system I pretty much only give it a cursory glance but am as I said more interested in the content of the review. And yeah giving a negative review because you don’t like the genre is pretty base. If I didn’t like the genre I wouldn’t continue reading it. That said there’s another pet peeve people who give a negative review after saying they couldn’t even finish it. I believe if you didn’t finish it you’ve got no right to review it.

I agree! If you can’t finish a book, you shouldn’t rate it. Who knows if there might have been something redeeming? Or maybe the reader wasn’t the target audience. My eyes glaze over on books my daughter adores. We like different things. But I guess it also depends on WHY a reader stopped reading. Were there too many errors? Were there plot holes. Even then, it’s a hard call. A private email might go a long way toward getting an author to spend more time on editing, lol.

Should Ratings Dominate the Sale of Books or Artworks? | The Novel: UnHoly Pursuit: Devil on my Trail

[…] Explaining rating systems. […]

Thank you for this. I didn’t know what those stars meant and I’m glad to know now. This will better help me when I’m reviewing books on amazon. I always try to go into detail of why I’m rating what I rate.

It’s always great to give details in review as to why. Thank you for your comment!

Don't Hate the Player: Why My Amazon Ratings Won't Match My Blog's | DL Jung | Xinlishi Press

[…] Booksellers and advertisers also look at Amazon star ratings to determine if they wish to carry a book. […]

What Do Those Stars Mean on Amazon? – Inside the Inkwell

[…] the best blog I’ve read on this topic (which I obviously borrowed some thoughts from) come from https://teylarachelbranton.com/reviews-what-those-stars-mean-to-authors/ (her list of Dos and Don’ts for reviewing is highly recommended). Teyla Branton frames it in the […]

I think this can be a very subjective issue, which is part of the problem. As an author, I appreciate more now exactly what impact the rating of a book can have on your potential sales and ability to promote the book. However, that problem stems from a defunct rating system, that as a reviewer we have no control over.

As a book reviewer, there is no set general guidelines on how to rate a book, and even the book giants Amazon and Goodreads, which are now both owned by the same company, do not agree – as the different numbers mean different things on their scales. That being said, ratings are very useful within the community, and are used for a specific purpose. Among the majority of book reviewers I interact with, there seems to be a reasonably standardised opinion regarding the numbers, which I’m sorry to say do not match with your own interpretation.

A 5* read could never be considered a B+. This book is gold, you need to own it, you want to reread it, you want to delve into its pages and never come back out. It is a fantastic read that you regularly recommend to anyone who will listen to you. A 4* book is a very solid read, very enjoyable and engaging, but doesn’t reach the pinnacle of a 5* book. You would still recommend this book, and you may reread it, but it wasn’t without its problems. A 3* read is quite average. You read many books like it. It is enjoyable enough but there are more issues with it than plus point. You would likely only recommend it to someone who fits a particular niche who would enjoy it, it’s not for everyone, and it usually isn’t all that memorable. You are unlikely to reread it. A 2* read has lots of problems. A lot of people don’t even finish it. The plot is poorly executed, or the book is poorly written. A 1* read you actively dislike for a variety of reasons, or you couldn’t even finish due to the poor quality.

I personally use the ratings system as a way of cataloguing my own library for my own reasons, so unfortunately I would be unable to change that to bolster the ratings of a book for the benefit of the author.

I’ve noticed that reviewers on Goodreads tend to leave lower star reviews. I would LOVE it if everyone looked at a 4-star book and thought: “That’s still a great book.” But unfortunately, from my research, there seems to be something wrong with a 4-star book (maybe because it didn’t change a life?). I am not swayed from my stand, but I appreciate your post and the difference in opinions. I feel that a literary novel with life-changing substance (the only books I’d probably give 5 stars for on your scale) can’t be compared to a book that is simply a great romance or a great sci-fi book. Those books were great, but they just weren’t life-changing for me (and perhaps none of those in that genre will ever be but they’re sure entertaining and I love reading them). They were still better then 90 percent of books out there, and though I’m never going to reread them (let’s be honest, I’m never going to reread any book except maybe three in my lifetime), they fulfilled the measure of their potential and deserve 5 stars. So that’s where I was going with that. I would rather reward great effort on the part of an author whose book fills the potential within their genre. Again, thanks for the comment. Good luck with your writing!

