How I review my books

 The absolute first thing I should say about this post, this was inspired by my friend Star. She posted an explanation of how she reviews books on her blog, and I thought it was a good idea. As nobody really knows how I decide my reviews for the books I read.
 
    I think that the way that I review books is easy enough to understand- at least I hope so, but here we go into the breakdown of it! The way that I review my books differ from genre to genre, but for the most part, I follow the same format for each review. The outline of my review is;

• Plot
• Characters
• Character Development
• Character relationships
• Worldbuilding
• Magic systems

    There are, of course, nuances to the way to that I do each one. Nor do I always go into that order. Staring with the first point, plot. For me, as long as the plot is enjoyable, it makes sense and doesn't take 3 hours of thinking to figure out. The plot is good. However, finding an enjoyable plot that makes sense can be difficult. And, usually, you can tell when a story is either plotted or not.
    The next thing on my list is the characters. Are they enjoyable? Do their motivations make sense? Do they have their own personalities? There are a ton of varying factors into what makes a good character, and when reading a book that involves the main character, said character has to be enjoyable in order to make the book worth the read.
    Character Development, in most of my book reviews character development holds quite a lot of weight. I, personally, prefer books with strong character development. If a story has a weak plot, but strong character development then that can make up for the plot in my mind. Seeing the characters learn and grow is one of my favorite things. The way they figure out that they made mistakes, that they aren't perfect, getting over character flaws. It's one of my favorite things to read.
    Character relationships. Character relationships are another big thing in most of my reviews. Do the conversations between the characters feel natural? Is there development within their relationships? Do their hormones- if they are teenagers -affect how they view other characters? Are their relationships in general dynamic? A good relationship between the characters can make or break the story.
    Worldbuilding, depending on what type of book holds different amounts of standing on how I feel about the story. With contemporary lack of extreme world-building is understandable, fantasy books large amounts of worldbuilding is expected. But what makes good worldbuilding is up to the reader. Everybody has different opinions on how worldbuilding should happen, as well as what is good worldbuilding.
    Magic systems, generally magic systems don't affect my personal ratings much. As long as I can make sense of the magic system, and I can tell thought was put into how the magic operates is enough for me. If the magic system is something that I end up loving, extra points/brownie points. It's something extra, but won't make or break the reading experience- therefore review -for me.


    In how I organize my review is rather simple. Open with some non-spoiler and overall thoughts. Then start sectioning off into the parts of the review detailed above. Between every section putting some quotes between them in order to help make the differentiation between sections more clear.
    I try to keep my reviews on a 1-5 star scale with little .5's or anything of that variety, however that is not something I can always keep to. I know a lot of reviewers put their rating system on more of a scale and end up having a lot of different numbers for reviews as well as half points being included. I try to keep away from half points for the sake of GoodReads, but if GoodReads ever starts utilizing the half-point system for individual review I will make edits to my reviewing process.