Reviews in the book community have a double edged advantage; a shining light to other readers and helping them decide on their next read and a means to allow readers analyse the books they have read as well as engage properly with them.  To write a good review, one has to look beyond writing a summary of the story, but must also do well to carefully pinpoint elements and devices that made the story either worthy of reading or not.  As a beginner who is looking to review books for fun among other things, here are tips that would make your reviews something to look out for.  1. Clear Images and Graphics  Like most readers, you were probably compelled to read a book because you found the cover appealing. Likewise, your book reviews would leave a good impression it the image of the book you select is clear and eye catching.  2. Concise and simple grammar Book reviews are not a testimony of how bourge your grammar appears, so it is best to use simple, clear and engaging words to appeal to your audience’s reading sense.  3. A short summary -avoid spoilers To write a book review, you must give a brief summary of the book you are reviewing. Brief, so no spoilers and not too unnecessary scribbling that turns your readers off, just enough that give them the general information of the book.  4. Give your thoughts and opinions alone Also, in book reviewing, two truths can exist. A person may not enjoy your favourite books, and that’s okay because it doesn’t change the fact that it was your favourite book and you enjoyed it. So, reviews are personal experiences, you can only give your opinions.   5. Use a simple structure To write a simple book review, use the good ole -Introduction, body and conclusion- structure. Introduce the book by giving a blurb/synopsis and then proceed to talk about your opinions about the characters, themes, plot and writing in the body.  Conclude the review by rating and recommending it and voila! You have an engaging read.  There’s no one shoe fit all sizes for writing reviews and a lot depends on the style of the writer, however you want to be objective with the story as well as empathetic with the author’s emotions. You can talk about how a book fell flat without being mean to the author and turning off other readers. 

“Are there bookshops in Nigeria?” a French Journalist asked Chidiamanda Adichie in an interview session for the Francais’s cultural event in 2018- years after her Ted talk on “the dangers of a single story” trended online.  This lady, I assumed, is educated, widely read and quite knowledgeable about the world as one doesn’t attain such recognition by the French ministry of foreign affairs without some qualifications of some sorts, but she still thinks that there are no libraries in Nigeria. That is the danger of the single story.  A single story is an overly simplistic and generalised perception of a person, place and thing. It is one-sided, often biased and attracts consequences.  By various Western media coverage, Nigeria is seen as the backwaters; without basic civilizations like a library and a people who reads.  Growing up for early readers like Adichie and myself, the characters in most of the children books that we read had blue eyes and pale skins. They had snow, always complained of the weather and ate desserts after their main meals. The exposure to American and British lifestyle and Culture plagued Adichie as a child, and me too.  She had spent the entirety of her childhood writing about the blue eyed characters on the book that she read until she discovered authors who write about people like her- girls whose skin were the colour of chocolate and whose 4C kinky hair could not make ponytail at the back of their hair- African authors saved her from having a single story of what books are. As an adult, Adichie still falls for the single story of a media induced single story of Mexico and Mexicans.  The single story still plagues us.  It is why Nigerian males abroad are referred to as Nigerian Princes- a pop culture word used to stigmatize Nigerians as cybercriminals. A single story is why tales of Bokoharam and election fraud precedes the good nature of the Nigerian people. A single story shows a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, it is reductive, robs a people of their dignity and creates harmful stereotypes. In her talk, Adichie says that “ it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging properly with all the stories of that place or that person…a single story emphasizes why we are different rather than how we are similar, stories matter. Many stories matter.”  If  the stories of cyber-fraud by Nigerian youths  are told alongside the stories of Nigerians as hard workers, pace setters and goal getters who defy the odds of bad governance and limited opportunities, the narrative of Nigerians as scammers undeserving of  international opportunities would be non-existent.  To tell a people’s story, you must actively seek out multiple perspectives. To tell a story about a people or a place, you must capture the beauty of its people or place as you write about the ugliness. To do otherwise is to create stereotypes; though true, but incomplete regardless.  Two truths can exist. A person or a place can not be utterly bad or completely good.  To tell a single story is to tell an incomplete biased story, it is to create a story that fails to capture the essence of a people and a story that gives power to a writer to make a definitive story of a person or a place.