Thank you for explaining the rating system. It is very different from the rating and evaluation systems I am used to using. A 5 star rating would not be allowed and 3 stars would mean it was exactly as is was meant to be – perfect in other words. The 4 and 5 stars would mean that it was over and above perfection, something extraordinary, and rare. I will remember what these star ratings mean to the authors now – thank you.

You’re welcome. I appreciate the comment, Tina!

Authors Getting Bad Reviews on Amazon -

[…] around to see what others thought about 3 star reviews. I came across this awesome article by Teyla Rachel Branton who explains reviews in better detail and I realised I wasn’t alone. There are tons of […]

Fox Emerson

wow! Great post Rachel. Wish I’d read this before I started crying over my 3 star review from a fellow author off Goodreads. I might have felt a bit better after reading the review she gave me for my book Monique.

I have to agree with your rating system, but it is interesting reading the comments just here on your blog how many people have a different opinion on ratings. It’s led me to believe that you can’t really take the stars too seriously. Someone giving it a 3 star thinks the book is great but it didn’t blow their mind. Another reader who feels the same will give it 4 stars because their interpretation of 3 stars is different.

When I review a book, I follow a simple guideline that is very similar to your blog.

Thanks, enjoyable read and also made me feel a little less alone getting a 3 star. Let’s hope that’s the lowest I get…

Yeah, sometime I wonder if readers want “teach the author” a lesson, or something, but I think a little kindness goes a long way. I’ve added two epilogues to books because readers have kindly mentioned they wanted one. If they’d been hateful or punishing, I wouldn’t have wanted to please them.

Book Reviews | 10 Minutes of Words

[…] I’ve been wondering about book reviews. We are constantly extolled to write book reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads or whatever. It seems like a reasonable thing to do. Supportive, right? […]

Amazon “Ratings vs. Reviews,” A Contradiction that Matters - dorian box

[…] Rachel Branton touches on this subject in her blog post, Reviews: What Those Stars Mean to Authors (or When Should I Give 5 Stars). Based on her own experiences with reviews accompanied by mismatched ratings, she […]

Susan Allred

I am a product tester and BOY do I wish someone had given this article as reading material before I began testing products–especially books! It’s insightful and it lets us, as reviewers, understand more fully how our opinions affect you as authors.

The only thing I might hedge on would be #4 – talking about how we got a product for free. I agree if you happen to download the book for free, don’t mention it. But for people like me who are given free books specifically for the purpose of review, I’m required by Amazon to mention that I got it for free in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion. I have to check mark a box 3 separate times that I will state that disclaimer in my reviews.

Star belly sneetches here we come! We were just having a similar discussion at work the other day. All of us agreed that 5 means it blew your world. 4 means it was good. 3 means it’s okay but you couldn’t finish it. 2 means it was stupid and awful. 1 means the world is a worse place because it was written. The conversation happened because we were reading some reviews on Amazon–some said they loved the book, but then they put down a three. Others said, there was nothing wrong with the book, but it just wasn’t their genre and so they gave it a three. We laughed because it was completely misleading. Anyway, the star system is messed up because it means so many things to so many people (like a kiss, heh heh, but that’s a different topic altogether). As a reader, I TRY to read the reviews, but when there are so many, I generally read a few reviews only. So if the top ones are negative, that’s all I’ll see. And yeah, I do look at reviews because there are so many books out there in the same genre, so I want to find the best one. As an author, the star ratings are important because if you don’t have a certain amount of stars, only certain companies will take your book and feature it on their site (for reviews, giveaways, etc). So you’re right when you say that stars equate author’s pay. It would be nice if it worked another way, but it doesn’t. a more advanced system than stars would be preferable where we could judge different aspects of the books: professional, fun, cleverness, dialogue, classic material that will live on, etc. BUT THEN no one would take the time to write a review because it would be so hard, so yeah. Crazy stuff. OH, and before I leave this rather lengthy reply, yes, authors do have feelings. I have seen some reviews that made me cringe and they weren’t even written for me. Comments with titles like Ugh, yuck, don’t waste your time, etc. Sometimes I had read some of these books and didn’t agree at all. This to me denotes a certain road rage. Of course, If you’re a perpetual road-rager, you might not see anything wrong with this. If your motivation is to reach other readers to warn them about the things you didn’t like and you honestly believe that everyone will have this reaction (and who doesn’t? We always assume people have our same opinions), then leave a thoughtful reply that will benefit both the reader and the author. That’s my take on stars.

