LitLovers - How to Talk About a Book

back to LitClub

also see How to
discuss a book

Read-Think-Talk About a Book
Print out this handy chart and tuck it inside your book.

				Our 10 FREE online courses explore different ways to evaluate literature. You can take courses on... • Character • Plot • Point of View • Symbolism • Irony • See the entire list

		• Does the author's use of language (diction and syntax) draw you in, or put you off? • How would you describe the style: lyrical, pompous, complex and wordy, easy and straightforward, humorous, or offensive?

		• Are the characters convincing? Do they come alive for you? How would you describe them — as sympathetic, likeable, thoughtful, intelligent, innocent, naive, strong or weak? Something else? • Do you identify with any characters? Are you able to look at events in the book through their eyes — even if you don’t like or approve of them? • Are characters developed psychologically and emotionally? Do you have access to their inner thoughts and motivations? Or do you know them mostly through dialogue and action? • Do any characters change or grow by the end of the story? Do they come to view the world and their relationship to it differently?

		• Does the plot hold your interest? Does it keep you turning pages? Does it move briskly or unfold slowly? • What is the story’s central conflict? Is it between characters, a character and society, a character and nature? Is it internal—an emotional struggle within the character? Does the conflict create tension, even suspense, to hold your interest? • How is the story told— in chronological order? Or does the author play with time, veering back and forth between past and present? • Is the plot simple or complex? Are there subplots related to the main plot—or separate, distinct story lines, operating independently and merging at the end? • Were you surprised by the ending? Was information withheld till the end? Were there cliff-hangers at the end of chapters? Did that irritate you or make you want to read on?

		• Can you think of the work’s themes, or its larger meanings? What might the author be trying to get at, to say? • Symbols intensify meaning. Can you identify any in the book—people, actions or objects that stand for something greater than themselves? • Does the author use irony—a different outcome, or reality, than expected. Irony mimics real life: too often the opposite of what we want or intend happens. top of page