All book reviewers know how to review paperbacks, hard copies, and digital copies, yet many reviewers hit a road block when it comes to reviewing short story collections. This road block is generally caused by not knowing what to write about or include in the review for a collection of stories that have similar themes or that have nothing in common with each other. Knowing how to review short story collections is an important skill for any reviewer as short story collections have become much more popular with readers.

What You Need to Begin Reviewing Short Story Collections

The first thing you need in order to review short story collections is a copy of the book in a format that you can interact with; this should ideally be either a physical copy of a digital copy that will allow you to highlight and make notes on the margins. When it comes to digital format, the easiest format for this is generally Microsoft Word.

First Step: Making a List of What to Focus on While Reading

The first step to reviewing a short story collection is making a short list of what you should include in your review. An example would be:

1. Number of stories

2. Similar Themes

3. Differences in Themes

4. Flow of the book from one story to the next

5. How well the writer does on character development and character background

6. Description of setting(s)

7. Plot/s

8. Do the stories make sense making in relation to each other? Does it makes sense for these stories to be in a collection together?

9. Overall enjoyment of the book

10. If the short story collection was non-fiction, what is the takeaway? What was taught or what did the book make the reader feel?

Second Step: Reading the Short Story Collection and Making Notes on the List

For the second, you should have your list in front of you as you read the short story collection and you should jot down any comments you have regarding any part of the list while you are reading. For instance, the notes could look like:

1. Number of stories – 10 could do with more stories

2. Similar Themes - love, hope, happiness

3. Differences in Themes - each story had its own take on the themes

4. Flow of the book - steady pace

5. Character development and character background - great development, would like to know more about Greg's and Nova’s backgrounds

6. Description of settings – seemed like the settings could use more detail, could not really picture it in stories 3 and 4, yet the other ones were well described

7. Plot – mostly good, but was a bit lost on the eighth story, plot could use more detail

8. Do the stories make sense making in relation to each other? Does it makes sense for these stories to be in a collection together? - Yes they all shared common themes and they made sense together

9. Overall enjoyment of the book - was not a big fan of two of the ten stories, but enjoyed the rest

10. If the short story collection was non-fiction, what is the takeaway? What was taught or what did the book make the reader feel?

For this step, the notes do not need to be written in full sentence form; in fact they only need to be long enough for you to understand them and remember what you meant when you wrote them.