You know, that’s exactly what I don’t get—the meanness in some of the reviews. As though the author did them a MORTAL WRONG by writing the book, and it’s their job to take them DOWN!

Thanks for all your comments! Oh, about the grade thing. The only time I’d actually ground a child for grades is if they were purposely not trying, and then it would be from video games and such until they got back on track. I strongly believe parents need to support their children this way. However, I agree that it’s not necessarily the grade that is all-important. Fortunately, my children seem to enjoy school and learning so this is rarely an issue. They love to read and that helps a lot. So no worries about child abuse here! We love our kids!

If you receive a book for free in exchange for review, you are required BY LAW to state that in your review. So not admonish reviewers to do otherwise.

A five star review means I loved it and would highly recommend it to everyone. Period. It is not a B+, not in anybody’s opinion. Yes, every book should measured against its peers (nobody should compare Twilight to the Great Gatsby or either of those to Shakespeare). But a book that’s “pretty good” should not be marked with five stars.

And a one star review means I cannot recommend it, based on my opinions. If we reserved one-star ratings for books riddled with errors, then nobody (outside the self-published world) would ever get one star reviews.

Gina, about the FREE book, I meant that you downloaded it at a temporary discount, not that you got it from the author. Certainly, you should disclose that. But saying in a review that you “bought” the book for free isn’t fair because that book isn’t always going to be free. We should be reviewing the book and not the price. I’ll clarify. Thanks!

Tony Laplume

Also, it disturbs me that you would punish your kids for getting low grades. My brother averaged A’s throughout school, and was personally devastated in a very real way, because of the pressure he put on himself, when he got something else the one time. Grades aren’t everything. If you’re not really learning, the grade doesn’t mean anything. It’s the education that counts for something.

Do I let this slide or not? I’ve already commented more times than I ever do on any blog and I’m pretty sure my reply to this will be moderated out, heh heh. But Tony (and Gina), how could you take the author’s breezy comment about grounding her kids for a “C” to mean she abuses her kids? It’s like you’re trying to be antagonistic. I think it was pretty obvious that the analogy here is that you don’t get into prestigious colleges with a “C” average, and neither will an author be able to survive on a “C” average. It doesn’t matter if you personally believe an author is a “C” average or not–it’s what the vocal and paying masses think that matters most where a paycheck is concerned.

Exactly right, Stephanie! My three oldest received scholarships to great colleges, and with his grades and ACT scores, my fourth will as well. They did the work on their own, though we were always there to help and encourage them. Yes, we had curfews and family standards. Expectations. If we hadn’t been involved in their education, I don’t know where they would be today. Two are close to graduating, and it’s nice to see them being responsible and understanding that if they work hard, they can succeed at ANYTHING. They tell me stories all the time about roommates who don’t, whose parents pay for everything while they party. Not sure what will happen when they have to face the real world. My second child has taken more time, that’s okay. As long as she’s happy and a contributing member to society, that’s what’s important.

I’d say that any truly discerning reader will be able to sift through reviews rather than look only at the surface. If the reader can’t do that with reviews, then chances are they won’t be reading the book itself very critically. And then, does it really matter? Some of my very favorite stuff doesn’t get the best reviews on Amazon. The popular stuff always averages above everything else. Popularity doesn’t always equal quality.

What are some poorly reviewed books that you enjoyed? Can you tell us? I agree that readers SHOULD be able to discern. Hopefully . . .

Peter Ackroyd’s The Plato Papers instantly became one of my favorite books ever. It has an average of 3 and a half stars. Pretty outrageous. Javier Marias’s Your Face Tomorrow trilogy, all brilliant, only the third getting the full five. But each of them have very few reviews. To my thinking, everyone should be reading those. And those are just the ones from the last time I bothered to read Amazon reviews, because for the most part they’re pretty worthless. Hence my entire point. For some people they’re helpful, but I guess I come from the perspective that they aren’t, so I’m not as concerned as you are about them.

I’ll take a look at these (first reading a sample chapter). My concern comes mostly because low reviews do mean a lower paycheck overall because so many readers do judge by reviews. But I think if an author keeps writing and continues to hone his/her craft, things will always improve. Thanks for the conversation!

I see what you’re saying Tony as a reader. But as an author, some companies won’t take your book on their site (to feature, for giveaways, promotion), etc, unless you have a certain amount of stars. These companies simply don’t have enough time to read every book submitted to them to find out for themselves whether this book was good or not. Their criteria is that the book must have 4-5 stars and have at least 4-6 reviewers on Amazon. Also, bad reviews on Amazon equates sloping sales (at least for a few weeks until a good review shoots the sales back up). Sure, it’s helpful if there are different opinions out there; in other words if your average rating is three stars, but you have a die-hard fan who is VERY vocal about it and they promote you every chance they can, and their review is favorited by other reviewers so that it stays at the top for everyone to see–but that very rarely happens. How many times do you promote your favorite books? If you do it a lot, you’re a rare commodity. Though kudos to you if you do. Your favorite authors will cherish you.

Yeah, I think that because so many people use Goodreads, they don’t realize that on Amazon the stars don’t exactly mean the same thing!

Wow, Rachel! I didn’t realize that’s what amazon’s star rating system means. I’ve been going off goodreads: 1 star-did not like it, 2 stars-it was okay, 3 stars-liked it, 4 stars-really liked it, 5 stars-it was amazing. So even from website to website the description of ratings differs. No wonder there’s a discrepancy!

I have to agree that the star-rating does seem to be broken. Looking at Lindzee’s comments, ratings mean a MUCH different thing to her than it does from where I’m standing. For an author trying to pay for a promo on a 3-star book, the 3-star rating is terrible. So I guess if a book changed my life, I’d probably give it the same 5-star review as I did another book I enjoyed, but in the review I’d rave about HOW much I liked it and how it changed my life. Too bad there aren’t more ratings, or they aren’t explained better or are more universal. Because right now the ratings, particularly on Amazon, indicate that 5 is for loved it, 4 for liked it, 3 for it was just okay, 2 for I didn’t like it and 1 for I hated it. I have so little time to waste that it would be hard for me to pick up a 3-star book unless someone I trusted recommended it. Sad, but true. Yet going by what Lindzee said, she’d still read and recommend 3-star books. Thanks for your comments, Lindzee and Mike!

I personally think the star rating system is broken and doesn’t make much if any sense. Everyone has their own interperetations of what each star means. Some people think they are being generous if they give 3 stars, others think 4 stars is being way too harsh. It’s a broken system.

I can understand an author wanting to explain a star rating system in this way to up their own ratings, lowering the bar to a more reasonable level in regular readers’ minds. But the truth is, the system is broken and doesn’t work.

Personally, I like Youtube’s rating system. If you liked it, there’s a thumbs up. If you didn’t like it, a thumbs down. That way, the people who neither liked nor disliked aren’t artificially lowering or raising someone’s rating status. I’ve found that Youtube’s rating system gives a rating that is much more consistent with the quality of the content.

I rate a bit differently than you. If I give a book 5 stars, it means it changed my life. I could not get through it fast enough. I could not stop thinking about it. The characters feel like life-long friends. The writing was superb. There were next to no grammar errors, etc. 5 star books for me are pretty rare. I’ve read 21 books since the beginning of the year, and only given 4 of them 5 star ratings on goodreads. Most books I rate 3 or 4 stars. 3 stars is average, 4 is fantastic. If I rate a book 4 stars, I will reread, and I’ll eventually want to buy it if I haven’t already. 3 stars means I enjoyed the book, but it didn’t stay with me and if you ask me about it now I’ll have a hard time remembering the basic plot. 2 stars is bad, and if a book gets 1 star I didn’t even get through it. I know a lot of my friends rate on pretty much the same scale as me.

When reading reviews for buying a book, I tend to discard a lot of the 5 star and 1 star reviews, especially if there are only a few reviews there. If all I see are 5 star reviews, I assume the author got all their friends and family to go rate the book, and the review is biased. I tend to read the 3 and 4 star reviews when deciding whether or not to purchase a book.

I guess if I were to assign grades to my star system, 5 stars would be an A++, 4 stars is a solid A or B, 3 stars is like a B- or C+, 2 stars is a D, and 1 is an F.

It’s interesting to read about another perspective on the rating system! Great post.

Elizabeth H. Cottrell

This is exactly the way I approach my own ratings, Lindzee. If you don’t save the five stars for books that were transformative, how can you ever reward those authors for their work? Thank you for this perspective. But I agree with many of Teyla’s other points — it’s not fair to give a negative review if you just don’t like the genre.

Advertisement

Supported by

The Hidden Story of the North’s Victory in the Civil War

• Share full article

• Apple Books
• Barnes and Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Bookshop.org

When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.

By Eric Foner

• March 8, 2022

WAYS AND MEANS Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War By Roger Lowenstein

War, it has been said, is the midwife of revolution, an adage that certainly applies to the American Civil War. That conflict not only destroyed slavery, the foundation of Southern society, but also brought into being a newly empowered national state. Before the war the federal government had few responsibilities other than delivering the mail and dealing with Native Americans and foreign countries. States and localities were the loci of political authority. But the war vastly increased national power, economic as well as military. The federal government raised and spent unprecedented amounts of money and eagerly promoted economic development. The war laid the foundation for the American industrial leviathan of the late 19th century and created an enduring alliance between industrialists, financiers, the Republican Party and the government in Washington.

A vast literature exists on nearly every aspect of the Civil War. But Roger Lowenstein’s “Ways and Means,” an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives. Wars cost money as well as lives, and the Civil War required what Lowenstein calls “gargantuan” sums. In the hands of a less skilled author, the litany of bonds, notes, loans and forms of currency that he discusses could become mind-numbing. But Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge. Perhaps he can write a book that helps laypersons like me understand recent innovations such as cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens.

Preoccupied with the fate of slavery and events on the battlefield, Abraham Lincoln mostly left fiscal matters to Congress and his cabinet. Lowenstein’s key actors are hardly household names. They include William Pitt Fessenden , chair of the Senate Committee on Finance; Elbridge G. Spaulding of the House Ways and Means Committee; and especially Salmon P. Chase , secretary of the Treasury. Best known before the war for his commitment to freedom and equal rights for Black Americans, Chase is often denigrated by historians because of his massive ego (his theology, one contemporary remarked, was faulty: He thought there were four members of the Trinity). When the war began, the country had no common currency. Hundreds of local banks issued notes that circulated as money, while the federal government was required by law to deal only with gold and silver. With far too little specie available to meet wartime needs, the country almost immediately teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. But despite lacking prior experience in fiscal policy, Chase managed to finance the war and revolutionize the banking system.

Essentially, there are three ways to pay for a war: borrowing by selling bonds, levying taxes and printing money. Chase relied on all three. As the war progressed, the government issued hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of bonds, and Chase spent much of his time badgering banks and wealthy investors to purchase them. He made a partial end run around the bankers with the help of the financier Jay Cooke , who employed an army of salesmen to market bonds directly to ordinary Americans, thus enriching himself via commission fees while helping to fill the nation’s coffers.

To raise further sums, Congress increased the tariff to unparalleled heights and imposed taxes — including the nation’s first income tax — on “everything under the sun,” in the words of one Treasury official. But what Lowenstein calls the most revolutionary departure came in 1862, when the federal government began printing “greenbacks,” paper money not redeemable in gold or silver but declared to be legal tender. Debtors, especially farmers, loved the greenbacks, since they could pay mortgages and other obligations in money worth considerably less than what they originally had borrowed. For the same reason creditors like bankers hated the new currency.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

All Formats

Book Review

Book reviews are documents that people see in different fields, including educational institutions and professional roles in an industry or organization, centering on providing feedback. Use book reviews to help middle school kids to college students construct proper formats for their next activity or project in literature, writing according to APA styles.

Book Review Definition & Meaning

What is a book review, 10 types of book reviews, fiction book review.

Student Book Review

Professional Book Review

Ks1 Book Review

Poetry Book Review

Blank Book Review

Short Book Review

Academic Book Review

University Book Review

Simple Book Review

Book Review Uses, Purpose, Importance

Understand the readers’ desires, increase book sales, engage with readers, improve writing skills, build an author’s brand, what’s in a book review parts, introduction, content summary, book analysis and evaluation, how to design a book review, book review vs. summary, what’s the difference between a book review, essay, & review, book review sizes.

• Letter (8.5 x 11 inches)
• Legal (8.5 x 14 inches)
• A4 (8.3 × 11.7 inches)

Book Review Ideas & Examples

• Book Review For Ks2 Ideas and Examples
• Non Fiction Book Review Ideas and Examples
• Basic Book Review Ideas and Examples
• Book Review Ks3 Ideas and Examples
• Book Review For Kids Ideas and Examples

What must a book review include?

What are the three elements of a book review, what makes a good book review, what are the phases of writing a book review, what is the aim of a book review, how does the book review begin, is a book review the same as a summary, what do you understand by book review, what are the criteria for reviewing a book, what are the two guidelines for writing a book review, more in documents.

Baby Book Template

Story book template, comic book template, log book template, children book template, guest book template, poetry book template, nonfiction book template, fiction book template, minibook template.

• How To Create a Schedule in Microsoft Word [Template + Example]
• How To Create a Schedule in Google Docs [Template + Example]
• How To Create a Quotation in Google Docs [Template + Example]
• How To Create a Quotation in Microsoft Word [Template + Example]
• How To Make a Plan in Google Docs [Template + Example]
• How To Make a Plan in Microsoft Word [Template + Example]
• How To Make/Create an Inventory in Google Docs [Templates + Examples]
• How To Create Meeting Minutes in Microsoft Word [Template + Example]
• How To Create Meeting Minutes in Google Docs [Template + Example]
• How To Make/Create an Estimate in Microsoft Word [Templates + Examples] 2023
• How To Make/Create an Estimate in Google Docs [Templates + Examples] 2023
• How To Make/Create a Manual in Google Docs [Templates + Examples] 2023
• How To Make/Create a Manual in Microsoft Word [Templates + Examples] 2023
• How To Make/Create a Statement in Google Docs [Templates + Examples] 2023
• How To Make/Create a Statement in Microsoft Word [Templates + Examples] 2023

File Formats

Word templates, google docs templates, excel templates, powerpoint templates, google sheets templates, google slides templates, pdf templates, publisher templates, psd templates, indesign templates, illustrator templates, pages templates, keynote templates, numbers templates, outlook templates.

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Crystalline phase effects of zirconia in ag/zro2 catalyst: oxygen vacancy-mediated new pathways to promote carbon-oxygen bonds hydrogenation.

The crystalline phase effect of zirconia provides a viable approach to investigate the interfacial sites of the Ag/ZrO2 catalyst in the hydrogenation of carbon-oxygen bonds. However, the zirconia of different crystalline phases synthesised by general strategies face the dilemma of ill-definition and huge structural differences, which presents an insurmountable obstacle for the establishment of structure-activity relationships and the revelation of interfacial co-catalytic sites. This paper presents a novel synthetic strategy for the univariate modulation of zirconia crystalline phases. Compared with the traditional strategies, the structure of zirconia synthesised by this strategy with different crystalline phases exhibits a high degree of similarity. Differently, the phase transition process endows monoclinic zirconia with a distinctive surface Zr3+-Ov site, which has been demonstrated to possess a robust adsorption capacity for carbon-oxygen bonds through in-situ infrared spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. The coorination of surface Zr3+-Ov sites with silver sites capable of spilling hydrogen provides a novel interfacial co-catalytically active site-mediated reaction pathway for carbon-oxygen bond hydrogenation. The Ag/Zr-NH4+ catalyst with this novel interfacial site exhibited excellent catalytic performance in the activity evaluation, with ethyl glycolate yields reaching 95.8%. The interfacial co-catalysis offers a novel reaction pathway and is anticipated to be applicable to other carbon-oxygen bonded hydrogenation systems.

Supplementary files

• Supplementary information PDF (2316K)

Transparent peer review

To support increased transparency, we offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article.

View this article’s peer review history

Article information

Download citation, permissions.

M. Guo, X. Shang, J. Li, C. Yang, J. Ding, Q. Zhong and Y. Chen, J. Mater. Chem. A , 2024, Accepted Manuscript , DOI: 10.1039/D4TA05062B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page .

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page .

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content .

Social activity

Search articles by author.

This article has not yet been cited.

Advertisements

• Kindle Store
• Kindle eBooks
• Health, Fitness & Dieting

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Audiobook Price: $17.72 $17.72

Save: $4.73 $4.73 (27%)

Buy for others

Buying and sending ebooks to others.

• Select quantity
• Buy and send eBooks
• Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the authors

Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health Kindle Edition

• The five biomarkers that determine your risk for a deadly disease.
• How to use inexpensive tools and technology to “see inside your body” and take action.
• Why dietary philosophies are designed to confuse us, and six lifelong food principles you can implement whether you’re carnivore or vegan.
• The crucial links between sleep, circadian rhythm, and metabolism
• A new framework for exercise focused on building simple movement into everyday activities
• How cold and heat exposure helps build our body’s resilience
• Steps to navigate the medical system to get what you need for optimal health
• Print length 399 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publisher Avery
• Publication date May 14, 2024
• File size 4119 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

Customers who bought this item also bought

Editorial Reviews

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CFQ6KPDC
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Avery (May 14, 2024)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 14, 2024
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 4119 KB
• Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 399 pages
• #1 in Nutrition (Kindle Store)
• #1 in Health, Fitness & Dieting (Kindle Store)
• #1 in Healthy Living

About the authors

Casey means.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Casey Means MD

Customer reviews.

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 76% 12% 7% 2% 3% 76%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 76% 12% 7% 2% 3% 12%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 76% 12% 7% 2% 3% 7%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 76% 12% 7% 2% 3% 2%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 76% 12% 7% 2% 3% 3%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers find the book very informative and eye-opening, with tips and a gradual approach. They also describe the writing quality as easy to understand, great, and brilliant. Readers describe the book as inspiring and not boring. They say it has good energy and changed their views on healthy and longevity.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the book's content great, with insights into the latest health research. They say it's an eye-opening book that explains in great detail what certain substances do. Readers also appreciate the tips and gradual approach.

"...is an outstanding book due to the fact that it combines groundbreaking research findings from Modern Medicine and the wisdom of Ancient traditional..." Read more

"...This book is an absolute must read. She's a great writer & lays things out very well ...." Read more

"...literally changing my life as the book serves as a guide to transforming my health and fitness ...." Read more

"...The science is clear . Processed foods and a toxic environment are making us sick...." Read more

Customers find the book easy to read and comprehend, with stories and facts. They also appreciate the references and the gradual approach. Overall, readers describe the book as one of the top reads in its field and categories.

"...and health span positively is written in this book in a very easy to comprehend language ...." Read more

"...This book is an absolute must read. She's a great writer & lays things out very well...." Read more

"...Following the advice within the book is easy and really exciting because the process works!..." Read more

"...that I have work to do, the Means offer an approach that is simple and straight forward ...." Read more

Customers find the book inspiring, engaging, and passionate. They also say it's heartfelt and brilliant, and that it'll make them feel more energy, aliveness, and presence. Customers also mention that the book is not repetitive.

"...It is a precious devotional work deserving of great adoration as everything one needs to know to profoundly impact lifespan and health span..." Read more

"...So I skimmed that chapter. Most of the book was very informative and engaging , though...." Read more

"...through so much and the way that she describes it is heartfelt and passionate and truly brilliant. I have told so many people about this book...." Read more

Customers find the tone of the book fantastic, and mention that it has good energy.

" Good Energy is an outstanding book due to the fact that it combines groundbreaking research findings from Modern Medicine and the wisdom of Ancient..." Read more

"...cancer diagnosis and I’m finally, with the help of this resource, Good Energy , feeling better than ever, powered by the tenets, principles and tips..." Read more

"...This author of Good Energy is a crazy genius and I’m so glad I saw her on a podcast and then bought the book. my whole life has changed...." Read more

"The book, good energy was a fantastic read . It gave me direction and insight on food and health...." Read more

Customers find the book has changed their views on healthy and longevity. They say it helps them protect themselves from common chronic diseases in the long term. Customers also mention that they're stronger, slimmer, and sleeping better after reading it.

"... I’m stronger , slimmer, sleeping so much better and just overall feeling great! Get the book! You’ll carry it with you, everywhere you go, as I do!" Read more

"I’ve read numerous wellness books and this one is a one stop shop for disease prevention and actual health- care...." Read more

"...do to reverse the damage in our bodies to heal and live happy, long and vital lives ...." Read more

"This book has changed my views on healthy and longevity . I'd recommend it to anyone...." Read more

Customers find the book worth the price for the investment of knowledge that comes with it.

"...She's a great writer & lays things out very well. It's worth the price for the investment of knowledge that comes accompanies it." Read more

"...It's an eye-opener and worth every cent ." Read more

"Fast Delivery * Reasonable Price * Good Comm * Excellent Seller " Read more

"...remarkable is Casey's thorough exploration of research-backed, cost-free tools for thriving in life...." Read more

Customers find the recipes in the book delicious.

"...STOP EATING PROCESSED FOODS. LEARN WHAT THEY ARE. EAT FRESH GOOD REAL FOOD . Come out of the matrix...." Read more

"...to track your health, create healthy standards along with easy tasty recipes " Read more

"...Dr. Casey's recipes are delicious and filling. The resources on her website are also wonderful...." Read more

"...amazing easy-to-understand and applicable information AND the delicious recipes !..." Read more

Reviews with images

This book will change your life

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

Report an issue

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices