book reviews for readers

• Member Login
• Library Patron Login

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR

FREE NEWSLETTERS

Search: Title Author Article Search String:

Another Word for Love

"I write about beautiful things because I live in a country that has tried to kill me and every single one of my ancestors." This might serve as Carvell Wallace's mission statement. His ...

Beyond the Book

An Interview with Carvell Wallace

Carvell Wallace's debut memoir, Another Word for Love, explores how spirituality and embracing his queer identity helped him heal from childhood trauma. The journalist and podcaster is known ...

The Flower Sisters

Michelle Collins Anderson's novel The Flower Sisters , based in part on a real tragedy that occurred in the author's hometown in 1928, received considerable praise from our First Impressions reviewers....

The Bond Dance Hall Explosion

Michelle Collins Anderson's historical novel The Flower Sisters draws inspiration from a tragic event that occurred in the author's hometown of West Plains, Missouri: the explosion of a dance hall ...

You may have heard about books that are letters to God, but what about books that are letters to the devil? In a non-creepy-cult-y-horror-y way, I mean. If you can't think of an example, Ananda Lima's...

The Devil Personified: How He Shapeshifts in Literature

The Hebrew word 'Satan' can be translated as 'adversary,' or 'accuser,' so in his nomenclature, he wasn't exactly set up for success. Satan, or the devil, is a figure who has origins in Abrahamic ...

The Great Abolitionist

A decade before Confederate troops fired upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, initiating the Civil War, Charles Sumner entered the United States Senate. A political career had never been an ambition...

Is Separate Equal? The Sarah Roberts Case

At the age of four, when Sarah Roberts was ready for school, her father Benjamin was insistent that she have the best education. It was the late 1840s in Boston. Benjamin Roberts had been ...

One of Our Kind

When Jasmyn Williams and her husband King move with their young son Kamau from an apartment in the diverse neighborhood of Mid City Los Angeles to Liberty, an exclusive suburb outside the city, they ...

Black Utopias

As Jasmyn Williams and her husband King arrive in the fictional Black utopian suburb of Liberty, California in Nicola Yoon's One of Our Kind, Jasmyn reminds her husband 'that Black utopias ha[ve] been...

Enlightenment

Following two friends three decades apart in age who hail from the Bethesda Church Baptist community in Aldleigh, Essex, Sarah Perry's Enlightenment opens with the older: bookish, middle-aged writer ...

A Shooting Star of American Astronomy: Maria Mitchell

The central mystery of Sarah Perry's Enlightenment concerns an astronomer, Maria Văduva, and Thomas's uncovering of her hidden scientific contributions. Many real-life historical women ...

Join BookBrowse

for a year of great reading about exceptional books!

Genres and Themes

Read-alikes, young adults, members recommend.

Above the Salt by Katherine Vaz

A sweeping love story that follows two Portugueses refugees who flee religious violence to build new lives in Civil-War America.

Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung

Eve J. Chung's debut novel recounts a family's flight to Taiwan during China's Communist revolution.

The Book Club

The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones An impactful expansion of groundbreaking journalism, The 1619 Project offers a revealing vision of America's past and present.

New In Paperback

Solve this clue:

and be entered to win...

• Reading Guides

Win this book!

An illuminating group portrait of the eighteenth-century women who dared to imagine an active life for themselves in both mind and spirit.

• Random House Is buying Boom! Studios
• Attack on Ukrainian printing plant disrupts publishing industry
• Biographies
• Author Read-Alikes
• Name Pronunication Guide
• Authors Respond to the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
• Book Clubs' All-Time Favorite Books

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

Keep up with what's happening in the world of books: reviews, previews, interviews and more.

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

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

• Awards James McBride Wins Library of Congress Prize

• Book to Screen ‘The Bright Sword’ TV Series in the Works

• Seen & Heard Lost Novel by Margaret Walker Coming in 2025

• Book to Screen ‘Funny Story’ Film Adaptation in the Works

Our Take On This Week's Bestsellers

Our Verdict

• Fiction ‘The Fortunes Of Jaded Women’ Series in the Works

• Fiction Tim O’Brien Joins Ali Velshi for Banned Book Club

• Mystery & Thriller Daniel Silva Talks New Book on ‘GMA’

FEATURED REVIEW

• 20 Series Starters That Will Hook You
• 20 Great Books for Your Vacation
• 20 Best July Books for Young Readers
• 20 Best Books To Read in July
• Best Indie Books of June

Featured Book Reviews

New Releases

• F1 RACING CONFIDENTIAL Giles Richards

• DIE HOT WITH A VENGEANCE Sable Yong

• MY GLORIOUS DEFEATS Barrett Brown

• IT'S ELEMENTARY Elise Bryant

• THE BURNING Linda Castillo

• SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN Pamela Samuels Young, Dwayne Alexander Smith

• HEIR, APPARENTLY Kara McDowell

• THE DARKNESS WITHIN US Tricia Levenseller

• UNBECOMING Seema Yasmin

• THE SPELLSHOP Sarah Beth Durst

• THESE DEATHLESS SHORES P.H. Low

• NAVOLA Paolo Bacigalupi

• LET THE GAMES BEGIN Rufaro Faith Mazarura

• THE FIVE STAGES OF COURTING DALISAY RAMOS Melissa de la Cruz

• THE NEXT BEST FLING Gabriella Gamez

• SOUR APPLE Linda Liu, Linda Liu

• RAASHI'S RAKHIS Sheetal Sheth, Lucia Soto

• DEAD GOOD DETECTIVES Jenny McLachlan, Chloe Dominique

• MY PARENTS' MARRIAGE Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

• THE HISTORY OF SOUND Ben Shattuck

• REBELS WITH A CAUSE Niobe Way

• W.E.B. GRIFFIN ZERO OPTION Peter Kirsanow

• BAD TOURISTS Caro Carver

• LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER Kimberly McCreight

• AMERICAN APOCALYPSE Rena Steinzor

• DEVIL'S CONTRACT Ed Simon

• RAT CITY Jon Adams, Edmund Ramsden

• MOOMIN ADVENTURES Tove Jansson, Lars Jansson, Tove Jansson, Lars Jansson

• A HAUNTED GIRL Ethan Sacks, Naomi Sacks, Marco Lorenzana, Andres Mossa

• MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS Emil Ferris, Emil Ferris

Didn’t find what you were looking for? OK, how about some

• Lost Novel by Margaret Walker Coming in 2025
• Julia Phillips Talks New Book With Seth Meyers
• Memoir by Actor Josh Gad Coming in 2025

• A Kid Lit Illustrator Finds Her Voice as a Writer
• Taffy Brodesser-Akner Thinks We Need To Progress
• Hope Jahren Has Some ‘Fun’ With ‘Huckleberry Finn’

• 3 Totally Gonzo Memoirs of Sex, Drugs, and More
• 6 Must-Read Novels Coming Out in July
• Paris: 4 Literary Trips to Take This Summer

• ‘The Bright Sword’ TV Series in the Works
• ‘Emperor of Ocean Park’: Ambitious but Uneven
• ‘Funny Story’ Film Adaptation in the Works

• V (Formerly Eve Ensler) | Fully Booked Podcast
• Deepti Kapoor | Fully Booked Podcast
• Leigh Bardugo | Fully Booked Podcast

• Episode 380: Claire Messud
• Episode 379: Best July Books With Meriam Metoui
• Episode 378: Olivia Laing

The Magazine: Kirkus Reviews

Featuring 309 industry-first reviews of fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and YA books; also in this issue: interviews with Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Questlove, Yangsook Choi, and Hope Jahren; and much more

The Kirkus Star

One of the most coveted designations in the book industry, the Kirkus Star marks books of exceptional merit.

The Kirkus Prize

The Kirkus Prize is among the richest literary awards in America, awarding $50,000 in three categories annually.

Great Books & News Curated For You

Be the first to read books news and see reviews, news and features in Kirkus Reviews . Get awesome content delivered to your inbox every week.

• 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.

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Author Interviews

Book reviews.

• Best Books Of The Year
• NPR Reader Favorites
• Books Podcast
• Subscribe to Books Newsletter

Books We Love

Npr staffers pick their favorite fiction reads of 2024.

June 17, 2024 • At work: hardworking news journalists. At home: omnivorous fiction readers. We asked our colleagues what they've enjoyed most this year and here are the titles they shared.

Here are the nonfiction books NPR staffers have loved so far this year

June 17, 2024 • We asked around the newsroom to find favorite nonfiction from the first half of 2024. We've got biography and memoir, health and science, history, sports and much more.

Summer BWL Nonfiction

Alicia Zheng / NPR hide caption

20 new books hitting shelves this summer that our critics can't wait to read

May 21, 2024 • We asked our book critics what titles they are most looking forward to this summer. Their picks range from memoirs to sci-fi and fantasy to translations, love stories and everything in between.

Here are the Books We Love: 380+ great 2023 reads recommended by NPR

November 20, 2023 • Books We Love returns with 380+ new titles handpicked by NPR staff and trusted critics. Find 11 years of recommendations all in one place – that's more than 3,600 great reads.

Nikki Giovanni on Wild Card Michael Loccisano/Getty hide caption

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Nikki giovanni doesn't think about her legacy. but here's a moment she felt proud.

July 11, 2024 • At 81, Nikki Giovanni isn't afraid of getting older. And the legendary poet also isn't spending any time thinking about her legacy. She's mostly focused on having fun and being able to look back on her life and feel like she did her duty. She talks to Rachel about the myth of a happy family, what she's learned on safaris and why she's fascinated with Mars.

'State of Paradise' effortlessly blends the commonplace and the extraordinary

July 10, 2024 • With exquisite prose, smart lines on every page, a building sense of growing strangeness tinged with dread, and surprises all the way to the end, this might be Laura van den Berg's best novel so far.

Self-portrait after the avalanche, first winter ascent of Gasherbrum II, Karakorum Himalaya, Pakistan, Feb. 4, 2011. Cory Richards hide caption

This photographer nearly died mountain climbing. His memoir details the mental toll

July 10, 2024 • Former National Geographic photographer details his struggles with mental health while climbing the world’s mountains

In 'The Color of Everything," photographer shares how being bipolar shaped his life

Grammy award-winning soul singer Mavis Staples Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images hide caption

It's Been a Minute

Mavis staples on prince, mlk and a life onstage.

July 9, 2024 • This week, the legendary singer and civil rights figure Mavis Staples is turning 85 and there's no sign of her slowing down: She released a new song, "Worthy," and a children's book, Bridges Instead of Walls: The Story of Mavis Staples .

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer shares her leadership philosophy in her new book, True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between . Simon and Schuster hide caption

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has “complete confidence” in Biden’s candidacy

July 9, 2024 • NPR's Juana Summers talks with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer about her new book True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership and Everything in Between.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has 'complete confidence' in Biden’s candidacy

Jill Ciment met her husband Arnold Mesches when she was his teenage art student. Random House/Random House hide caption

She was 17. He was 47. #MeToo changed how she thinks of their relationship

July 9, 2024 • Ciment met her husband in the 1970s. At the time of their first kiss, he was a married father of two; she was his art student. In her memoir Consent she reconsiders the origin story of their marriage.

Author Alice Munro in 2009. Her daughter, Andrea Skinner, has come forward with allegations her stepfather abused her as a child and that Munro was aware and stayed with him until his death. Peter Muhly/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Book News & Features

Alice munro's daughter says her mother did nothing to stop abusive stepfather.

July 8, 2024 • Alice Munro died in May at the age of 92. Her daughter Andrea Skinner wrote a Toronto Star op-ed revealing her stepfather abused her as a child for years.

"The first place I learned to be funny was on the schoolyard trying to defuse this weird tension around my body, says Ian Karmel. He won an Emmy Award in 2019 for his work on James Corden's "Carpool Karaoke" special with Paul McCartney. Kenny McMillan/Penguin Random House hide caption

A member of the 'T-Shirt Swim Club' chronicles life as 'the funny fat kid'

July 2, 2024 • Comedy writer Ian Karmel has been making fun of his own body since he was a kid. He wrote T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories from Being Fat in a World of Thin People along with his sister.

Crystal Wilkinson's praisesong biscuits Felix Cruz hide caption

A taste of Black Appalachia

July 2, 2024 • Too often, our attempts at nailing the family recipes end up in disaster and disappointment. This week, host Brittany Luse is joined by former Kentucky Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinson, author of Praisesong for the Kitchenghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks. The two talk about Appalachian food culture, turning oral recipes into written ones, and the emotional relationship between food, family and memory.

Contestants on Love is Blind live apart from one another and do not see each other before agreeing to be married. Netflix hide caption

'Love is Blind' is mired in lawsuits. What does that mean for reality TV?

July 1, 2024 • New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum discusses the lawsuits brought forth by the Love is Blind cast members, and reflects on how reality TV has impacted our culture. Her new book is Cue the Sun!

Emily Nussbaum

Emergency Quarters Illustrations © 2024 by Gracey Zhang hide caption

Picture This

'emergency quarters' are for pay phones (remember those) in a new book by ‘90s kids.

June 30, 2024 • Ernesto's mom gives him a quarter every morning. "For emergencies," she says. "If you need me, look for a pay phone." Hey, it was the '90s! But how will Ernesto spend his Emergency Quarters ?

Pedestrians walk past the Fabulosa Books store in San Francisco's Castro District on Thursday. The bookstore is sending LGBTQ+ books to parts of the country where they are censored to counter the rapidly growing effort by anti-LGBTQ+ activists and lawmakers to ban queer-friendly books from public schools and libraries. Haven Daley/AP hide caption

A San Francisco store is shipping LGBTQ+ books to places where they are banned

June 30, 2024 • In what she calls "Books Not Bans," Becka Robbins sends titles to groups that want them in the face of a movement by conservative advocacy groups and lawmakers to ban them from schools and libraries.

Jonathan Todd/Graphix hide caption

In 'Timid,' there is bravery under the surface

June 29, 2024 • Many assume that timidity -- or its close cousin, shyness -- is solely a negative trait. But longtime cartoonist Jonathan Todd shows this is not always the case in this semi-autobiographical tale.

Catapult hide caption

'The Liquid Eye of a Moon' is a Nigerian coming-of-age story

June 26, 2024 • In Uchenna Awoke’s debut novel, we come to understand that 15-year-old Dimkpa’s choices are painfully constricted by the caste system into which he was born.

Malte Mueller/fStop/Getty Images hide caption

Stuck in a rut? How to appreciate your life again, according to science

June 26, 2024 • After a while, even the most exciting relationships, jobs and environments lose their spark. But cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot says it's possible to fall back in love with life's small joys.

Why we become bored with our lives (and how to find joy again)

In Jonathan Merritt's new book My Guncle and Me , a little boy's gay uncle helps him understand that being different makes him special. Hachette Book Group hide caption

Christian writer's new book reminds kids what makes them different makes them special

June 26, 2024 • Christian writer Jonathan Merritt's new book My Guncle and Me tells the story of a gay uncle who helps his nephew embrace being different.

Jonathan Merritt's book reminds kids what makes them different makes them special

Freelance science writer Sadie Dingfelder is the author of the new book Do I Know You? , which explores human sight, memory and imagination. Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company hide caption

The human brain is hardwired to recognize faces. But what if you can't?

June 26, 2024 • Humans are hardwired to see faces — even in inanimate objects. We have a lima bean-shaped part of our brains dedicated to facial recognition. But this process isn't always straightforward. Science journalist Sadie Dingfelder is one of 10 million Americans who are face blind, or struggle to recognize the faces of people they know. In her new book, Do I Know You? she dives into this, as well as the science of memory and imagination.

Code Switch

The truth and lies behind one of the most banned books in america.

June 26, 2024 • Author Mike Curato wrote Flamer as a way to help young queer kids, like he once was, better understand and accept themselves. It was met with immediate praise and accolades — until it wasn't. When the book got caught up in a wave of Texas-based book bans, suddenly the narrative changed. And like so many books that address queer identity, Flamer quickly became a flashpoint in a long, messy culture war that tried to distort the nature of the book.

Maureen Corrigan picks four crime and suspense novels for the summer. NPR hide caption

4 crime and suspense novels make for hot summer reading

June 25, 2024 • There’s something about the shadowy moral recesses of crime and suspense fiction that makes those genres especially appealing as temperatures soar. Here are four novels that turn the heat up.

Random House hide caption

'Cue the Sun!' is a riveting history of reality TV

June 25, 2024 • Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorke r critic Emily Nussbaum's book is a near-definitive history of the genre that forever changed American entertainment.

Join Discovery, the new community for book lovers

Trust book recommendations from real people, not robots 🤓

Blog – Posted on Friday, Mar 29

17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.

It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?

As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!

In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.

Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

What must a book review contain?

Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)

In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:

• A review will offer a concise plot summary of the book. 
• A book review will offer an evaluation of the work. 
• A book review will offer a recommendation for the audience. 

If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.

Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.

How much of a book nerd are you, really?

Find out here, once and for all. Takes 30 seconds!

Book review examples for fiction books

Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .

That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.

Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :

An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.

His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.

This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.

Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:

YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.

I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]

The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :

Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.

The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.

Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]

Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :

In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.

As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.

This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.

Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :

I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.

Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim.  To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :

♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.

In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.

♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]

The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :

Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.

Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.

“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]

James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!

This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.

The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.

Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :

This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.

Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.

Examples of genre fiction book reviews

Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:

4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.

I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.

The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.

I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.

Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:

“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”

Holy hell, what did I just read??

➽ A fantasy military school

➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history

➽ Shamans and gods

➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters

➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors

That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.

Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).

Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:

In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?

In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.

Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :

Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.

Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.

Book review examples for non-fiction books

Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.

Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!

The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :

The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”

Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.

All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]

Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.

The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.

Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]

Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :

Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.

In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.

To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]

Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

SUBJECT: 4/5

CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5

RELEVANCE: 3.5/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.

Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]

Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:

Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better idea of how to write a book review. You might be wondering how to put all of this knowledge into action now! Many book reviewers start out by setting up a book blog. If you don’t have time to research the intricacies of HTML, check out Reedsy Discovery — where you can read indie books for free and review them without going through the hassle of creating a blog. To register as a book reviewer , go here .

And if you’d like to see even more book review examples, simply go to this directory of book review blogs and click on any one of them to see a wealth of good book reviews. Beyond that, it's up to you to pick up a book and pen — and start reviewing!

Continue reading

More posts from across the blog.

The Ultimate Guide to Reading the Star Wars Books In Order

Say you decided you’d like to read all the Star Wars books in existence. You would find yourself reading for a long, long time. In other words, you wouldn’t have time to finish them all by the time Rogue Squadron hits theaters in 2023. The...

60 Best Inspirational Books For Women

Our list of the most inspirational books for women that will leave you feeling motivated, uplifted, and ready to prove all women can do.

30 Best Memoirs of the Last Century

Whether you're looking to travel back in time or journey out to the frontiers of the latest thinking, we've got you covered with the 30 best memoirs from the last one hundred years.

Heard about Reedsy Discovery?

Trust real people, not robots, to give you book recommendations.

Or sign up with an

Or sign up with your social account

• Submit your book
• Reviewer directory

Want to be a book reviewer?

Review new books and start building your portfolio.

10 of the Best Goodreads Reviewers to Follow

Clare Barnett

Clare Barnett lives in Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and daughter. She delves into all genres but has a soft spot for fantasy, mystery, and memoir. When she’s not working her way through her to-read list, she’s reading and writing about bookish things. Twitter: @clarebar. Inquiries: [email protected].

View All posts by Clare Barnett

Like every other social platform, Goodreads has its power users. What to call the reviewers who have thousands of followers and review hundreds of books a year? Influencers? Power reviewers? Hot critics? Whatever you call them, the best Goodreads reviewers are a goldmine for of-the-moment book reviews. I’ve made a list of 10 of the best Goodreads reviewers to turn to for insightful reviews, but there are hundreds more worth following. Consider this a sampling of the interesting and diverse voices that can help inform your reading choices.

How I Picked the Best Goodreads Reviewers

Goodreads has “ Top 99” lists for “most popular reviewers” (i.e., most liked reviews), “most followed reviewers,” and “top reviewers” (most books reviewed), tracked by week, year, or all-time. A number of my picks on the “most popular” reviewer list, but some are more under the radar. My criteria were: reviewers who read a lot of books, read a diverse list, regularly post reviews, and have insightful takes on what they read. All the reviews have at least around 1,000 followers and some have almost 300,000.

Pro Tip: To see how these top Goodreads reviewers’ tastes compare to your own, you can use the “Compare Books” feature (check this explainer here ) to see how your tastes overlap. Also, don’t look at any of these reviewers’ annual reading challenges unless you want to feel like an under-achieving, book-loving sloth.

Here are 10 of the best Goodreads reviewers. Happy reading!

10 Top Goodreads Reviewers

GR World Popularity Rank: #19. Many authors will not rate other writers’ books on Goodreads as part of some professional code. Thankfully for us, the brilliant Roxane Gay brings her insight and critique to reviews of recent releases. Well known for her own books like Hunger , Roxane’s reviews are concise and balanced. A must follow for those into contemporary fiction.

GR World Popularity Rank: #1. Emily May just might be the unofficial Queen of Goodreads. Ranked #1 in the world for most-liked reviews, Emily May is a UK-based reviewer with eclectic tastes, reviewing new releases as well as classics. While some reviewers are popular for their (sometimes very funny) negativity, Emily May’s reviews are thoughtful and fair, and with some depth at around 300+ words per review. May is also active on bookstagram .

Monte Price

Unranked. Monte’s reviews are insightful and funny, covering queer romance, YA and adult fantasy, and bookclub fiction. In a recent review, he compares Maggie Shipstead’s The Great Circle to Twilight . If that’s your jam, follow Monte, and check out his booktube channel too.

GR World Popularity Rank: #5. A reader based in Seattle, Yun reviews a wide range of recent fiction, with detailed takes about her reading experience and some humor thrown in. Also, she has a very fair star rating system. Find her on Goodreads or her blog, Miss Readaroo .

Unranked. Thomas lists his interests as “Reading, Writing, Psychology, Mental Health, Feminism” and his “read” shelf checks out. He brings interesting takes to a wide range of nonfiction, memoir, essays, as well as recent fiction releases. He writes thoughtfully about mental health and underrepresentation of queer people and people of color both in his reviews and in his blog, The Quiet Voice .

Je nny Lawson

GR United States Rank #100. Jenny Lawson, very funny essayist, is also a prolific GR reviewer, particularly of graphic novels. Her reviews are concise and have fewer jokes than you’d expect from the author of Furiously Happy , but she’s fair and consistent.

GR World Popularity Rank: #14. Another UK-based reader, Paromjit reads a massive number of books, mostly new releases. Her current goal counter says 226 for the year. The reviewer strikes a great balance between revealing a glimpse of plot and offering a fresh perspective on the book.

Unranked. Carol. reviews mainly sci-fi, fantasy, and mystery. She sometimes brings the snark, but her reviews are always interesting and full of choice quotes. Unlike a lot of popular reviewers, she says she’s not interested in advanced reader copies. You can find more of her reviews at her blog, book reviews forevermore .

GR World Popularity Rank: #16. The reaction-gif book review is a high art on Goodreads, and Anne does it well. Her tastes are eclectic, ranging from the Spider Man comics to Julia Quinn’s Regency romance. If you need more gifs in your life, follow Anne.

GR World Popularity Rank #57: Emma is popular, scathing at times, and usually pretty witty. Her favorite genre is “literary fiction about horrible women,” but she reads widely. She also reads a ton of advanced reader copies (ARCs) so she’s a good go to for new and upcoming fiction with a literary fit. Emma also has a blog, Emma Reads Too Much .

For more on Goodreads check out The Most Popular Books on Goodreads Right Now.

You Might Also Like

Independent Book Review

A Celebration of Indie Press and Self-Published Books

30+ Top-Notch Book Review Sites for Readers & Writers

Here are 30+ top-notch book review sites for booksellers, librarians, readers, & writers. Learn more about 30 bookish companies helping spread the word about the best & latest books.

Top-Notch Book Review Sites for Readers & Writers

Book reviews are for all of us.

Readers need to know whether books with the best covers are worth the time they’re about to put into it. They find it helpful (and fun!) to check out reviews after reading the books, too, so they can see what other real-life humans had to say about it.

Authors & publishers need to get book reviews to build buzz and credibility for their product. Librarians & booksellers need to hear from trusted sources that the book they are about to buy for their collection has the capability to get picked up & to satisfy. 

Book review sites have transformed the book-recommending landscape.

We can write reviews on product pages, on social media apps, and some of us, for publications that have been around since before the internet. Book reviewing has changed. But maybe it also hasn’t.

What kind of book review sites are you looking for? Chances are, this list has you covered.

Here are 30+ book review sites to read, write, and bookmark. 

1. Independent Book Review

Does this logo look familiar? (Hint: You’re sitting on it).

IBR, the website you’re on RIGHT NOW, is all about indie books . There are so many books in the world right now, but if you feel like you keep seeing the same ones recommended over and over, start reading indie!

Independent presses & self-published authors are doing some incredible work right now. IBR reviews books, curates lists, does indie bookstore round-ups, and uses starred reviews & best-of-the-year lists to show which books are going to blow your mind.

2. Book Marks

Lit Hub rules. You already knew this.

But do you know about Book Marks? They’re a branch of the Lit Hub network, and they are an excellent way for booksellers and librarians to get shorter recaps from multiple sources and voices.

Their staff peruses book review sites and shares pull-quotes from them in book lists & more. By reading all of these sites, they can give the book a rating based on the average: “Rave, Positive, Mixed, or Pan.”

My favorite book-buying platform, Bookshop , uses Book Marks’ scale for their books’ ratings, and I love getting access to that.

3. Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly has been around since 1872. By now, they’re a review churning machine. They cover so much of the book industry in so many different ways, reviewing nearly 9,000 books per year and providing publication announcements, agency announcements, industry job listings , bestseller lists, industry stats, a self-publishing partner, and more. 

4. Kirkus Reviews

Another one that’s been around since before the internet! 1933 to be exact. Kirkus is a widely recognized publication that book buyers & librarians follow carefully. I dare you to find a bookstore or library that doesn’t have multiple books with Kirkus Reviews plastered on their front and back covers.

5. Booklist

The American Library Association runs Booklist , a platform dedicated to helping libraries, educators, and booksellers choose books. They’ve got a magazine (since 1905!), book reviews, lists, awards, and one of my favorite bookish podcasts out there: Shelf Care .

6. Library Journal & School Library Journal

As you might be able to guess, Library Journal & School Library Journal focus on librarians too! They review a ton of books, and they write often about library-related news, collection management, technology, programs, and more. If you’re an author hoping to land your book in libraries, these are essential targets.

7. BookPage

You may have seen BookPage in your local library or bookstore. Some shops provide it for free so that patrons can look through it to find which books to buy in-store. Their website is clean and intriguing and always full of the most up-to-date releases and bestsellers.

Speaking of libraries! Have you seen our gifts for librarians ?

8. Foreword

Foreword is such an enthusiastic and dedicated champion of indie books, and they’ve been doing it since the 90s! I love how much attention university presses get here too. Their reviews are well-written & thorough, in both print & digital, and I always find something to speed-purchase once the Foreword Indie winners come out.

9. LoveReading

LoveReading is a top book-recommendation website in the UK. They’ve got starred reviews, lists, staff picks, a LitFest , eBooks, and they even donate 25% of the cover price of their books to schools of your choice. It’s reader-friendly and apparent how much they appreciate the wonder of books. 

10. Washington Independent Review of Books

What’s not to love about The Independent?

Back in 2011, a group of writers & editors were frustrated by newspapers dropping book review sections and decided to do something about it. The Washington Independent Review of Books is quite a lovely something! This nonprofit posts every day: from reviews to interviews to essays and podcasts. They host events too!

11. Book Riot

Try being a reader and not finding something you love on Book Riot. Book lists, podcasts, personalized recommendations, newsletters, book deals—this site is a haven.

It doesn’t post solo book reviews like other sites, but they do share mini-reviews in book lists and talk about reading in unique & passionate ways. The Book Riot Podcast is such a winner too! I love listening to Jeff & Rebecca laugh about the latest in books & reading.

12. Electric Lit

From novel excerpts to original short fiction & poetry, they might not only be a book review site,  but they do offer a lot in the world of book recommendations. Their Recommended Reading lit mag features unique staff picks and short, insightful book reviews.

13. The Millions

The writing in The Millions is something to behold. They are an artful source for all things book reviews & recommendations. They write stunning essays about books & reading and long reviews of new and old books. They’ve got some of my favorite Most Anticip ated lists too.

What are the biggest benefits of reading ? 🧐

14. Bookforum

Did you hear? Bookforum is back ! This book review magazine announced in December 2022 that they were closing, and my heart sank a little bit. This company means so much to the publishing industry and has for 20+ years, so when I saw (last week!) that they are returning, I did more than a few jumps for joy.

Welcome back, Bookforum! Can’t wait to see what you’ve got coming for us in book world coverage.

BOMB is in it for the art. Art, literature, film, music, theater, architecture, and dance. There are reviews and interviews, and the literature section is a real delight. The reviews are like poignant essays, and the author interviews are in-depth and feature some fascinating minds.

16. The Asian Review of Books

The only dedicated pan-Asian book review publication! It’s widely cited and features some of the best in Asian books and art, so booksellers and librarians have a source to trust to stock their collections with high-quality pan-Asian lit.

Have you seen our gifts for book lovers yet?

17. Chicago Review of Books

I love so much of what Chicago Review of Books does. They have a clean & sleek design that features some of the buzziest books as well as plenty of hidden gems from our favorite indie presses. I’m a particularly big fan of the spotlight they put on books in translation .

18. Rain Taxi

I love Rain Taxi ’s style! They champion unique books, publish their own fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and put a real emphasis on art for their magazine covers . It’s a beautiful print magazine to subscribe to, but they also share free online editions & digital archives. They even run the Rain Taxi Reading Series & Twin Cities Book Festival if you’re a real-lifer in Minnesota!

19. The Rumpus

Oh, The Rumpus ! This mostly volunteer-run online magazine publishes reviews, interviews, essays, fiction, and poetry. The reviews are in-depth and personal and heart-melting, and in addition to the site, they’ve got cool perks like the Poetry Book Club  and Letters in the Mail . The book club is where you get a pre-release book and meet the poet via Slack with other club members at the end of the month, and Letters in the Mail are actual postcards sent in the mail to you twice a month from your favorite authors.

20. Book Reporter

The selection in Book Reporter is carefully curated & enticing: hot new releases, forthcoming books, major presses, & indies. And there are plenty of unique ways to learn about them, like video interviews and monthly lists & picks. It launched in 1996 and is in The Book Report Network, which includes Reading Group Guides , a super useful resource for book clubs.

21. BookTrib .

BookTrib does such a great job of making their site browsable. The different ways you can enjoy what they offer—from book lists to giveaways to ebook deals —are difficult to keep your purchase finger off of.

23. Lit Reactor

Writers & readers—where bookish people meet! LitReactor’s book reviews are in the magazine portion of their website, and they’ve got plenty of them! Reviews, interviews, lists, introspectives, writing tips, and reading discussions. I’ve found some really unique content on Lit Reactor, like this ranking of literary parents . The website is a haven for writers especially, as there are workshops, writing blog posts, and even a forum to participate in.

24. Crime Fiction Lover

Dark alleys. Stray bullets. Hard-boiled detectives. Runaway thrills. If you’re a mystery-thriller reader, you’ve got to know about Crime Fiction Lover. They’ve got a passionate group of readers and writers talking about the best books in the genre and the ones that are soon to come out too.

25. SF Book Reviews

Speculative fiction fans unite! SF Book Reviews has been reviewing sci-fi and fantasy books since 1999, and while they’re a relatively small staff, they publish regularly, feature books of the month, and work wonders for their fantastical community.

26. Historical Novel Society

For all you historical fiction fans out there, the Historical Novel Society has reviewed more than 20,000 books in its twenty years. This one works like a membership for “writers and readers who love exploring the past.” You get a quarterly print magazine as a member, and if you’re a writer, you can join critique groups and ask for book reviews.

27. The Poetry Question

The Poetry Question writes about poetry published by indie presses and indie authors. They are a small passionate team dedicated to showing the world why indie presses continue to be a leading source for award-winning poetry.

28. Goodreads

Did you know that there are over 125 million members on Goodreads? When users review books, they can have conversations with fellow readers and follow reviewers too. If you’re looking for the biggest community, there’s no doubt Goodreads is the one. I like using sites like this because it helps you catalog books, one of my favorite ways to build a strong reading habit . 

29. The Storygraph

A big community of active users that’s Amazon free! Come review books, use half & quarter stars (!), and complete reading challenges. You got this.

29. Bookwyrm

Bookwyrm is small (around 5,000 members at the time of this writing), but doesn’t that sound kind of nice? There are active members and a genuine collective goal in talking books. Grow with it. I think you’ll be comfy here. There are other communities within the Bookwyrm umbrella too, like Bookrastinating .

30. Reedsy Discovery

I hold a special place in my heart for book review sites dedicated to helping writers! I got into this business as a book marketer, and I experienced first-hand, through hundreds of books, how hard it was to get exposure & validation for small press and self-published authors. 

Reedsy Discovery is a branch of Reedsy (the author resource company) that connects authors & reviewers so that people can read free books, sometimes receive tips for it, and authors can get more reviews in the process. Readers can choose from the latest books as well as the ones that are getting the best reviews.

31. Netgalley

Netgalley is a book review site for pre-released books. Reviewers sign up for a free account, request galleys from publishers and indie authors, and get to read them before they’re published so that they can leave reviews for the book, preferably on Amazon, Goodreads, or their blog. They also run Bookish , the editorial arm of Netgalley, which has book recommendations, interviews, and more.

32. Online Book Club

This review site combines a bunch of cool things! The 4-million member community gives me a lot of Goodreads vibes, especially with the Bookshelves app . But Online Book Club is a place for you to get eBook deals and talk about books in reviews and forums.

What are your favorite book review sites to follow? Let us know in the comments!

Thank you for reading “ Top-Notch Book Review Sites for Readers & Writers !” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

Share this:

4 comments on “ 30+ top-notch book review sites for readers & writers ”.

Pingback: 24 Dos & Don'ts of Book Publicity | Tips on Research, Pitching & More - Independent Book Review

Check out http://www.literaryvault.com for best book reviews and author interviews. The literary Vault is a blog run and owned by a 13-year-old passionate reader who loves to share her passion and recommendations with others.

Thank you for the information!

Book review sites serve as invaluable resources for both readers and writers, offering insightful critiques, recommendations, and discussions on a wide range of literary works. Whether you’re seeking your next captivating read or looking to promote your own book, these platforms provide a wealth of information and opportunities for engagement. https://ghostwritersplanet.com/

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Discover more from independent book review.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then   View saved stories .

• The Big Story
• Newsletters
• Steven Levy's Plaintext Column
• WIRED Classics from the Archive
• WIRED Insider
• WIRED Consulting

The Best Ebook Readers

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more . Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

Best Overall Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021, 11th Generation) Read more

A Color Kindle Alternative Kobo Libra Colour Read more

A Cheaper Color Screen Without Notes Kobo Clara Colour Read more

The Most Affordable Amazon Kindle (2022, 11th Generation) Read more

I dearly love a paperback book that I can bend, touch, smell, and display on my bookshelf when I’m done. But there’s no doubt that ebook readers (also called e-readers) make life easier—they might just make you read more too . E-readers let you carry thousands of books or dozens of audiobooks in a single, slim, rectangular tablet; they have paperlike screens that are easy on the eyes; and they won’t inundate you with distracting notifications. Books can also be expensive and take up a lot of physical space, but that’s not a problem with ebooks. Even better, you can check out digital books from a library without leaving your house.

Naturally, when you hear “e-reader,” you might think Kindle. Amazon makes the best ebook reader, which is why we have a separate Best Kindles guide that breaks down the entire lineup. But there are a few Kindle alternatives out there in case you don’t want to support Amazon or you just want a different set of features. WIRED’s Gear team has spent months, if not years, reading on these tablets—these are our favorites.

Updated June 2024: We've added Nook's newest Lenovo reading tablet.

Power up with unlimited access to  WIRED . Get best-in-class reporting that's too important to ignore for just  $2.50  $1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber-only content.  Subscribe Today .

How We Test E-Readers

The most important thing we do when testing e-readers is read on them! We spend hours reading a mix of books downloaded directly from the brand's store and from our local libraries via OverDrive/Libby. If there are extra features, like annotating books or separate notebook sections for writing and drawing, we spend a few more hours utilizing those tools too, all while keeping an eye on just how long the battery life lasts.

Best Overall

Amazon's Kindles are the best e-readers around. It's dead simple to get new ebooks from Amazon directly, and the Overdrive integration makes it easy to check out books from a local library instantly. E Ink screens in most ebook readers are a little slow when you interact with them, but Kindles are some of the most responsive devices on the market. It's worth noting that Kindles almost always see steep discounts a few times a year, particularly on Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday, so try to wait for a sale.

The Kindle Paperwhite is my favorite and I reach for it whether I want to read while in the waiting room at the doctor or I'm in hour six of a #booktok binge. I reviewed the Signature Edition ( 8/10, WIRED Recommends ), but the standard $150 model is quite capable too. I recommend paying a little extra for no ads. Both are waterproof, so you can read in the pool or tub without worry, and the 6.8-inch screens also have adjustable warm lighting so you can read in bed. The Signature supports wireless charging, has a front light that can adjust automatically, and has more storage at 32 gigabytes. But the 16 GB on the standard Paperwhite is plenty—it can hold thousands of books. There's a Paperwhite Kids Edition too, which we recommend below.

Check out our Best Kindles guide for more advice and recommendations.

A Color Kindle Alternative

Kobos have always been a close second to Kindle. The newest Libra Colour ( 8/10, WIRED Recommends ) brings it even closer, thanks to a fun color E Ink screen. You can highlight and mark up book pages, and also utilize the notebook section for notes, to-do lists, or doodles. It's pricey, and you'll need the $70 Stylus 2 for writing. It's still cheaper than the brand's Elipsa 2E and the Kindle Scribe, which are both meant for note-taking.

The Libra Colour is waterproof, has physical page-turn buttons (a feature I really like), and is made from recycled materials. There's Bluetooth support so you can connect headphones and listen to audiobooks, and Kobo slates have Overdrive integration, which makes reading library books simple. You get 32 gigabytes of storage and a speedy 7-inch screen, which has an adjustable front light and even a dark mode that offers up white text on a black background to make reading in the dark easier on the eyes. If you prefer, you can even read it in landscape mode. It's also repairable , though in testing, nothing needed fixing just yet.

A Cheaper Color Screen Without Notes

If you like the idea of a color screen but aren't going to write or doodle on an e-reader, consider Kobo's Clara Colour. It's more affordable, but you still get to see book covers or graphic novels in full color and you can highlight in color too. In testing, I found that some books weren't as easy on the eyes, like the blue and yellow color scheme of Curious George , but that was one small gripe in an otherwise seamless reading experience.

The Clara lacks page-turn buttons, but the 6-inch screen size is comfortable for one-hand use. It has 16 gigabytes of storage rather than 32, but that's still about 12,000 books. There's Overdrive integration and Bluetooth support. It's also waterproof, made from recycled materials, and is repairable . There are several other Kobo devices available too, including a new black-and-white Clara.

The Most Affordable

If you want to spend the least amount of money, you'll still get a great e-reader with the 16-gigabyte base Kindle. Its 6-inch screen is the smallest of its lineup, but that means it's easy to hold and read with one hand while sipping iced tea with the other. It's not waterproof, however, so no iced teas on a pool float. And there's no warm lighting or auto-adjusting light option here. Otherwise, you get the same ease of use as with any Kindle, and you can listen to audiobooks if you connect headphones or a speaker via Bluetooth.

Nooks Work Too

Barnes & Noble now has three Nook Glowlights available and a new Nook tablet made in collaboration with Lenovo (more on that below). The 4 Plus is the only waterproof option, and it has the biggest screen at 7.8 inches, with 32 gigs of storage. That screen size is a pleasure to read on. I love the physical page-turn buttons, and there's a headphone jack for listening to audiobooks—you can also connect a Bluetooth pair. It was often slower than my Kindle, though, and it had moments of freezing too.

Barnes & Noble has a large library with cheap and even free ebooks, but it isn't as good a selection as Kindle Unlimited—if you're following recommendations on #booktok, you might not find everything here. Also, the process of trying to get a book from the library on a Nook is beyond frustrating. Depending on what type of computer you have, you'll need to download either Adobe Digital Editions or Android File Transfer , before connecting the device to your computer physically, and then transfer the files. It feels very old-school when Kindle makes this process instantaneous.

You don't necessarily need a kid-specific e-reader, so you should go with whichever one you can afford. However, if you're like us and prefer Kindle's interface and ease of use, the brand has two specific models for tots. Both come with a free cover, a year of Amazon Kids+ , and a two-year worry-free warranty—if your kids are particularly accident-prone, you may appreciate this. A parent dashboard lets you adjust age filters and monitor reading progress too. Both come with their internet browsers restricted by default, and you can disable it if you’d like.

The Paperwhite Kids ($170) is waterproof and has the same adjustable warm light that the standard Paperwhite has—it also gets bright, with 17 LEDs. The newest base Kindle Kids ($120) is $50 less for the same 16 gigabytes of storage, but it isn't waterproof and doesn't have adjustable warm light.

For Heavy Note Taking

We’ve tried a few E Ink tablets meant for taking “handwritten” notes that can be organized and searched digitally. E-readers with that capability still prioritize reading. If the Kobo Libra Colour isn't big enough for your note-taking needs, you might prefer these two. The downside is the prices.

The $340 Kindle Scribe ( 8/10, WIRED Recommends ) and $400 Kobo Elipsa 2E ( 7/10, WIRED Review ) are just plain fun, thanks to the included styluses that allow you to mark up PDFs, create notebooks, and doodle. Both have whopping 10.3-inch screens for easy reading and writing. Kindles generally have nicer interfaces, but Kobo has one big advantage—it lets you mark up books directly, while the Scribe only allows you to make sticky notes.

You Can Use Your Phone or Tablet

You don't have to buy a separate device to read ebooks. Smartphones and tablets are perfectly viable for this purpose. You can use Amazon's Kindle app to read ebooks ( iOS , Android ), and even download OverDrive's Libby app ( iOS , Android ) for library book access anywhere as well. However, the E Ink screens found in e-readers are just plain nicer to look at—there's no getting around that fact. I also like that these devices are one-trick ponies; there are no notifications to be distracted by or social media feeds to doomscroll through .

If you'd still rather have one smart device you can read on and use for other purposes, take a look at our Best Tablets and Best iPads guides for recommendations.

A Cheaper Tablet From Nook

Nook and Lenovo have collaborated before to create affordable tablets with the Nook app built in. This is the latest model, and I enjoyed using it . As with the tablets mentioned above, you lose the E Ink screen and the distraction-free nature of an e-reader. You can at least turn off notifications while in certain apps, which I recommend doing for the Nook app.

It ships with an old version of Android, and it's not built for heavy work like video or photo editing, but if you only plan on using a tablet casually, most other options are too expensive. For reading sometimes and scrolling or playing games other times, $150 isn't a bad price.

How to Get Ebooks for Free

Ebooks can be cheap, but the cost can add up if you're rapidly flying through the digital pages. You should take advantage of your library card and check out ebooks instantly from the comfort of your home. We have a detailed guide that explains how to get free library books , but most library branches use OverDrive , often through the Libby app, making checking out library books online quite simple. These ebooks are automatically removed from your device and returned to the library when they're due.

There are a few Kindle-specific ways to get free ebooks too, if that's the device you end up with. You can subscribe to Kindle Unlimited for $12 a month , which includes millions of titles, including audiobooks and magazines. Amazon's Prime Reading also offers a handful of free books every month, which is good to know if you already have a Prime account . You can even lend books to friends and family for a short while (or have them share a book with you).

WIRED COUPONS

Save $7 To $23 On Turbo Tax Online

20% Off All H&R Block 2024 Tax Software | H&R Block Coupon

Enjoy $15 Off Your Orders With Instacart Coupon

2024 Student Discount 50% off Door Dash Dash Pass

2 for $40 on Select Kids' Hoodies & Joggers Finish Line Deal

Groupon Coupon: Extra 15% Off Any Size Order

Advertisement

• Electronics

The Best E-Reader

By Caitlin McGarry and Nick Guy

A dedicated ebook reader puts an entire library of books in the palm of your hand, without the distractions of a phone or tablet. E-readers are smaller than a paperback, last for weeks on a single charge, and give you an excellent reading experience. After testing every competitive ebook reader available in the US, we can say that Amazon’s cheapest Kindle is the best for almost everyone.

Everything we recommend

Amazon Kindle (2022)

The best e-reader for most people.

Amazon’s most affordable Kindle is also its most portable, with a 6-inch screen that has finally been upgraded with a higher pixel density for sharper text and support for USB-C charging. Those features bring it in line with far more expensive e-readers. The Kids version costs an extra $20 but comes with a slew of perks that make it an excellent option if you can spend a little more.

Buying Options

Upgrade pick.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021)

Larger screen and waterproof.

The waterproof Kindle Paperwhite is worth upgrading to if you want a bigger screen for reading more text at a time, if you want to adjust the color temperature as well as the lighting, and if you do a lot of reading at the beach or by a pool.

Rakuten Kobo Clara 2E

An amazon kindle alternative.

If you have no interest in buying into the Amazon ecosystem, Kobo e-readers are a solid option. This waterproof model splits the difference between the entry-level Kindle and the Kindle Paperwhite by giving you a 6-inch screen with adjustable light and color temperature for late-night reading. OverDrive integration makes checking out library books a breeze.

May be out of stock

The entry-level Amazon Kindle finally got an upgrade, with the same crisp display and USB-C charging as on the pricier Kindle Paperwhite (and double the storage space of the previous model). If you have $20 more to spend, the Amazon Kindle Kids is worth it even if you’re not a parent; it comes with a case, a year free of Amazon Kids+, a two-year warranty (compared with the standard version’s one year of coverage), and no ads. Getting rid of ads on the base model costs $20 alone. Amazon’s well-stocked store of ebooks remains its biggest selling point, along with the ease of checking out library books via Libby and sending them directly to a Kindle.

If you want a bigger display, the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite ’s 6.8-inch screen can showcase more text at a time than the 6-inch entry-level Kindle. Its 17 LEDs are a huge bump up from the basic Kindle’s four lights, and they let you adjust the lighting as well as the color temperature if warm or cool lighting is easier on your eyes. The Kindle Paperwhite is waterproof, too, so you can tote it to the beach or relax by the pool without worrying.

Kobo is one of Amazon’s few rivals when it comes to e-readers, and Rakuten’s Kobo Clara 2E is the best of the non-Amazon alternatives. With a 6-inch screen, 300 pixels per inch (ppi), and a body made of recycled plastic, it’s lightweight, portable, and a joy to read on, and it’s also waterproof for peace of mind when you’re reading by the pool or in the bathtub.

The research

Who this is for, why you should trust us, why you shouldn’t just read ebooks on an ipad, how we picked and tested, our pick: amazon kindle (2022), upgrade pick: amazon kindle paperwhite (2021), an amazon alternative: kobo clara 2e, what to look forward to, the competition, frequently asked questions.

An ebook reader is a dedicated device on which you read electronic books—usually those you buy from an ebook store, but also some you can download elsewhere (through your local public library, for example). Over the past few years, the prices of ebook readers have fallen dramatically while the hardware has improved significantly, and high-end features such as a backlit, high-resolution screen and waterproofing have become standard. If you don’t have an ebook reader, there’s never been a better time to get one.

If you have an ebook reader but struggle with finding light to read, get frustrated with slow page turns or low resolution, or merely hate how big your current device is, upgrading to a new one might be worthwhile.

Caitlin McGarry is Wirecutter’s senior editor overseeing technology coverage and has used multiple generations of Amazon Kindles, dating all the way back to the one with a physical keyboard (RIP). She has covered consumer technology devices—including e-readers, tablets, and smartphones—for more than a decade for Macworld, Tom’s Guide, Gizmodo, and other outlets. She has also written about why checking out ebooks from the library can be so complicated.

Nick Guy contributed reporting to this guide.

If you already own an iPad or another tablet, you might wonder why an ebook reader is necessary. And it’s not: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo all offer apps that allow you to access your library on an iOS or Android tablet or smartphone , and you can also use a tablet or phone to read ebooks from Apple Books (on iOS) and the Google Play store (on iOS and Android).

But if you’re a regular reader, dedicated e-readers are a better option for a number of reasons. Nonreflective, electronic-ink displays give you a more paperlike visual experience (including enjoyable reading outdoors and less eyestrain compared with an LCD or OLED screen), plus they’re lighter weight and offer significantly longer battery life. And a dedicated ebook reader offers fewer distractions—you won’t be tempted to mindlessly scroll through Instagram or watch a video on YouTube or TikTok. Being able to sync progress from an ebook reader app to the cloud means you can easily read a few pages on your phone or iPad and then pick it up again on whichever e-reader you own—it’s the best of both worlds.

Few companies make e-readers, and Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo are the only major hardware makers with digital bookstores to back up their respective devices.

Here’s what we looked for in determining the best ebook readers:

• Built-in lighting: Most e-readers provide their own light for reading in dark environments. Unlike tablets such as the iPad, ebook readers use a side-lighting system that provides a glow across the screen, rather than from behind it. Because this feature is so prevalent, we didn’t test any readers without it.
• Screen quality: We gave preference to devices with a pixel density of 300 dots per inch, the highest available in any ebook reader and what most models offer. Anything lower produces less-crisp text and images.
• Build quality and size: While most ebook readers are made of plastic, some feel better than others in your hands. The most common screen size is 6 inches, which is also the most portable. Newer e-readers pack larger screens into similarly sized bodies, which is a bonus.
• Battery life and storage: Most e-readers promise battery life somewhere between six and eight weeks, depending on usage, and offer 8 GB or 32 GB of storage. Because e-readers tend to be so similar in this regard, specs like these are less important than how good an ebook reader feels in the hand.
• Other features: Features like waterproofing and Bluetooth audio can make a good e-reader great, but they’re not required.
• Library: Ebook readers can’t stand on the strength of their hardware alone. Though all readers allow you to side-load unprotected content, it’s important that they provide easy access to a large library of commercial books.

The cheapest Amazon Kindle is also the best e-reader for most people. Its affordable price, portability, upgraded display, 16 GB of base storage, and USB-C charging compatibility check the most-important boxes, plus Amazon offers a massive ebook catalog that frequently offers better prices than the competition. Checking out ebooks from the library via the Libby app on a phone or tablet and then having them delivered to your Kindle is also fairly intuitive.

The screen is on a par with that of the pricier Kindle Paperwhite. The Kindle’s 6-inch display is smaller than the 6.8-inch Kindle Paperwhite display, but both E Ink screens are 300 ppi, so text is sharp and clear to read on both. And while the entry-level Kindle doesn’t have the same level of screen illumination as the Kindle Paperwhite—with just four front LEDs compared with the premium version’s 17 lights—it gets plenty bright enough. I had no issues reading in a dark bedroom, on a dimly lit plane, or poolside in direct sunlight. You don’t get the same color-temperature controls as on the Kindle Paperwhite, but if you’re not sensitive to warm or cool light, this model gets the job done.

The battery life is excellent, and the switch to USB-C is a godsend. The main reason I prefer reading on a Kindle compared with my phone or iPad is that I can go weeks—sometimes even a month or two if I’m reading very slowly—between charges. But as basically every modern tech device has moved to the USB-C charging standard, the cheapest Kindle stubbornly clung to Micro-USB. The 2022 Kindle finally caught up with 10-year-old technology, and now you can use the same USB-C charging cable that charges your laptop and Android phone to juice up your Kindle.

The base Kindle comes with double the base storage of the Kindle Paperwhite. If you have a huge ebook collection or like to listen to audiobooks on your Kindle, the 16 GB of storage in this model is a blessing. The Kindle Paperwhite comes with 8 GB; you have to pay more for 16 GB.

The Kindle ecosystem is huge. The collection of services that Amazon and its partners offer is a major reason we love Kindles in general. You can share purchased books with people on your Amazon Prime account; use X-Ray, which helps identify notable people and terms in your books; subscribe to the optional Kindle Unlimited service, which gives you on-demand access to a huge catalog of books for a flat rate every month; and opt for Amazon Kids+ , which provides access to kids books, movies, TV shows, and more (a free, one-year subscription is included with the Kindle Kids model, which costs an extra $20 but also comes with a cover, a longer warranty, and no ads).

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It’s not waterproof. I love a hotel pool, and the Kindle is the first thing I throw in my tote on vacation. But it doesn’t offer any water resistance, so I have to be extra careful to avoid splashes. Similarly, if you like to relax in the tub with an e-reader, the waterproof Kindle Paperwhite is a better bet for your peace of mind.

Downloading EPUB files requires some extra steps. Prior to 2022, Amazon didn’t offer support for EPUB files, the open-standard format for unprotected ebooks that’s common for public-domain and other freely available books. Now, Kindles are EPUB compatible, but loading them onto your e-reader requires extra work. You have to download the file on an iOS or Android device, find it in the phone’s Files app, and then use the “Send to Kindle” feature to send it wirelessly to your e-reader. You can also email an EPUB file to your Kindle’s email address, which sends the file directly to your Kindle. (To find that email address, log in to your Amazon account on the web, and then navigate to your devices. Click the name of your Kindle, and you’ll see an email address that ends in @kindle.com. Attach the EPUB file to an email sent to that Kindle address, and then sync your Kindle to see the file pop up.)

Kindles don’t have cell service. Previous generations had 3G connectivity, but newer models are Wi-Fi only. This isn’t a problem for most people, though, since it’s easy enough to load up on as many books as you might need when you do have access to Wi-Fi, and you don’t need to be connected to read them.

You have to pay $20 more to get a version without lock-screen ads. That’s annoying.

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite from 2021 is still just as good two years in, and if you need a few more bells and whistles than what the entry-level Kindle offers, it’s worth the extra money.

We used to recommend the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Kids —which is about $20 more than the base-model Kindle Paperwhite—because it comes with a cover, a two-year warranty, no lock-screen ads, and a free year of Amazon Kids+. That’s still a good deal, especially if it’s on sale. But with a list price of $180, the Kindle Paperwhite Kids is a little expensive for a device that was released two years ago, and the cheaper Kindle (or the Kindle Kids) might be a better option.

It has a nice, big screen. This display is a noticeable upgrade over the entry-level Kindle’s smaller, 6-inch screen. When you’re reading on the Kindle Paperwhite, you can easily turn a page with a tap or swipe. The screen is evenly lit across its entire surface, and the text is impressively crisp. Amazon also got the small details right: Tapping to call up a footnote, for example, opens it on the current page instead of taking you to a separate page, and you can dismiss the footnote with a simple tap. And actually hitting the footnote is easier than on other e-readers, thanks to a much larger touch target. It’s a little more challenging on the cheaper Kindle.

It offers precise control over brightness and color temperature. You can change how much blue light the Kindle Paperwhite’s screen emits, going from a typical white glow to a darker yellow in 24 increments, either manually or on an automatic schedule tied to sunset and sunrise. Wirecutter has written extensively about whether blocking blue light makes it easier to fall asleep (maybe) or helps you avoid eyestrain and headaches (probably not). Even if there’s no demonstrable benefit, color-temperature adjustment isn’t a bad feature to have and might just make for a more comfortable reading experience.

Did we mention it’s waterproof? Author Nick Guy tested the Kindle Paperwhite’s IPX8 waterproofing by submerging it in a pitcher of water for an hour; Amazon says it can survive for that long in water up to 2 meters deep. The e-reader worked just fine afterward, although we were surprised how much water came out of the USB-C port when we shook it. We could even hear water sloshing around inside, but after we kept it upright for a few minutes, the moisture was gone.

Seamless Audible integration is useful for audiobook lovers. You can pay for an Audible subscription or buy audiobooks à la carte. You have to use Bluetooth headphones or earbuds , however, because the Kindle Paperwhite doesn’t have a headphone jack. But the feature works well, and if you have both the ebook and audiobook version of a title, you can switch between reading and listening wherever you left off. You can also use the Bluetooth streaming for VoiceView, Amazon’s accessibility program that helps folks with low vision navigate the screen.

Amazon has dominated e-readers for many, many years, and for good reason. While we generally prefer the Kindle line’s hardware and ease of use, we’re glad Amazon isn’t the only good option. Kobo e-readers are very good, especially if you haven’t already bought into the Kindle ecosystem (owning a lot of Kindle books makes switching extremely difficult). For a first-time e-reader owner who’s platform-agnostic, or for someone who simply doesn’t like Amazon, Rakuten’s Kobo Clara 2E is a solid alternative.

This Kobo reader offers Kindle Paperwhite features for a Paperwhite price. The Kobo Clara 2E costs about the same as the Kindle Paperwhite, and while it feels a bit more like the regular Kindle in terms of materials and design, you get the same IPX8 waterproofing, adjustable screen brightness and color temperature, USB-C charging, and a 300 ppi E Ink screen for crisp, clear text.

It’s lightweight and portable. Like the entry-level Kindle, the Kobo Clara 2E has a 6-inch screen surrounded by a slightly raised bezel. Rakuten says it’s made from 85% recycled plastic, and though we didn’t independently confirm whether the company diverted plastic that was bound for oceans or landfills, it is lighter than the Kindle Paperwhite (but not quite as light as the basic Kindle).

Borrowing ebooks from the library is seamless. I prefer to check out books from my public library system rather than buy them because, well, they’re free, and Kobo makes borrowing ebooks even easier than Amazon does. The Kobo Clara 2E offers integration with OverDrive, a platform for borrowing ebooks from libraries, so you can link your public library account to OverDrive and then see options for purchasing a specific ebook from the Kobo Store or borrowing it from the library directly on the device itself—no need to navigate to a third-party website to send the ebook to your Kobo e-reader. (OverDrive has shut down its standalone app in favor of Libby, another ebook lending platform it owns, but Kobo devices’ OverDrive integration remains functional and works well.)

Rakuten will release three new Kobo e-readers on April 30, including two devices with color E Ink screens. The $150 Kobo Clara Colour and $230 Kobo Libra Colour will replace the company’s Clara 2E and Libra 2, which are being discontinued. A black-and-white version of the Kobo Clara will be available for $130. All three new e-readers are waterproof and support the same OverDrive integration as previous models, so buyers will be able to seamlessly check out library books on their devices. The Libra Colour is compatible with the $70 Kobo Stylus 2 and offers 32 GB of storage, whereas the Clara Colour and Clara BW only offer 16 GB of storage. We plan to test the new models to see how they compare to Amazon’s Kindles, which do not have color E Ink screens.

The Amazon Kindle Scribe is the first Kindle to support note-taking with an included stylus. The Scribe is much larger than the Kindle or Kindle Paperwhite, with a 10.2-inch screen at 300 ppi. E Ink tablets that let you read books and take notes have become more popular in recent years, and the Kindle Scribe is the latest in a line of steadily improving models. The included basic pen attaches magnetically to the e-reader and never needs to be charged. Although it’s a delight to use, for $340, you’re better off with a more full-featured tablet than a dedicated e-reader.

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (11th generation) is identical to the 2021 Paperwhite and Paperwhite Kids, save for three small differences: It has 32 GB of storage space (four times that of the other models), it supports Qi wireless charging, and the backlight automatically adjusts thanks to a sensor above the screen. These are all nice-to-have features, but they’re not worth the premium price for most people.

Amazon’s Kindle Oasis has an asymmetrical body (0.13 inch on the thinner edge, 0.33 inch on the thicker edge) with physical page-turn buttons along one edge. It has a 7-inch screen, it’s waterproof, and it offers an auto-brightness feature that automatically adjusts the screen’s brightness level based on ambient light. It also has a night-mode feature that shifts the display’s color temperature; you can set it to change automatically on a custom schedule or at sunrise and sunset, but it doesn’t automatically adjust based on ambient lighting conditions. Its starting price, about $250, is significantly higher than that of our top pick , so we can’t recommend it for most people.

In addition to the Clara 2E, Kobo has a handful of other options that offer more features for a higher price. The Kobo Libra 2 is our former also-great pick, and while it’s still very good, it’s also $180. The Kobo Sage has an even larger, 8-inch screen than the Kobo Libra 2 and offers a slew of custom accessories, including a charging cover and a stylus for note-taking. But those benefits come with a hefty $260 price tag, so unless you know you want to write on your e-reader’s screen or will definitely benefit from a larger display, it’s not worth the higher cost. The Kobo Nia is the company’s entry-level reader, but it’s pricier than an entry-level Kindle and has a lower-resolution screen.

Barnes & Noble is still making its Nook line of e-readers. We tested the $150 Nook GlowLight 4 and $100 GlowLight 4e . The GlowLight 4e’s low-res screen represents a huge downgrade from the entry-level Kindle. The GlowLight 4 is pricier than the Kindle Paperwhite but has a smaller screen and isn’t waterproof.

This article was edited by Jason Chen and Arthur Gies.

What is the difference between an e-reader and a tablet?

Unlike tablets, which can do as much as a laptop, ebook readers are (mostly) dedicated to one task: reading. The hardware and software are designed to make the reading experience top-notch. The monochromatic, E Ink screens on our picks render text sharply while using very little battery, but they’re not great for most other tasks. E-readers weigh less than tablets. And since they can do less, ebook readers are also generally cheaper.

Which e-reader is best for library books?

Both top e-reader lines—Amazon Kindle and Rakuten Kobo—support checking out books from your local public library. E-reader owners who relied on OverDrive to browse library ebooks in 2022 were shifted to Libby, which offers a similar experience. (Kobo devices have retained OverDrive integration even though OverDrive is being phased out for non-Kobo e-readers.) If you own a Kindle, you have to install the Libby app on your phone or log in to Libby on a computer and then send your checked-out books wirelessly to your e-reader.

Meet your guides

Caitlin McGarry

Caitlin McGarry is a senior editor at Wirecutter. She previously oversaw Gizmodo’s consumer technology coverage and has been reviewing Apple products and wearable devices for almost a decade.

Nick Guy is a former senior staff writer covering Apple and accessories at Wirecutter. He has been reviewing iPhones, iPads, and related tech since 2011—and stopped counting after he tested his 1,000th case. It’s impossible for him not to mentally catalog any case he sees. He once had the bright idea to build and burn down a room to test fireproof safes.

Further reading

The Best Tablets

by Wirecutter Staff

We think Apple’s 10.2-inch iPad is the best all-around tablet thanks to great hardware and apps. We also have picks for Android tablets, ebook readers, and more.

The Best Accessories for Your iPhone and iPad

by Dan Frakes, Nick Guy, and Wirecutter Staff

We’ve spent hundreds of hours over the past few years testing hundreds of iPhone and iPad accessories to find the best ones.

The Gadgets We Bring on Every Trip

by Ivy Liscomb

You don't have to be a digital nomad to travel like one. Here are a few gadgets and accessories to make travel as painless as possible.

The Best Early Amazon Prime Day Deals of 2023 (So Far)

Prime Day 2023 isn’t officially here yet, but some Prime Day deals already are. These are the best early Prime Day sales we’ve found so far.

• E-Reader Reviews

The best ebook reader to buy right now

From reading in the bath to scribbling notes in the margins, from diving into the amazon ecosystem to avoiding it outright, there’s an e-reader for everyone..

By Sheena Vasani , a writer covering commerce, e-readers, and tech news. She previously wrote about everything from web development to AI at Inside.

Share this story

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Writer’s note:  Amazon Prime Day will occur on July 16th and 17th . While we don’t know what deals the event will bring, we expect to see discounts on many of the e-readers featured in this guide. Until then, stay up to date with our roundup of the best early Prime Day deals .

Any ebook reader will let you cram a Beauty and the Beast -sized library’s worth of books in your pocket, but so will your phone. An ebook reader offers a more book-like reading experience, with fewer distractions and less eye strain, and many include extra features, like adjustable frontlighting. Some really are pocketable. Others are waterproof or offer physical page-turning buttons, while a few even let you take notes.

What I’m looking for

How easy is it to use and read on? A sharp display and relatively fast performance are essential to an enjoyable reading experience, as are size and weight.

Build quality

Some e-readers come with different features, like waterproofing, which means you really can read anywhere. Others offer buttons that make using the e-reader more intuitive to use. 

Supported content types

There must be easy, direct access to a wide selection of digital titles, which includes audiobooks as well as various file formats.

Affordability

Is the price justified, given what the e-reader offers?

I’ve been using ebook readers for nearly a decade, and I’ve gone hands-on with dozens, from the Kindle Paperwhite to lesser-known rivals like the Pocketbook Era. Whether you want something your kid can throw against the wall or a waterproof, warm-glow Kindle that won’t ruin your spa ambiance, these are the best ebook readers for everyone. 

The best Kindle

2021 Kindle Paperwhite (16GB, with ads)

Amazon’s latest Kindle Paperwhite has a 6.8-inch E Ink display with adjustable color temperature for nighttime reading. It also boasts a fast processor, months-long battery life, IPX8 waterproofing, and a USB-C port.

Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.9 x .32 inches / Weight: 205 grams / Screen area and resolution : 6.8-inch screen, 300ppi resolution / Storage: 16GB / Other features: IPX8 waterproofing, Bluetooth audio support 

If you mostly buy ebooks from Amazon, you’ll want a Kindle, and the 11th-gen Kindle Paperwhite is the best choice for most people. Starting at $139.99, it’s cheaper than the Kobo Libra Colour — my top non-Amazon ebook reader, which I’ll dive into later — for many of the same features. Those include a large 300pi display and an adjustable warm white frontlight, which make for a clear and enjoyable reading experience. The latter also conveniently improves sleep by cutting down on blue light that interrupts melatonin production. 

That warm white frontlighting is an advantage over the cool white of the $99.99 base-model Kindle, and unlike the base Kindle, the Paperwhite has IPX8 water resistance. The $189.99 Signature Edition Paperwhite also has an auto-adjusting frontlight and no lockscreen ads. It also has wireless charging, which is a rare feature to find in an e-reader.

Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world, and it dominates the US ebook market, so Kindle owners have access to advantages owners of other ebook readers don’t. Much of Amazon’s hardware strategy depends on offering cut-rate discounts to pull you into its content ecosystem. If you have Prime and buy a lot of Kindle ebooks, the Paperwhite is the best choice because Amazon makes it incredibly easy to buy and read its stuff. Its ebooks and audiobooks are often on sale, and Prime members get more free content through Prime Reading. Rivals like Kobo offer sales, too, but it’s hard for them to offer discounts as steep as Amazon does.

• Here are the best Kindle deals right now
• Amazon is making it easier to browse your entire library of books
• Heck yeah, an E Ink phone that makes sense

There are downsides, though. The Paperwhite has lockscreen ads unless you pay $20 extra to get rid of them. It’s also too big to hold comfortably with one hand. Perhaps the Kindle Paperwhite’s biggest flaw, though — which it shares with all Kindles aside from Fire tablets — is that it’s not easy to read books purchased outside of Amazon’s store. Kindle ebook formats are proprietary and only work on Kindle. Unlike Kobo and other ebook readers, Kindles don’t support EPUB files, an open file format used by pretty much everyone except Amazon. So, for example, if you often shop from Kobo’s bookstore (or Barnes & Noble or Google Play Books or many other ebook stores), you can’t easily read those books on a Kindle without using a workaround. There are ways to convert and transfer file formats so you can read on the Kindle and vice versa, but it’ll take a couple of extra steps.

However, if you don’t buy your books elsewhere or you don’t mind shopping from Amazon, you’ll be more than happy with the Kindle Paperwhite.

Read our Kindle Paperwhite review .

The best non-amazon ebook reader.

Kobo Libra Colour (32GB, ad-free)

The Kobo Libra Colour is a color e-reader with physical page-turning buttons and a 7-inch E Ink display. It also boasts IPX8 waterproofing and compatibility with the Kobo Stylus 2.

Dimensions: 5.69 x 6.34 x 0.33 inches / Weight: 199.5 grams / Screen area and resolution: 7-inch screen, 300ppi (black-and-white), 150ppi (color) / Storage: 32GB / Other features: Physical page-turning buttons, waterproofing, Kobo Stylus 2 support, Bluetooth audio support 

The Kobo Libra Colour is an excellent alternative to Amazon’s ebook readers, especially for readers outside the US or anyone who doesn’t want to tap into Amazon’s ecosystem. Kobo’s latest slate offers many of the standout features found on the 11th-gen Kindle Paperwhite — including waterproofing, USB-C support, and a 300ppi display — along with a few perks that make it more helpful and enjoyable to use.

The color display is the most obvious. The Libra Colour uses E Ink’s latest Kaledio color screen technology, which provides soothing, pastel-like hues that still pop in direct sunlight. It’s not as sharp as reading in monochrome — the resolution drops to 150ppi when viewing content in color — but it’s a nice touch that makes viewing a wider range of content more pleasant. Book covers and comics, while still muted, have an added layer of depth, even if the colors are nowhere near as vivid as that of a traditional LED tablet.

Additionally, the Libra Colour works with the Kobo Stylus 2 ( sold separately ), which means you can highlight text with various colors or take notes using Kobo’s integrated notebooks. You can also take advantage of some of the more advanced capabilities found in the Kobo Elipsa 2E, allowing you to solve math equations, convert handwriting into typed text, and insert diagrams. This lets the Libra Colour function as a mini notebook of sorts, though I wouldn’t use it as a primary note-taking device since the seven-inch display can feel cramped to write on.

• How to send books to your Kindle — even if they’re not from Amazon
• That fancy color E Ink looks neat under a microscope

The color display is only part of the appeal, though. The Libra Colour also lacks lockscreen ads — unlike the base Paperwhite — and packs physical page-turning buttons, which feel more intuitive to use than tapping either side of the display. The speedy e-reader also supports more file formats, including EPUB files, and makes it much easier to borrow books from the Overdrive library system. Native support for Pocket, meanwhile, means you can read your articles offline if you’re someone who uses the long-standing bookmarking app.

However, at $219.99, the Libra Colour costs $70 more than the entry-level Paperwhite — and that’s without Kobo’s $69.99 stylus, which is required for performing certain tasks. That gap widens further when the Paperwhite is on sale, which it regularly is. There’s also the fact that the Kobo can’t easily tap into Amazon’s vast library of ebooks, which can be frustrating if you’ve amassed a collection of Kindle titles over the years. It can be done, but you have to convert file formats using third-party apps, which is tricky and can take time.

But if those things don’t matter or apply to you, the Kobo Libra Colour will give you the best digital reading experience of all the e-readers on our list. It’s my personal favorite, if nothing else.

Read our Kobo Libra Colour review.

The best cheap ebook reader.

2022 Amazon Kindle (16GB, with ads)

Amazon’s new entry-level Kindle is essentially the budget-friendly, 6-inch version of the Kindle Paperwhite. It lacks waterproofing but otherwise is similar with the same sharp display and USB-C support.

Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.3 x 0.32 inches / Weight: 158 grams / Screen area and resolution : 6-inch screen, 300ppi resolution / Storage: 16GB / Other features: USB-C support, Bluetooth audio support 

The base-model Kindle ($99.99 with ads) is the best cheap ebook reader. Its 300ppi resolution makes text clearer and easier to read than the lower-resolution screens on other ebook readers in its price range. Plus, it even has USB-C for relatively fast charging. 

Reading on its six-inch screen feels a little more cramped than it does on the larger displays of the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Libra Colour. However, the flip side is that its small size makes it pocketable, light, and easy for small hands to hold. Combined with its relatively affordable price, the Kindle is also the best ebook reader for kids — especially in the kids version Amazon sells for $20 more. It shares the same exact specs but is ad-free with parental controls, a two-year extended replacement guarantee, and a case. It also comes with one year of Amazon Kids Plus, which grants kids access to thousands of kids books and audiobooks for free. After that, though, you’ll have to pay $79 per year.

The base Kindle doesn’t have extra conveniences like the physical page-turning buttons found on Barnes & Noble’s entry-level e-reader, the Nook GlowLight 4e . However, you do get something more important: snappier responses. On most of the other entry-level ebook readers I tested, including the GlowLight 4e, I had to wait a few seconds after tapping the screen for the page to turn. The Kindle, in comparison, offered no perceptive lag.

There are other tradeoffs. There’s no water resistance, unlike the Paperwhite, and battery life is good, but it’ll last you three weeks tops — not months, like the Paperwhite. And because it’s an Amazon ebook reader, you’re also locked into the Amazon ecosystem and have to pay extra to get rid of ads. But if you can do without all of that, the Kindle delivers the essentials for under $100.

Read our Kindle review .

The best ebook reader for taking notes.

Kobo Elipsa 2E

The Kobo Elipsa 2E is an ad-free 10.3-inch e-reader you can write on with the included stylus. It offers a whole host of useful features, like the ability to convert handwriting to typed text and a great selection of pen types.

Dimensions: 7.6 x 8.94 x 0.30 inches / Weight: 390 grams / Screen area and resolution : 10.3-inches, 227ppi resolution / Storage: 32GB / Other features: Handwriting to text conversion, magnetic stylus, Bluetooth audio support 

Of all the large ebook readers I tested, the Kobo Elipsa 2E stood out the most because of its excellent note-taking abilities. You can directly write on pages, and the notes will not disappear, which makes for a more intuitive note-taking experience than the Kindle Scribe , which only supports on-page notes on select Kindle titles. Otherwise, you’re limited to making annotations on cards that are like disappearing sticky notes. 

You can also sync your notes with Dropbox or view them online, and Kobo can even convert handwriting to typed text. Amazon rolled out a similar capability for the Kindle Scribe, but it can only convert handwriting to typed text when you export notebooks and not as accurately. By contrast, Kobo lets you convert your handwriting not just while exporting but also from within a notebook itself.

The Elipsa 2E also offers other helpful note-taking tools. Like the Kobo Libra Colour, it’s capable, for example, of solving math equations for you. You can also insert diagrams and drawings, and it’ll automatically snap them into something that looks cleaner and nicer. There’s also a great selection of pen types and ink shades. 

• Is E Ink finally ready for prime time?

The Boox Palma is an amazing gadget I didn’t even know I wanted

• The Playdate makes a surprisingly good e-reader

True, the Kindle Scribe starts at $60 less, but the Kobo Elipsa 2E comes with twice the storage. You can step up to the 32GB Kindle Scribe if you want the same storage capacity, but that puts it at essentially the same price as the Kobo. I recommend just forking out the money on the Elipsa 2E instead.

I also recommend the Elipsa 2E over the Onyx Boox Note Air 2 Plus, even though it, too, offers much better writing tools than the Kindle Scribe. That’s because it costs a whopping $449 and also isn’t as readily available in the US market. The Onyx Boox Note Air 2 Plus also comes with too many distracting extras, like an easy-to-access music player and the Google Play app store preinstalled so you can download multiple reading apps, including both the Kindle and Kobo apps. However, Kindle and Kobo notes didn’t show up on the Onyx Boox Note Air 2 Plus — and you can’t annotate their books anywhere as easily as you can on their respective devices.

Note-taking capabilities aside, the Kobo Elipsa 2E is also a good e-reader, but it comes with the same strengths and weaknesses as other Kobo e-readers. There’s support for a wide range of file formats, but you can’t easily read Kindle books without converting them first. Its 227ppi display is also slightly less sharp than the 300ppi screen found on the Kindle Scribe and the Kobo Libra Colour. However, the 10.3-inch screen does balance things out a bit and makes text easier to read, so it’s not really a noticeable drawback.

Other ebook readers that didn’t make the cut

There are some other ebook readers I tested that I didn’t feature above but are still worth highlighting. Here are the most notable:

Kobo Clara Colour

If you’re looking for a non-Amazon alternative that’s more affordable than the Kobo Libra Colour, the new Kobo Clara Colour — the successor to the Kobo Clara 2E — is worth a look. At $149.99, the ad-free e-reader costs more than the Kobo Clara 2E (which you can still buy), but I think it’s worth the extra $10. It continues to offer the same six-inch display and IPX8 waterproof design, but the e-reader now offers color. Plus, it’s noticeably faster — something I was happy to see, considering the occasional lag on the Clara 2E sometimes got on my nerves. You don’t get the Clara Colour’s physical buttons or stylus support, but that’s a fair tradeoff at this price point.

I’m currently waiting to get my hands on the $280 Boox Palma , which my colleague David Pierce is a big fan of . The smartphone-sized, 6.1-inch ebook reader runs on Android and can access the Google Play Store, meaning you can download a wider selection of apps, from Amazon’s own Kindle app to various note-taking apps. That said, it’s too slow to really use apps that could be distracting, like TikTok or Instagram, so you probably don’t need to worry about losing focus or distractions in the same you would with a tablet or a more capable device. I’m curious to see how it holds up against other e-readers I’ve used, even if I haven’t tested many small-screen models.

Nook Glowlight 4 Plus

In 2023, Barnes and Noble released the new Nook Glowlight 4 Plus . If you own a lot of digital books from Barnes and Noble, this could be a good Kindle alternative. Otherwise, I’d still recommend the Kobo Libra Colour to everybody else. The $199.99 Nook Glowlight 4 Plus is a good e-reader with a lot to offer, including a lovely 300ppi screen, waterproofing, physical page-turning buttons, and even a headphone jack. However, it’s just not as snappy, which makes setting it up, buying books from the device itself, and navigating the interface a slow ordeal. It didn’t help that the screen sometimes froze, too, which meant I had to restart the device while in the middle of a book.

Kindle Oasis

Finally, I didn’t mention the Kindle Oasis , which has physical page-turning buttons, a larger screen, and was considered a high-end device when it launched in 2019. Amazon no longer lists the aging e-reader in its official Kindle lineup , however, and it lacks some features even the base model offers, including USB-C. That makes it less appealing at $249.99 — that is, assuming you can even find it in stock. If you’re willing to pay that much for a high-end reader, I’d take a look at the Kobo Libra Colour instead.

Update, July 11th: Updated to include a link to our review of the Kobo Libra Colour and Kobo Clara Colour and mention the Boox Palma, as well as to accommodate various price changes.

This is Sonos’ next flagship soundbar

Samsung’s galaxy ring could be the one ring to rule an ecosystem, samsung galaxy watch ultra hands-on: ultra déjà vu, early apple tech bloggers are shocked to find their name and work have been ai-zombified, microsoft is hiking the price of xbox game pass ultimate and launching a new ‘standard’ tier.

More from E-Reader Reviews

Kobo’s great color e-readers are held back by lock-in

Neck lamps are a bookworm’s best friend

Kobo Clara 2E review: slow reader

Trusted Reviews is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a commission. Learn more.

Best E-Reader 2024: Our top recommended choices

Choosing the perfect e-reader can prove to be a challenging task, particularly given the array of 2024 models that may look quite similar, but differ significantly in pricing.

We’ve compiled the ultimate list of the best e-readers presently available, picking out our top picks for specific tasks. While many will use an e-reader purely for books, modern devices often have multiple uses and we’ll delve into these below.

We employ a team of product experts who have rigorously tested all the prominent products in the e-reader market, from Amazon to Kobo and Onyx. Not every model we review makes this list, as we want to ensure we’re only recommending the very best devices.

Every e-reader included below has been thoroughly tested, with an evaluation of its features and functionality. Factors such as battery life, display quality, e-book selection, and overall design have all been carefully considered as we know these are very important parts of any device.

It is important to be aware that e-readers have a much longer lifecycle than phones and tablets. Top models often receive updates only every few years, with some lasting even longer than that. As a result, you’ll find some slightly older devices on our list – we’re still confident these are fantastic devices.

Most of those listed below are focused purely on reading or taking notes, rather than trying to accomplish all your tasks, like a tablet. If you want a device for watching Netflix, checking emails and playing games – our lists of the best tablets and the best iPads will fit your needs. We also have dedicated lists for the best budget tablet and best Amazon Fire tablet.

Best e-reader at a glance

• Best e-reader: Kindle Paperwhite (2021) – check price
• Most capable e-reader: Onyx Boox Tab Ultra – check price
• Best with physical buttons: Kindle Oasis – check price
• Best budget: Kindle (2022) – check price
• Best portable e-reader: Onyx Boox Palma
• Best to take notes: Kobo Elipsa 2E – check price
• Best Kindle alternative: Kobo Clara 2E – check price
• Best for kids: Kindle Kids (2022) – check price
• Best colour e-reader: Kobo Libra Colour – check price

How we test

E-readers are focused devices and so we review them differently from tablets. There’s much less of a focus on performance and having a long list of features, instead what’s important here is a great screen that’s easy on the eyes, a portable form factor that’s easy to leave in a bag and a long battery life.

• Excellent screen
• Durable design
• Not much support for content that isn’t from Amazon
• Physical buttons for flipping pages would be welcome

• Full access to the Google Play Store
• Fast performance in spite of its e-ink technology
• Writing is smooth and fluid
• The keyboard accessory makes sense here
• The UI lacks the simplicity of the Remarkable 2
• Accompanying app needs some work

• Big and sharp display
• Page-turning buttons are great
• New “warmth” display setting is nice on the eyes
• With the Paperwhite being so good, the oasis is a hard sell
• Lack of USB-C is annoying
• Minimal updates from the previous model

• Compact size sets it apart from the larger Paperwhite and Oasis
• Very sharp display makes reading a pleasure
• The switch to USB-C is welcome
• Access to Amazon Prime’s ebook and audiobook ecosystem
• Slight price increase
• Misses out on a waterproof body
• Feels a bit cheap

• Sharp screen
• Durable, comfortable design
• Can install Android apps
• Outdated software
• Interface issues on some apps
• No mention of long-term software support

• Extensive file support
• Dropbox, OverDrive and Pocket support
• Powerful handwriting recognition
• Ability to annotate your eBooks
• Performance isn’t amazing
• Not as premium-feeling as Kindle
• Odd unresponsiveness bug
• Stylus needs charging separately

• Tidy, easy to grip recycled design
• OverDrive and Pocket support
• Strong display
• Slightly sluggish performance
• Lacks Dropbox support from more expensive models
• Lack of storage options

• Excellent, sharp display
• Two-year guarantree
• Free access to Kids+
• It’s literally an Amazon Kindle (2022) with a jacket
• Kindle Kids+ not a comprehensive library
• Not waterproof
• The colour screen does have some benefits
• The software is really good and has many features not available on Kindle devices
• Proper page-turn buttons
• The whole package is expensive
• Kobo store is hard to navigate and not as good as Amazon’s alternative

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021)

The best e-reader.

Out of all the e-readers we’ve reviewed, the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is the best pick for most people. 

It has a roomy 7-inch display that produces sharp text, a waterproof body ideal for pool or bathtub reading and, unlike the far more expensive Kindle Oasis, it sports USB-C charging. This means you can use the same charger you would for any recent Android phone or laptop. The Paperwhite really just ticks all the boxes our reviewer looked for during testing, including lasting for multiple weeks on a single charge.

Amazon expanded the screen slightly when compared to the previous model and we think for most people, the slightly bigger display makes reading easier and more engaging. If you want a smaller Kindle then the base model is the one to plump for.

The rest of the features are fairly similar to the rest of the Kindle range. They all have access to Amazon’s book store, support Audible audiobooks and services like Prime Reader and Kindle Unlimited. If you don’t want to be stuck in the Amazon ecosystem, we’d suggest the Kobo or Onyx Boox Note Air 2 Plus as they work with a wider range of services.

Amazon also sells a Signature Edition of the Paperwhite, which packs in 32GB as opposed to 8GB of storage making it a smarter pick for those who want to load in with audiobooks. There’s an auto dimming display too, and wireless charging.

Reviewer : Max Parker

Full Review: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Review

Onyx Boox Tab Ultra

The most capable e-reader.

The Onyx Boox Tab Ultra is a little different to other options we’ve listed here as it doubles as a pretty decent tablet thanks to the fact that it runs Android 11, complete with the Google Play Store.

Many of the apps aren’t quite suited to the e-ink display but it does allow you to download the Kindle app and read books from your Amazon library, making it unique among non-Kindle alternatives. If you’re looking to jump ship from Kindle without losing access to your library, the Tab Ultra is a solid option.

Our reviewer found the 10.3-inch e-ink display to be nice to read on, with a faster refresh rate (several options to choose from) than most Kindle alternatives adding to the premium experience. You’ve also got the benefit of a backlit display with both cool and warm settings to choose from depending on the environment you’re in.

The bundled stylus also helps differentiate the Tab Ultra from most other e-readers, offering an accurate pen-writing experience ideal for taking notes and doodling, though the lack of a paper-like textured display means it doesn’t feel quite as true to life as the likes of the Remarkable 2.

However, the far more power-hungry operating system and larger display mean the life provided by the 6,300mAh battery isn’t measured in weeks, but rather days. Our reviewer said it lasted a week with comfortable use with around 30% remaining, but that’s a far cry from the weeks of use from most other e-readers.

Reviewer : Thomas Deehan

Full Review: Onyx Boox Tab Ultra review

Kindle Oasis

 the best e-reader with physical buttons.

The Kindle Oasis is a luxury e-reader, but one that’s crying out for a hardware refresh after many years. With that being said, we’d only recommend this to someone who really wants physical buttons for flipping through pages – for everyone else the Kindle Paperwhite is a better pick.

Where the Oasis shines is in its design. This is the only metal e-reader from Amazon and it feels great, especially with the slim tapered design. It’s also the only Amazon reader, and the only one on this list, to come in a 4G option – ideal for those who travel a lot and want to download books away from Wi-Fi.

Like the Paperwhite, the Oasis is waterproof and can survive an accidental drop in a bath, has a sharp 7-inch display with a strong light and a battery that’ll last a few weeks depending on how often you read.

It misses out on wireless charging, sticks with the older Micro USB charging and is a little too expensive for our liking, however, which is why it’s not the one we recommend to most people.

Reviewer: Max Parker

Full Review: Kindle Oasis

Amazon Kindle (2022)

The best budget kindle.

While the Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Oasis pack higher-end features, the Kindle (2022) provides those with a smaller budget a very good reader which impressed our reviewer very much.

The big upgrade over the previous base-level Kindle here is the display. A higher resolution gives a crisper reproduction of text that’s easier to read and more comfortable on the eyes. There’s still a backlight too, so you can read at night. The light isn’t as bright or even as the Oasis or Paperwhite, yet it more than gets the job done.

Another big upgrade – and something you won’t even find on the Kindle Oasis – is a modern USB-C port for charging the multi-week-long battery. It not only charges faster, but you’ll likely have a USB-C charger lying around from a laptop, tablet, recent Android phone or even a Nintendo Switch.

Of course, sacrifices have been made to reach the lower price. There’s no IP rating for waterproofing, no wireless charging, no cellular option and a smaller 6-inch display that doesn’t sit flush with the bezel.

Full Review: Amazon Kindle (2022)

Onyx Boox Palma

The best portable e-reader.

Most e-readers follow a rather standard design formula, closely resembling that of a page of a book. It makes sense, given what most people are doing with the devices. However, Amazon competitor Onyx has thrown the rulebook out of the window with the Onyx Boox Palma , a new e-reader with a surprisingly smartphone-like design.

That means that the Palma, with its 6.13-inch E Ink Carta Plus display, is much more compact than even the pocket-friendly Kindle (2022) , making it both easy to hold when reading and a doddle to slot into a pocket or a bag.

Crucially, it still performs well as an e-reader, with exceptional performance even in the brightest conditions. Its 824 x 1648 resolution may not beat the FHD+ of regular smartphones, but it’s more than enough for crisp, legible e-reader text.

And, like other Onyx and Kobo e-readers, the Palma boasts support for Android 11, providing access to Google Play and all its apps. That means you can access your Kindle library as well as a host of other e-book offerings, as well as regular apps like YouTube, though the latter isn’t recommended for any device with an E Ink display. Still, it’s there if you need it!

Reviewer: Sean Cameron

Full Review: Onyx Boox Palma review

Kobo Elipsa 2E

The best e-reader for notes.

The Kobo Elipsa 2E is the latest e-reader from the Kindle competitor, offering a high-end alternative to the Kindle Scribe with great note-taking functionality thanks to the Kobo Styus 2.

Made from recycled and ocean-bound plastic, the Kobo Elipsa 2E sports a 10.3-inch e-ink Carta 1200 touchscreen that isn’t quite as pin-sharp as smaller and cheaper e-readers, but that doesn’t stop text from being nice and legible. ComfortLight PRO tech helps to reduce blue light and ease eye strain with a shifting hue from cool blue to warm orange, it’s just a shame there isn’t auto-brightness to further improve that experience.

Still, the display itself isn’t the main reason to get the Elipsa 2E: it’s the Kobo Stylus 2 and, more specifically, the cool software the Kobo e-reader offers. While you can get other e-reader and stylus combos, Kobo goes a step further with features like surprisingly accurate handwriting-to-text conversion and the ability to annotate your e-books, making notes in the margins or underlining or highlighting the text with ease.

If Amazon’s Kindle range is a walled garden, Kobo is an open vista, supporting 15 different e-reader file formats without making you jump through hoops to access those not directly purchased from the Kobo Store – though that doesn’t extend to the Kindle file format unsurprisingly. You can also import files from the likes of DropBox and Google Drive.

Performance can occasionally be sluggish, but it’s more than enough for a causal e-reader user.

Reviewer: Jon Mundy

Full Review: Kobo Elipsa 2E review

Kobo Clara 2E

The best kindle alternative.

There’s really only one reason to buy the Kobo Clara 2E – but that reason could be big enough to make this dinky reader a worthwhile purchase. And the reason is that it’s free from Amazon, using Kobo’s store instead.

You can also borrow books from certain local libraries and load it up with ePub files you’ve downloaded elsewhere, offering support for 15 of the most popular file formats around. It doesn’t offer support for Dropbox cloud transfer like the more premium Kobo Elipsa 2E though.

Outside of this, the device is comparable with the budget Kindle. It’s small and light, with a great display, IPX8 water resistance and weeks of battery life. Just don’t expect to be able to access your Amazon Kindle library once you jump ship.

Full Review: Kobo Clara 2E

Kindle Kids (2022)

The best e-reader for kids.

The Amazon Kindle Kids (2022) is functionally the same as the Kindle (2022) listed above, so all that applied there also applies here, but with a more child-friendly spin that makes it one of the best e-readers to get your kids into reading.

That starts with a protective case that ships with the e-reader, available in a couple of colourful designs to make it more appealing to the little ones while still being effective at warding off knocks to the corners and the display. Strong magnets keep the case securely in place, even if thrown in a school bag.

The Kindle Kids also comes with an extended two-year worry-free guarantee, with even accidental damage being covered by Amazon. If it breaks, send it back to Amazon and it’ll replace it completely free of charge.

There’s also the child-friendly Kindle Kids UI which gamifies aspects of reading, awarding achievements for reading your daily reading quota, finishing a book and more. There’s also a built-in vocabulary builder that can make note of words that the child has looked up for later reference, and you’ll only see kid-friendly books pushed to the forefront of the store too.

Throw in a free one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+, providing access to over 1000 kid-friendly e-books, and you’ve got the perfect e-reader for children.

Full Review: Amazon Kindle Kids (2022) review

Kobo Libra Colour

The best colour e-reader.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Amazon’s Kindle range that offers more ways to purchase e-books and most importantly, a colour screen, then you really can’t find much better than the Kobo Libra Colour.

Unlike tablets which typically feature an OLED screen, the Libra Colour uses the same E Ink technology found in other e-readers, just with colour. This addition of colour naturally makes reading graphic novels and illustrated books feel much more complete. 

Even if you favour novels with little to no images, colour has been added to the homescreen and gives life to book covers in your library and the Kobo store. You’ll also be able to see book covers in full colour when the Libra is put to sleep too, with the colours replicating that of printed paper. 

You can bring the Kobo Stylus into the mix which lets you easily highlight book passages in various colours. With an RRP of £70/$70 however this is a handy albeit pricey addition. 

To make reading easier at all times, there’s a backlight for night reading which can take on warmer tones to make it easier on your eyes when reading in the dark. 

Equally, if you plan on reading poolside this summer or tend to read in the bath then you’re in luck as the Libra Colour features an IPX8 rating, meaning it can be left in two metres of water for up to an hour. 

Unlike Kindle, Kobo offers a lot more choice where software is concerned and doesn’t require you to buy from Kobo’s store. There’s also OverDrive integration, which lets you borrow e-books from your local library.

There is, however, no support for Audible so you will need to either use Kobo’s audiobook store or subscribe to the monthly Kobo Plus service.

Charged via USB-C, the Libra Colour promises a long battery life which we estimate should last up to a month. We found after a week’s use and finishing one book, the Libra Colour went from 100%-70%.

Full review: Kobo Libra Colour

We also considered…

This tablet has an E-ink display that’s easy on the eyes

The Kobo Libra H20 offers a cut-price alternative to the Kindle Oasis, but it’s mixed news on the new UI front

An answer to our prayers? It now has a front light

Can this pricey reader rival the Kindle Oasis?

We’ve reviewed

Books bought from the Amazon Kindle Store have DRM, and can only be read through the Amazon Kindle app or on a Kindle device.

No, there is a Kindle app available for various platforms that allows you to read downloaded books.

You might like…

Best Soundbar: Upgrade your TV audio

Best Wireless Headphones 2024: Our top-rated wireless over-ear, on-ear and earbuds

Best Noise Cancelling Earbuds: Top picks to block out noise tested

Best Gaming Headset 2024: Console and PC options tested

Best Carpet Cleaners 2024: Remove household stains quickly with our top picks

Best Samsung TV: The best 4K and 8K models

Max is the Editor of Trusted Reviews, and has been a mobile phone and technology specialist for over nine years. Max started his career at T3 straight after graduating from Kingston University. Max ha…

Why trust our journalism?

Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.

Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.

Editorial independence

Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.

Professional conduct

We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.

Sign up to our newsletter

Get the best of Trusted Reviews delivered right to your inbox.

• Redbox shuts down
• Best early Prime Day deals
• Samsung Unpacked: Everything announced
• AirPods Pro early Prime Day deal
• Kindle Scribe record-low Prime Day deal

Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products .

The best ereaders for 2024

Kindles aren't your only ebook reader option..

Ereaders can stuff an entire bookcase into a device that fits in your pocket. They beat reading on a phone or tablet thanks to their E Ink screens that are easier on your eyes. And the text displays so clearly, printed pages look almost fuzzy by comparison. Some screens are even available in color now. We’ve tested models from all the major brands to come up with recommendations for a budget pick, one with buttons and the best ereader overall.

Kobo Clara Colour

Best ereader overall, kindle (2022 release), best budget ereader, kobo libra colour, best ereader with buttons, boox page 7-inch ereader, best android ereader with an e ink screen, honorable mention, what to look for in an ereader.

Plenty of apps, including the Kindle app, will let you download and read digital books on a phone or tablet. But what makes ebook readers different is the screen: nearly all of them use technology from a company called E Ink. It manufactures electronic paper displays (EPD) composed of three sheets: one containing millions of microcapsules filled with black and white ink particles sandwiched between transparent electrode layers. When a charge is applied, either the black or white particles shift to the top, forming letters and the whitespace around them.

Because these displays are so different from standard LED panels, you can expect most ereaders to do a number of things well. They’ll be easier to stare at for long periods of time and easier to read in direct sunlight. Also, since E Ink displays only require power to rearrange the ink, these devices have much longer battery lives than even the best tablets: we’re talking weeks, not days.

The ereader market is not as saturated as, say, the smartphone market, but there are still plenty of options out there and they do have small but important differences among them. They tend to range from around $100 to more than $400, though usually the higher end options are stylus-enabled read/write E Ink tablets like the Kindle Scribe. Beyond price, you should consider physical properties like buttons, lights, storage and resolution, as well as how the software lets you find and access books.

Reading features

With any ereader, you’ll navigate the OS via taps and swipes, and some add physical page-turn buttons. Most with built-in buttons have an auto-rotating screen so you can press with your right or left hand.

As E Ink technology has advanced, resolution has greatly improved – even the budget Kindle ereader has a 300 ppi display. You can still find models with lower resolution, but we don’t recommend them.

Some ereaders have front LEDs that support light temperature adjustment. That means you can switch to a warmer light after the sun goes down, which will feel easier on the eyes. If you’re concerned about blue light, you should go for a reader with that feature.

Other features

The capabilities of these pocket libraries have advanced considerably since the early days. In addition to storing books, some let you browse the web, run apps and play music. The screen’s frame rate can’t handle gaming, but it’s good enough to show you the Wikipedia entry for New Zealand’s South Island while you read Birnam Wood .

If you listen to audiobooks, you may want a Bluetooth-enabled ereader capable of playing them. Most of the models we tested have that ability, with the notable exception of the Nook ereader we tried. Keep in mind that audiobook files can take up more space than print files so you'll probably want a device with a higher storage capacity if you plan on doing a lot of listening.

Above all, you should consider where and how you intend to find books to read. Most ereaders make it easiest to shop through their own ebook store, but all of them (even Kindles ) will now let you download titles from other sources, like libraries, unaffiliated ebook sellers and free public domain sites.

How to get books for your ereader

Kindle, Nook and Kobo all have their own stores that you access directly from each brand’s devices. Prices are fairly competitive among the sellers, too – as I write this, the current NYT bestselling fiction ebook is $13 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, eBooks.com and the Kobo store. The top nonfiction release, The Anxious Generation , costs $16 at all four.

Amazon offers Kindle Unlimited for $12 per month, and it includes four million titles from which you can pick your next read. It includes audio and ebooks, but you won’t find many big, new releases or older bestsellers. Kobo has a subscription called Kobo Plus with about 1.3 million titles: it goes for $8 per month for ebooks only, $8 for audiobooks only or $10 for both.

Buying a book from a proprietary store instantly delivers it to your device, provided you’re connected to WiFi. It also syncs your reading across devices and apps, so you can pick up where you left off on your phone if you forgot your ereader at home. It truly is the most convenient way to go, but if you don’t want to be locked into one brand’s store, or if you opt for an ereader without its own marketplace, you do have options.

How to upload ePubs onto an ereader

Stores like ebooks.com and Google Play have millions of ebooks for sale as digital rights-managed (DRM) ePub files, which nearly all current ereaders (excluding Kindles) can display. Titles from some publishers like Tor and public domain classics from sites like Project Gutenberg are also sold as ePubs, but without the added DRM. Consequently, Kindles do support those files. Books you get from third-party sources will look just like ones you bought from a proprietary store, thanks to the flowable, formatted nature of ePub files. While these device-agnostic ebook collections give you extra options for finding your next read, they require a few additional steps to get the files onto your ereader.

To do so, you’ll typically need a computer running a free program called Adobe Digital Editions (ADE). After buying and downloading the ePub file, open ADE and plug your ereader into your computer. Your device should pop up in the left panel. Drag and drop the ePub file from your downloads folder into the main panel in ADE. The file will display as an image of the book cover. Drag that image onto your device on the left panel. If the file includes digital rights management (which protects against unauthorized copying) you’ll need to authorize your ereader, which requires using or creating a free Adobe ID . Once you’ve finished adding files to upload, eject the reader from your computer to complete the transfer process.

Kindles use a web-based uploader instead of the ADE method. But since Kindle uses its own proprietary DRM technology instead of Adobe's, the only files it can accept from third parties are non-DRM files, such as from Tor Publishing or Project Gutenberg. After downloading a compatible ePub file, drag and drop it into your browser with the Send to Kindle page open. As long as you’re signed into Amazon, this wirelessly transfers the files to your associated device.

Boox also uses a browser uploader called BooxDrop (along with many other methods ) to deliver ePubs to the device. Open it from the Boox App menu and you’ll see a device-specific url. Type that into your browser to access a file delivery portal that uploads to your library. Boox’s built-in ereader app, NeoReader, also doesn’t support files with DRM, so you won’t be able to read current titles from most publishers using that app. Fortunately, Boox devices run nearly every ereader app out there, Kobo and Kindle included, letting you access ePubs any number of ways.

How to read library books on an ereader

Your local library card lets you borrow audio and ebooks through a program called Overdrive and its companion app Libby . On a Kobo , you have have built-in access to Overdrive in a separate tab. Once you’ve linked your library card, the search function will include results for titles available from your local library; a few taps will upload your selections to your device for the length of the loan. I personally find it easiest to borrow the title I want through the Libby app on my phone. After that, the book pops up on my Kobo’s home screen once the device syncs.

To read library books on a Kindle , you can either go through the Libby app or the Overdrive section of your library’s website. Once you click Borrow, you’ll see the option to “Read now with Kindle,” which takes you to Amazon’s site to sign in. After that, the book will be delivered to your device the next time it connects to WiFi.

For other ereaders, you’ll go through your library’s Overdrive portal and download the ePub after clicking the Borrow button. You can then use the ADE process we described above. Devices that run external apps, like the Boox Leaf 2, allow you to read library books via the Libby app, just as you would on a smartphone or tablet.

You can also use the Libby app to borrow audiobooks, but you won’t be able to access them through your ereader. (The exception is an ereader, like the Boox Leaf 2, that allows external apps). I found it was easier to listen to an audiobook on my phone anyway, regardless of whether I borrowed it through Libby or bought it from Kindle or Kobo.

How we tested

When putting together any guide, the first thing we do is spend hours researching the field. We look at what’s available, what’s new, and what shoppers and professional reviewers have to say. Then we narrow a list to the best candidates for hands-on testing.

I ended up getting eight ereaders, representing five different brands: Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Boox and PocketBook. I bought, borrowed and uploaded books for each device using the methods above. Over the course of four weeks I evaluated each one in the areas of book access, ease of reading, extra features and overall value. Here’s everything we tested so far:

Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

Boox Leaf 2

Boox Poke 5

Kobo Libra 2

Kobo Clara 2E

NOOK GlowLight 4

PocketBook Era

The best ebook readers for 2024

Screen size : 6” | Resolution : 300 dpi black & white, 150 dpi color | Capacity : 16GB | Waterproof rating : IPX8 (submergible to 6 feet for 60 minutes) | Warm light : Yes | Lock screen ads : No

Read our full Kobo Clara Colour review

Our previous pick for this category, the Kobo Clara 2E was an excellent ereader with a crisp display, a warm glow and responsive, intuitive touch controls all housed in a waterproof device that felt premium. When Rakuten announced the Clara would be updated, I worried we’d see a device with superfluous revamping to justify an inflated price. Thankfully, that’s not the case. The Kobo Clara Colour not only adds color and a faster processor, it’s just $10 more than the previous generation.

As the name suggests, this ereader adds color to the page, lending a little vibrance to book covers, tables and graphs, and even the panels of graphic novels. The technology comes from E Ink, in the form of the Kaleido 3 module that incorporates a color filter layer on top of the standard black and white microcapsule layer. That results in two different resolutions on one screen: 150 dpi for color and 300 dpi for text.

Full-color pages remind me of comic book art from the ‘60s, muted but saturated. Color makes book covers more enticing and adds a little variety to headings, and tables in some non-fiction books. It’s certainly not a necessary feature, but it adds vibrance and it’s fun. There is a slight difference in clarity between the color and non-color version of the Clara. If you look closely, you can see a bit of noise on the white parts of the page. That's due to the added color filter layer. It's not distracting and only something I noticed when comparing the two generations side-by-side. but if absolute clarity is your primary goal, you may be better off with a non-color ereader.

Probably the more useful upgrade here is the dual 2GHz processor, a bump from the Clara 2E’s 1GHz CPU. There’s a noticeable improvement in the speed of the page turns and navigating from the menu to the page and back again is nearly instantaneous. As with the 2E, the Colour rarely mistakes a swipe for a tap or a page turn gesture for a menu request.

The adjustable warm front light is still here (it’s actually a little warmer on the Colour) and makes reading at night easy on the eyes. The operating system is the same, with intuitive access to the Kobo store, your personal books and titles from your local library via Overdrive. You can customize your reading experience with options for font, font size, line spacing, margins and so on. Kobos don’t have a way to save a group of display settings like the Kindle does, so I’d love to see that added with future OS upgrades. But for now, the customizations are just enough to get your book how you want it to look.

The Colour is nearly identical in shape and size, and has the same premium feel as the 2E, though the plastic has a grainier finish. The bezels are noticeably less flush with the screen now, though that didn’t alter my reading enjoyment.

Now that it costs $150, the Kobo Clara Colour is $50 more than the base model Kindle. But the waterproof build, warm front light, responsive controls and lack of ads (which cost $20 to get rid of on Amazon's device) make it worth it. And, in great news for the right to repair crowd, it’s even designed to be user-repaired once it falls outside of warranty through a partnership with iFixit.

• Customizable settings
• Even more responsive touch controls
• Color is pleasant and text is crisp
• Kobo's store not as vast as Kindle's.

Screen size : 6” | Resolution : 300dpi | Capacity : 16GB | Waterproof rating : None | Warm light : No | Lock screen ads : Yes

Amazon has dominated in the ereader space for so long that I was surprised when a Kindle device didn’t win me over. A Kobo may have taken the top spot here, but nothing can beat the standard Kindle when it comes to price. It’s listed at $100 but has gone on sale every few months since its debut in October 2022, sometimes for as low as $75.

With it, you can access the best of what Amazon has to offer, including many exclusive titles. Kindle Exclusive is a catalog made up of a million titles, including books by established authors as well as newer, self-published writers; Kindle Unlimited offers the widest selection of any subscription-based reading service out there; and Audible Originals is made up of narrated titles and podcasts you can only hear through a Kindle device or Amazon-owned app.

If you like to switch between audiobooks and ebooks, Kindle is the way to go. When you buy both iterations of a title, you not only get a discount, but the Whispersync feature lines up where you are in the e-printed version with the narration, too. Say you listen for an hour and then want to read – the synchronization lets you pick up on-screen where you left off audibly. (Though we should point out that you can’t listen and read simultaneously on the same device.) In tests, the feature was fairly accurate, getting me close enough on the page or in the audio to figure out my spot.

The standard Kindle doesn’t feel particularly luxurious, but it doesn’t feel cheap either. The shell has a velvety finish that doesn’t collect fingerprints, but I found myself wishing it had more texture for a better grip. Navigating from a page to the menu isn’t as speedy as Paperwhite or the Kobos we tried. And it takes a few moments to wake from sleep after hitting the button and swiping.

Page turns are quick, but the touchscreen gestures didn’t always do what I wanted them to. I’d often find the page skipping forward when I thought I’d tapped to go back. There’s no warm light, which didn’t bother me during the day, but at night it felt like I was still staring at my computer.

Kindle’s reading customization is great, letting you dial in the font, size and margins. You can even save a set of settings as a “theme,” something not offered by other devices. I created one with larger text and wider line spacing called “tired eyes.”

Some people won’t be bothered by the lock screen ads that come standard on every Kindle device (unless you pay to remove them). They’re fairly innocuous, mostly promoting Kindle book deals or specific titles (it’s not like you’ll see promos for TVs or robotic pool cleaners). 

Personally, I like being able to set the sleep screen to the book cover of what I’m currently reading, but it’s easy to get over that if all you want is a more convenient way to consume books at the lowest price. It's also worth noting that the Kindle Kids is the same device but comes with a cover, a longer warranty and goes on sale more frequently than the standard version. 

• Kindle ebook selection is huge
• Nice integration between ebooks and audiobooks
• Good customization options
• Not waterproff
• No warm light
• Lock screen ads

Screen size : 7” Resolution : 300 dpi black & white, 150 dpi color | Capacity : 32GB | Waterproof rating : IPX8 (submergible to 6 feet for 60 minutes) | Warm light : Yes | Lock screen ads : No

When Kobo came out with the new Clara Colour, it also debuted the new Libra Colour , which might be the more exciting of the two devices. In addition to color technology from the E Ink Kaleido panel and an upgraded processor, the Libra now has stylus support. It’s the only ereader on this list with that feature, making it a lot like a small E Ink tablet — but all of its new features actually make it a better ereader.

When I wrote about the previous generation ereader, the Libra 2, I was impressed by how comfortable it was for reading. None of that has changed; the buttons and auto-rotating screen adapt the device to just about any reading position you chose and the thin design, textured back and soft-touch plastic give it a premium feel.

Kobo’s interface is nearly the same here as with other models, nicely organized to let you easily find your current reads or browse and search new titles from Kobo’s store or your local library in the Overdrive tab. The customizations for light and text let you get the page looking just how you like it, but there aren’t so many options that it feels like you’re writing code.

The new features add to the experience. In color, book covers all look more enticing — though, if your TBR list is already three feet long, this won’t not help things. The new processor makes waking from sleep, turning pages, navigating the menu and changing orientation zippy fast.

Then there’s the status compatibility. Try as they might, some new technologies don’t yet beat their real-world counterparts. That’s mostly how I feel about styluses — I’m just a big fan of pen on paper. But Kobo’s stylus makes it so fun to highlight text and scribble notes in the margins of a book that I’m starting to come around. Plus, it neatly and magnetically attaches to the side so it doesn’t get lost.

Pressing and holding the button on the side of the stylus highlights text while flipping it around erases. I accidentally pressed the button a few times when I was trying to write, but I got used to the placement after a few minutes of using it. You can pick from four different highlighter colors and view your written notes and spotlighted text in the notes section of any title — which I could see being pretty useful for book club reads, school assignments or just refreshing yourself on a past read before you dive into the sequel.

Writing in the margins or directly on the text worked on every book I tried. Though I should point out that if you change the font size in a book, your handwritten notes will be converted to a sticky note-type box. Going back to the original font restores your original scribbles.

The Kobo Libra Colour is $30 more expensive than the Libra 2, but you get a lot for $220. If it were just an ereader, the lovely colors, responsive reading experience, fast page turns and easy highlights would make it worth the price. But you also get features that make it more than just an ereader, like Dropbox and Google Drive integration, a beta web browser and free-writing and text-converting notebooks.

Of course, the stylus costs extra and you won’t get features like notebooks and writing in the margins without it. Together, the set costs $290, which is still $50 cheaper than the most popular stylus-enabled ereader, Amazon’s Kindle Scribe . That one does have a bigger, 10-inch screen, which, for me, is a little big for an ereader. The Libra Colour on the other hand has just the right features at the right size, plus some extras that stretch its usefulness.

• Premium build that's comfortable to hold
• Crisp text and lovely colors
• Responsive and intuitive touch controls and buttons
• Adding the stylus allows for margin notes
• Kobo's store is less vast than Kindle's

Screen size : 7” | Resolution : 300dpi | Capacity : 32GB | Waterproof rating : None | Warm light : Yes | Lock screen ads : No

Boox released the Page in the middle of last year as a replacement for the now-discontinued Leaf 2. Stacked side-by-side, the two look identical: both have 7-inch E Ink screens, two manual page-turn buttons and a thin, lightweight design.

Inside, the Page has an extra gig of RAM, an upgraded Qualcomm CPU and a bigger 2,300mAh battery, up from 2,000mAh on the Leaf 2. The batteries last so long already — on the order of a few weeks — so I didn’t notice a significant difference there, but the extra processing power and memory has noticeably upped the wake speed, efficiency in opening apps and page-turning speed.

It still runs on a fork of Android 11, which means the Page acts more like a tablet than a conventional ereader. Like the Leaf 2, it’s best suited for the tech-savvy — you’ll get little hand-holding in setup and usage. The tablet is impressively customizable, with programmable buttons and fine-tunable settings. Boox users have created APK files to tweak and improve your experience further. The device even has speakers and can run apps like Spotify. In short, the Page can do far more than a typical ereader can, if you’re willing to experiment.

But the ereader experience is also pretty good. The soft, adjustable front light with temperature control makes for pleasant low-light reading and the flush, glare-free, 300dpi screen is crisp and detailed. Boox has its own app library or you can use Google Play to search for and download apps much like on a smartphone or tablet. You can even get ereader apps from other manufacturers, including Kobo and Kindle, and install Libby to read borrowed books from the library.

Boox’s built-in ereader app, NeoReader, is nicely featured with a good amount of control over the look of the text. But it only handles DRM-free ePubs from sites like Project Gutenberg or publishers like Tor . If you want to read ePubs with digital rights management, which make up the vast majority of current ebooks, you’ll need to use a different app. Of course, you could remove the rights management from the files, but that’s technically illegal, even after you “own” the book.

• Capable, customizable tablet
• Supports multiple ereader apps
• Solid build with a crisp screen
• Not easy for beginners

Screen size : 6.13” Resolution : 300 dpi | Capacity : 128GB | Water resistant : Yes, splashes and spills | Warm light : Yes | Lock screen ads : No

Boox makes two sizes of its ereader. The Poke 5 is smaller than the Page , doesn’t have buttons and goes for about $80 less. But after trying it, I don’t recommend it. It’s laggy and getting the Google Play Store to work was a pain. Once I did, page turns in apps like Kindle were excruciatingly slow.

The Boox Palma , however, is quite fun. It’s the same size and shape as a smartphone and, in a lot of ways, acts like one. The home screen is a muted black and white version of what you might find on a standard Android — you can even add a few widgets. Like the Page, it can download and run apps from the Google Play Store and has speakers to play music and videos. The E Ink screen (a Carta 1200) renders text crisply, but images, particularly moving ones, look far grainier and rougher than they would on a real phone’s LED screen. That said, the video quality is the best I’ve seen on an E Ink screen, thanks to a software improvement Boox calls Super Refresh Technology.

But make no mistake, it’s not going to replace your phone. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are the only connectivity and the 16MP camera is just for making document scans you can convert to PDFs. But the phone-like build is comfortingly familiar and the E Ink screen is lovely to read. At $280, it’s more expensive than a standard ereader — and some E Ink tablets — but it’s a highly portable way to read Kindle, Kobo, Google Books and other ePubs, while also handling simple games and apps like a smartphone. If you’re sick of the glow of your handset, the Boox Palma is a charming alternative.

• Advertisement

• Get a Free Review of Your Book
• Enter our Book Award Contest
• Helpful Articles and Writing Services
• Are you a Publisher, Agent or Publicist?
• Five Star and Award Stickers
• Find a Great Book to Read
• Win 100+ Kindle Books
• Get Free Books
• Are you a School, Library or Charity?
• Become a Reviewer
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Partner
• Award Winners
• Non-Fiction

REQUEST A BOOK REVIEW

We review manuscripts, published and unpublished books, eBooks, audiobooks, poetry books, comic books, graphic novels and short stories. Your review will be posted on our site, KOBO, Books-A-Million, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. In addition, our reviewers often post reviews to their blogs and social media sites. Your review will also be indexed by search engines like Google, which recognizes our reviews and formats them with their starred rating, just like Amazon and Goodreads.

All 5-star reviews receive a FREE "Five Star" digital seal for your website and a high-resolution version for your book cover. Our seal can be seen on book covers from indie authors to iconic publishers like Simon & Schuster. All reviews come with a Readers' Favorite Review Page and a host of free features to help you promote your book and your new review.

As a result of my Readers' Favorite Review Page, a journalist invited me to do a radio interview, which led to many other radio shows! Now I am networking and selling more books than I ever imagined! Thanks so much!

All book review features are FREE

• Review Page with features to get your book noticed.
• Review listed in the Readers’ Favorite app for readers.
• Review posted to popular websites and search engines.
• Review announced to 500k libraries, bookstores, schools.
• Donate books with our Book Donation program.
• Get more reviews with our Review Exchange program.
• Get more reviews and fans with our Free Book program.
• Get help and share information in our Author Forum.
• Get advertising & fans with our Monthly Book Giveaway.

TRUSTED BOOK REVIEWS

Readers' Favorite has been awarded the Association of Independent Authors Honoring Excellence award, which recognizes businesses and organizations that offer exceptional products and services for independent authors.

Readers' Favorite is the fastest growing book review and award contest site on the Internet. We have earned the respect of renowned publishers like Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins, and are very proud to be fully accredited by the BBB (A+ rating), which is a rarity among Book Review and Book Award Contest companies.

Readers’ Favorite's book reviews and book awards have been accepted into the CLCD, a world leader in the collection of professional reviews and awards data, providing our authors with free exposure to a huge variety of literary professionals, libraries, schools, publishers and book sellers. Some restrictions apply.

Readers' Favorite is a proud member of the National Book Critics Circle, Founded in April, 1974, which honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism and literature.

On behalf of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and especially on behalf of the children and their families, we want to thank Readers' Favorite and its authors for your kindness and generosity.

BOOK REVIEW OPTIONS

Free, express and multiple review options.

Reviews are so important for authors, not only to assist them with advertising but to give the author valuable feedback on their work. Readers' Favorite was founded to help authors acquire these quality reviews. We provide several review options; all come with a Readers' Favorite review page and all the features listed below in the BOOK REVIEW FEATURES section. Our reviewers are avid readers who will select your book for review the same way they would if they were purchasing it from a bookstore so you can be sure you will receive a fair, honest review from someone interested in your book.

Free Book Review

By far, most of what we do is provide free book reviews to authors. In fact, we provide hundreds and even thousands of free reviews each month to authors from all over the world, from independent authors to best sellers and celebrities. However, even with over 1,500 reviewers we are not able to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for free reviews.

Although we cannot guarantee that all books will receive a review, more than half of the books submitted for a free review will receive one within three (3) months. Some books are reviewed in less than a week while others are never selected for review. As a company, we play no part in the time it takes for a book to receive a review because we do not assign books to reviewers; they select them from a detailed list. Reviewers search through the genres they are interested in, read your description, look at your cover, and can even read a portion of your book to ensure it is something they are interested in reading. We designed this process to mimic that of a bookstore to ensure you get a reader who represents your core audience.

If you are interested in a guaranteed review, getting your review back more quickly or would like multiple reviews of your book, please look at our Express and Express Package options using the tabs above. Although many review companies charge hundreds of dollars for a single expedited review, our Express Reviews start at just $59 and include a Mini-Critique and free advertising. At Readers' Favorite, we are trying our best to give authors more bang for their buck.

2 Week Express Review + EXTRAS - $59

Only about 65 percent of free review requests are selected for review within 3 months. Many can take longer or not receive a review at all. An Express Review guarantees your book will be reviewed in 2 weeks.

In addition to all the regular free features our reviews come with, our Express Reviews also include a Mini-Critique completed by your reviewer with ratings on 5 key areas of your book and free advertising of your new review in our Featured Book rotator, which directs interested visitors to your Readers' Favorite Review Page.

Guaranteed review completed in 2 weeks.*

Mini-critique of your book that provides ratings on 5 key areas: appearance, plot, development, formatting and marketability.

One month of advertising in our Featured Book rotator , which is seen by thousands of daily visitors, including agents, publishers, publicists, bloggers, journalists and regular readers.

* Paying for an Express Review only affects the turnaround speed of your review(s) and in no way impacts the quality or rating. Your book must be available on Amazon (your book does not need to be on Amazon now to be reviewed, we just have to wait until it is on Amazon before we can post your review publicly) and receive at least 4 stars (on at least one review for multiple Express Review Packages) to have your review posted on our site and to be put in our Featured Book rotator. Additional review time may be necessary for books over 350 pages.

3 Express Reviews + EXTRAS - $129

In addition to all the features of our Free and Express Reviews, our Review Packages provide multiple reviews of your book for a true consensus on its quality, as well as special discounts for our International Book Awards Contest. All of your reviews are performed by reviewers who select your book the same way they would from a bookstore and are completed in 2-3 weeks.

3 Guaranteed reviews completed in 2-3 weeks.*

3 Mini-critiques of your book that provide ratings on 5 key areas: appearance, plot, development, formatting and marketability.

3 months of advertising in our Featured Book rotator , which is seen by thousands of daily visitors, including agents, publishers, publicists, bloggers, journalists and regular readers.

BONUS: Enter our Award Contest and you can select 1 extra category for your book to compete in for FREE ($65 value).

5 Express Reviews + EXTRAS - $199

In addition to all the features of our Free and Express Reviews, our Review Packages provide multiple reviews of your book for a true consensus on its quality as well as special discounts for our International Book Awards Contest. All of your reviews are performed by reviewers who select your book the same way they would from a bookstore and are completed in 2-3 weeks.

5 Guaranteed reviews completed in 2-3 weeks.*

5 Mini-critiques of your book that provide ratings on 5 key areas: appearance, plot, development, formatting and marketability.

5 months of advertising in our Featured Book rotator , which is seen by thousands of daily visitors, including agents, publishers, publicists, bloggers, journalists and regular readers.

BONUS: Enter our Award Contest and you can select 2 extra categories for your book to compete in for FREE ($130 value).

Featured Book Rotator

Our Featured Book rotator is on our home page and at the top left of every page on our site that is designated for readers (which means it will appear on 99% of the pages on our site) and rotates randomly through all our Featured Books. When a book cover is clicked, it will take the visitor to the book's Readers' Favorite review page.

It is positioned to attract the attention of our thousands of daily visitors, who are looking to find a good book to read. We are also frequented by agents, publishers, publicists, and journalists who want to view reviews we have done for their authors, to submit new review requests, or to see our newest award-winning authors.

We do not sell this advertising space, it is provided as a perk for purchasing our Express Review and Writing services to help authors promote their book. By not selling the space we keep the number of images down, which provides those in the rotator more screen time.

BOOK REVIEW FEATURES

We only post 4 and 5 star reviews.

We use a standard 5 star rating system and only post reviews we have awarded a 4 or 5-star rating. Our goal is to help authors with positive advertising for their books and to provide insightful reviews to help readers find the perfect book by a new or established author.

If you receive a poor review our reviewer will point out any issues with your story to help you make it better. Once you have revised it, we will be happy to review it again for free. We were the first review company to not post negative reviews and are proud to have been a part of making it an industry standard.

You may use as much or as little of our review as you wish. We write at least 250 words to provide you with plenty of material to pick quotes from. You will have a simple link to your Review Page featuring your book title like this one for actor/comedian and now award-winning author Jim Carrey, https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/how-roland-rolls . This link is not only user friendly, but it dramatically increases the searchability of your book title and review in search engines.

Your review will be posted on our site, KOBO, Books-A-Million, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Your review will be indexed by search engines like Google, which recognizes our reviews and formats them with their starred rating just like reviews from Amazon and Goodreads. You can see an example with David Baldacci's book, Hell's Corner .

Review Page to display your review

Your Review Page will display your book cover and have an Amazon purchase link as well as optional links like to your Book Trailer on YouTube, your Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest pages. You can also add your biography and photo to your review. Our photo upload system will automatically resize your uploaded picture and maintain its aspect ratio so it looks as great as you do.

At the bottom of your Review Page, there is a section where visitors can post their own reviews/comments about your book using our comment system and/or Facebook's comment system. You can also use this section to post all your other reviews for your book so they are all on one central review page.

Your Review Page also includes a Social Networking bar so you and your visitors can post your review to Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as Tweet it or Pin it to Pinterest. These buttons are automatically populated with your book cover and review so when people use the links all your review information is there and ready to be advertised.

Inclusion in the CLCD literature database (some restrictions apply)

The CLCD (Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database) houses the world’s largest collection of professional reviews and awards data for Children’s and YA titles. They are the leading resource for independent information about Children’s and YA titles and are used by countless literary professionals and thousands of institutions ranging from universities and colleges to public and K-12 libraries.

Readers’ Favorite's book reviews and book awards have been accepted into this database, which provides our authors with exposure to thousands of library professionals, educators and students as well as a large number of publishers and book sellers. If you have a Children's or YA book and receive a Readers' Favorite 4 or 5 star review, and your book is available on Amazon (now or in the future), your book and review will be listed in the CLCD database. There is nothing you need to do.

If you win any Readers' Favorite award level in our Annual Book Award Contest, your listing in the CLCD will be automatically updated to display your award, setting your book apart to the countless literary professionals who use the database.

PLEASE NOTE: currently this feature is only available to Children's and YA titles. However, we are working to expand this opportunity to all our genres through other databases. When this happens, all qualifying reviews in our database will be submitted.

NEW - Get more reviews with our Review Exchange and Free Book programs

Our Review Exchange program allows authors to obtain more reviews and exposure by getting a review of their book in exchange for a review of another author’s book.

NEW - Our Free Book program allows authors to obtain more reviews and exposure by providing a regular reader with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review.

Your participation in both programs is enabled by default, but you can disable either of them at any time from your Author’s Area. When enabled, our Review Exchange and/or Free Book button will appear next to your book everywhere on our site, including on your Review Page. The Review Exchange button lets other authors know you will consider reading and providing an honest review of their book in exchange for them doing the same for your book, and the Free Book button will let readers know that you will consider providing them with a free copy of your book in exchange for an honest review.

There is a Contact link on your Review Page whereby authors and readers can send you a message about their interest in either of these programs. You can use this same method to contact other authors about exchanging reviews with them. The Contact link is also available to agents, publishers, publicists, journalists and other visitors who want to contact you. The system allows people to email you without revealing your email address to maintain your privacy.

Give to schools and charities with our Book Donation program

As discussed in our Review Exchange and Book Donation sections, one of the best ways to get new readers and reviews is to give away some copies of your book. To that end, we have created the Readers' Favorite Monthly Book Giveaway . If your book is on Kindle you can create a Kindle Gift for your book. When you do, it will generate a Gift Claim Code that you will enter in your Readers' Favorite Author Area. Your book will then show up on our Monthly Book Giveaway page; it's that easy!

Our giveaway receives premium advertising placement on the left side of every page of our site used by visitors and readers. This ensures that it will be seen by the countless readers, authors, agents, publishers and journalists who visit our site, driving quality readers to the Monthly Book Giveaway page and providing you with great advertising for your book!

If they are interested in your book, they will select it as one they would like to win. They can choose as many as they like. At the end of the month we will pick one winner who will get all the books they selected. We will email them your Kindle Gift Claim Code so they can get their free copy of your book, then we will email you so you can submit another Gift Claim Code if you would like to keep your book on the giveaway page.

If your book was not chosen, it will remain on the giveaway page until someone wins it. If readers who were interested in your book do not win, they may still be interested enough to purchase a copy! If someone does win your book, it will count as an Amazon verified purchase and a verified review if they post a review on your Amazon page, which is what we ask them to do.

In addition, you will get a special link that will take people to the Giveaway page and display your book right at the top so they can easily find and select it. This is a great marketing tool to introduce readers to your book while giving them a chance to win a copy.

Although this is a free Readers' Favorite feature, you will still need to purchase a copy of your book from Amazon to give it as a gift. We hope that the advertising you receive from being on the giveaway page, which includes new readers discovering your book, winning a copy, reading it and hopefully reviewing it on Amazon, will be enough compensation to consider this a good way to help promote your book.

You will be able to activate this free feature from your Author Area as soon as your review is complete. And if you see books you like in the Giveaway you can enter to win as well.

Get help in our Author Forum

Our Author Forum is a community of authors providing support for one another. It is a positive environment where you will find plenty of marketing strategies and advice, as well as tips on honing your craft. It is custom made to be easy to use and features your picture, book cover, and a personal signature with all your posts.

Just as Readers' Favorite does not post negative reviews to maintain a positive atmosphere for authors and readers, we do not allow negative posts about people, services or companies in our Forum. Instead, authors are encouraged to focus on the positive and offer advice on where to go instead of where not to go and what services to use, instead of what not use.

To thank our authors for posting helpful information, we choose 1 author each month who has contributed to the Forum and award them with a prize. Winners can choose a 5 Express Review package ($199 value) or a free entry into our Annual Book Award Contest with up to 4 categories ($284 value). The Author Forum is completely free, like all our Review Features, and you will have access to it as soon as you submit your book for review or enter our Annual Book Award Contest.

Press Release about your review or award

Although we do offer a fee based, discounted Press Release service to all our authors who receive a 4 or 5-star review or whom place in our annual contest, we also provide a complete press release for you to use free of charge. It is properly formatted to industry standards and contains all pertinent and required information, including your review or contest placement. You can simply copy the press release and paste it to all your social media sites, website, blog, etc. or you can use it at another press release service of your choice. It is completely free and will be available in your Author Area as soon as your review is complete.

Review announced to 500,000 libraries, bookstores, and schools across America

Each month we announce the reviews we completed that month to 115,000 libraries, 85,000 bookstores and 300,000 schools (elementary through high school) nationwide. We use a white-listed email company that professionally maintains these lists to ensure they are current and accurate. This powerful mailing can not only lead to sales and recognition, but schools and libraries can request donation copies from your Review Page for even more exposure and reviews.

One of the reasons we receive such a good response from this mailing is because we have a Book Donation program that allows these nonprofit organizations to request free books from our authors, which makes our monthly mailing a free resource for great new books! The smaller book stores on our list are always looking for fresh new books to liven up their shelves, and often contact authors about stocking their books. But this mailing doesn’t just help you for the one month you are in it, the email reminds the recipient that most of our authors participate in our Book Donation program and encourages them to look through our website for more books they may be interested in.

Although this service can normally cost hundreds of dollars, we are offering it free of charge with your review. It does not matter which of our review services you use (free or Express), you just need to receive a 4 or 5-star review. Once we have created a Review Page for you on our site you will be scheduled for the following month’s announcement email. There is nothing you need to do or pay, it is all automatic and free.

Due to the large volume of reviews we do each month, it is not possible to list each new book in the email, instead we list the genre your book can be found in. The recipient can use the link to view all the new books in the genres they are interested in. All our genre categories list the newest books first, to make it easier for regular visitors to our site looking for new books. To visit our genre lists, just click any of the genres under the search bar at the top of any page on our website.

BOOK REVIEW FAQS

What can be submitted for review.

We review manuscripts, published and unpublished books, eBooks, audiobooks, poetry books, comic books, graphic novels, and short stories. Your work must be complete, written in English, and fit into one of our 150+ genre categories. You can submit a book with AI-generated material, but you must let us know in the Book Description box on our form what portion of your book is AI-generated. Currently we do not accept erotica books that are mostly sex with no substantial plot.

If you receive a review of 4 stars or more and your work is currently available for purchase on Amazon (your book does not need to be on Amazon now to get your review, we just have to wait until it is before we can post your review publicly), we will post your review on our site, KOBO, Books-A-Million, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Your book must currently be on those sites for us to post your review.

You can submit your book to us in the following formats in order of preference: PDF, Kindle (MOBI), Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX), RTF, and ePUB. If you have a different file format like Open Office or Word Perfect, or you have any trouble attaching your book to our Review Request form, just complete the form without attaching your book and your confirmation email will have instructions on how to easily send us your book file.

How to submit a sequel for review

If you are entering a sequel that is not standalone, where you need the reader to have some information from the previous book(s), then please add a short synopsis of your previous book(s) to the beginning of the Book Description field of our Review Request form below. If there is not enough room, add the synopsis to the first page of your book file.

If you would like the same reviewer(s) to review your entire series, please submit the first book in the series and if you like the review and reviewer, then you can submit the next book and contact us (click the Contact menu at the top of our website) and let us know you would like the same reviewer. Although we do not assign books to reviewers, they always enjoy reading books by authors they have reviewed for before, especially a series.

Who are your reviewers?

We have over 1,500 reviewers who are as varied as the stories they read. They are not literary experts but regular readers with a passion for reading and helping new and established authors with honest reviews of their work. When you submit the Review Request form below, it is sent to all our reviewers for selection. We do not assign reviews, we provide our reviewers with detailed information about your book so they can choose stories they are interested in.

This process is designed to closely mimic the purchasing process at a bookstore, providing you with a quality, honest and genuine review from exactly the type of person who would have normally purchased your book.

Ratings are given on a 5-star scale:

5 STARS – Excellent: I loved this book. 4 STARS – Good: I enjoyed this book.

If a book receives less than 4 stars no official review is given. Instead, the reviewer will write constructive criticism to let the author know what problems they had with the book and offer any suggestions they may have to improve it. This will be about the size of a regular review and will be sent to the author privately; it will not be posted publicly. We are here to help authors, not hurt them.

Although we as a company do not interfere with what rating a reviewer gives a book, as the rating must be what the reviewer feels is appropriate, we do monitor the average ratings of our reviewers to ensure they are being fair and honest about their ratings to maintain the integrity of our reviews.

When you receive a review from Readers' Favorite, the first line of the review indicates who your reviewer was so you can look them up on our About Us page. Knowing the type of person who provided your review can help you understand the potential demographics of readers who will enjoy your book. This also benefits the reviewer by giving them proper credit and recognition for their work and time.

Because it is critical that reviewers provide quality reviews, we invite you to Review your Reviewer. When your review is complete, you will be able to login to your Author's Area and rate your reviewer on a 5-star scale and provide a short review, just as they did for you. Your feedback is presented to the reviewer to help them improve their skills, the same way book reviews help authors improve theirs. The information is also passed to the Readers' Favorite staff to help us ensure the quality of our reviewers and reviews. If you would like to join the Readers' Favorite Team, please fill out our Reviewer Application .

How long does it take for a review?

By far, most of what we do is provide free book reviews to authors. In fact, we provide hundreds of free reviews each month to authors from all over the world from independent authors to best-sellers and celebrities. However, even with over 1,000 reviewers we are not able to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for free reviews.

Although we cannot guarantee that all books will receive a review, more than half of the books submitted for a free review will receive one within 3 months. Some books are reviewed in less than a week while others are never selected for review. As a company we play no part in the time it takes for a book to receive a review because we do not assign books to reviewers; they select them from a detailed list. Reviewers search through the genres they are interested in, read your description, look at your cover, and can even read a portion of your book to ensure it is something they are interested in reading. We designed this process to mimic that of a book store to ensure you get a reader who represents your core audience.

If you are interested in a guaranteed review, getting your review back more quickly or would like multiple reviews of your book, please look at our Express and Express Package options in the BOOK REVIEW OPTIONS section above.

Book security

When a book is submitted to us for review or our contest, all our reviewers/judges will be able to see the book details you provided to help them choose your book, but they must select your book for review/judging before they will have access to your book file. Once your book is selected it is removed from the list and the only people who have access to it from that point on are the reviewer/judge and select admin staff. Once the book file is no longer needed it is deleted from our system.

We have done hundreds of thousands of reviews since we launched in 2009 and are used by all the big publishers and have never had an issue with piracy. All our reviewers are vetted and provide a government-issued ID so we can verify their identity and so we can cooperate with law enforcement should there ever be an issue with an author's book. We also have a litany of systems in place to track and monitor our books to ensure their security.

Generally, authors have nothing to fear when submitting their books to reputable review companies because their books are not of interest to pirates yet. Pirates do not need to work for a review company to steal book files. They can buy the Kindle version of the bestselling book on Amazon and use common DRM cracking software to copy it in 10 minutes or they could simply buy the paperback version and use a standard OCR scanner to scan each page and have a PDF in about an hour.

Using these methods, they can steal and sell James Patterson's new book or all the Harry Potter books, the choices are unlimited. With review companies, almost all the books are unknown or not even publish-ready yet. And it's not about quality, they don’t care how good your book is, they just want something they can sell, which means books that are at the top of Amazon’s sales lists because those are books people are currently talking about and searching for.

However, if you would feel better securing your book file a bit, there are a couple of things you can do: you can add a watermark to your pages, just please be sure it is light enough not to interfere with the reader’s ability to clearly see the text. You can also password protect your PDF, just be sure to provide us with the password in our Book Description box when you submit it to us so the reader can access it.

BOOK REVIEW REQUEST FORM

If your book is on Amazon, please enter your Amazon 10-digit (not 13-digit) ISBN or ASIN number, otherwise leave this box blank. This is a special number created by Amazon to track your book on their site, it is only created by Amazon once your book is on their site. You can find this information in the Product Details section on your Amazon page. Then click the Search Amazon button and we will add your book cover from Amazon to this form for you. PLEASE NOTE: Your book does NOT have to be published or on Amazon to receive a review or enter our contest, and you can update this information at any time.

Please enter the Author Name associated with this book. This can be your legal name or a pen name. This is the name we will use to identify the author of this book.

If you are the agent, publisher, publicist or other representative for this author and would like to be notified when the review for this book is complete, please enter your email address.

Please select the type of book you are submitting: audiobook, children's book, poetry book, short story/novella or collection of short stories, fiction or non-fiction book.

You can upload your book in the following formats listed in order of preference: PDF, Kindle (MOBI), Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX), LibreOffice (ODT), RTF, and ePUB. To re-upload, click the X and choose a new file.

Please provide an Audible code for a free audiobook copy of your book and the link to redeem the code. If you are requesting multiple reviews you will need to provide multiple codes. You can also provide a Dropbox or Google Drive link to your audiobook files but they must be accessible to anyone with the link and the link must not expire (you can disable the link once your review(s) is complete).

Just like any reader, our Reviewers use the description of your book to determine if they want to read it. The more compelling your description, the faster your book will get reviewed. If you already have a blurb or description of your book on Amazon, you can copy and paste it here or write something new.

Please indicate if your book has explicit language, sexual situations, graphic violence or any other unique qualities. This will ensure you get the right reviewer for your book.

If you are attaching your book cover, you can upload it in the following formats listed in order of preference: JPG, JPEG, GIF and PNG. To re-upload, click the X and choose a new file.

PLEASE NOTE: We are currently experiencing a high volume of Express Review requests. Although most are being completed on time, it may take an extra week or two to complete some Express Review orders. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

"On behalf of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and especially on behalf of the children and their families, we want to thank Readers' Favorite and its authors for your kindness and generosity." -- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

"Thank you Readers’ Favorite and your authors for supporting Dare to Care Food Bank. We lead our community in feeding the hungry and conquering the cycle of need. Generous partners like you help make our work possible." -- Dare to Care Food Bank

You have exceeded your limit for simultaneous device logins.

Your current subscription allows you to be actively logged in on up to three (3) devices simultaneously. click on continue below to log out of other sessions and log in on this device., 9 standout early readers and chapter books | slj 2024 stars so far.

These diverse offerings include stories featuring STEM, mythology, gentle lessons, and more.

AVANT-GARDE, Zaila Words Are Magic! illus. by Felicia Whaley. Random. PreS-Gr 1 –“Words are magic! Have you heard? Pick a letter. Make a word!” This book is sure to entertain and educate families and other library patrons.

BATES, Janet Costa. A Week of Shenanigans . illus. by Gladys Jose. Candlewick. Gr 2-4 –A delightful book full of funny moments, great relationships, and learning opportunities for two best friends.

DAVID, Arihhonni. The Good Game . Holiday House. K-Gr 2 –A clever and charming early reader with a fun out-of-the-blue turn of events and just a few words per page, this is an ideal story for burgeoning readers and a welcome book for any collection.

EZOMOGHENE, Sophia. The Trickster in the Vase . illus. by Sanjay Charlton. Reycraft. Gr 1-4 –A great start to a series featuring Nigerian culture and mythology with characters that are very relatable to young readers.

FERNANDEZ, Caroline. Asha and Baz Meet Katia Krafft . illus. by Dharmali Patel. Common Deer. Gr 1-3 –A charming STEM chapter book introducing young readers to inspiring real-life science, scientists, and history. Highly recommended—and if you don’t have the series yet, purchase the collection.

HENRY, Steve. Friends Are Fun . Holiday House. PreS-Gr 1 –This vibrant, colorful book teaches children to share and work as a team and is perfect for those beginning to read.

IWAI, Melissa. Gigi and Ojiji: Perfect Paper Cranes . HarperCollins. PreS-Gr 2 –A cheery, gentle lesson on the importance of “practice makes perfect.”

LEWIS, Cicely. Imani Picks Up the Pieces . illus. by Anastasia Magloire Williams. Lerner. Gr 1-3 –Vivid illustrations paired with a relatable story make the latest from the uplifting “Hair Magic” series a must-have for any library.

TABOR, Corey R. Fox Versus Fox . HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray. PreS-Gr 2 –It’s rare to find an early transitional reader with a captivating plot, humor, and illustrations that also maintains an easy reading level, but this title does all of that and more.

Get Print. Get Digital. Get Both!

Libraries are always evolving. Stay ahead. Log In.

Add Comment :-

Be the first reader to comment.

Comment Policy:

• Be respectful, and do not attack the author, people mentioned in the article, or other commenters. Take on the idea, not the messenger.
• Don't use obscene, profane, or vulgar language.
• Stay on point. Comments that stray from the topic at hand may be deleted.
• Comments may be republished in print, online, or other forms of media.
• If you see something objectionable, please let us know . Once a comment has been flagged, a staff member will investigate.

First Name should not be empty !!!

Last Name should not be empty !!!

email should not be empty !!!

Comment should not be empty !!!

You should check the checkbox.

Please check the reCaptcha

Ethan Smith

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

Posted 6 hours ago REPLY

Jane Fitgzgerald

Posted 6 hours ago

Michael Woodward

Continue reading.

Added To Cart

Related , 2 picture books based on emily dickinson's 'hope is the thing with feathers' | poetry spotlight, a tree grows …in korea | elementary spotlight, 4 transitional books about food | spotlight, q&a: mo willems talks about his youtube channel, summer memories, and stumbling through the creative life, support classroom literacy with decodables, "what is this" design thinking from an lis student.

The job outlook in 2030: Librarians will be in demand

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, --> Log In

You did not sign in correctly or your account is temporarily disabled

REGISTER FREE to keep reading

If you are already a member, please log in.

Passwords must include at least 8 characters.

Your password must include at least three of these elements: lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, or special characters.

The email you entered already exists. Please reset your password to gain access to your account.

Create an account password and save time in the future. Get immediate access to:

News, opinion, features, and breaking stories

Exclusive video library and multimedia content

Full, searchable archives of more than 300,000 reviews and thousands of articles

Research reports, data analysis, white papers, and expert opinion

Passwords must include at least 8 characters. Please try your entry again.

Your password must include at least three of these elements: lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, or special characters. Please try your entry again.

Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.

No thanks. return to article, already a subscriber log in.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing

Thank you for visiting.

We’ve noticed you are using a private browser. To continue, please log in or create an account.

CREATE AN ACCOUNT

SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS

Already a subscriber log in.

Most SLJ reviews are exclusive to subscribers.

As a subscriber, you'll receive unlimited access to all reviews dating back to 2010.

To access other site content, visit our homepage .

The 6 Best E-Readers to Take Your Library With You Everywhere

Put down the phone and tablet and pick up one of these.

Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Why Trust Us?

Nothing can replace the tactile experience of flipping through an actual hardcover or paperback, but e-readers have proven that they’re here to stay for people who want the convenience of carrying multiple books around without the extra bulk. Take a look below at things to keep in mind when buying one, followed by our reviews of the best.

What to Consider

Sure, you could download e-books to your phone or tablet, but e-readers feature anti-glare E Ink screens that are much easier on your eyes than those bright LCDs. Plus, having a device dedicated to reading ensures you won’t be as distracted by apps, and they have more power efficiency, storage space, and special features designed for bookworms.

There are three main brands on the e-book reader market, including Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Kobo. If you already have one of these e-readers and are looking to upgrade to a new one, we’d generally recommend staying with the same brand to make transferring data easier. However, each have their own unique features, software, and app compatibility that may make it worth making a switch.

How We Selected These E-Readers

To select these e-readers, we consulted reviews from six expert sources like Tech Radar , CNET, and Wirecutter , as well as consumer reviews on retail sites like Amazon. We evaluated the products based on features like brightness and color adjustability, waterproofing, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, and overall design for the price. In addition to the devices themselves, we considered complete user experience, including what apps and software are built into the devices, as well as if they’re compatible with library apps—such as OverDrive—to download e-books or audiobooks for free.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

The latest Kindle Paperwhite is now not only thin and lightweight but also waterproof with a rating of IPX8, so you can take it with you to the beach, pool, or bath. With a resolution of 300 pixels per inch (ppi) and five LEDs, the six-inch touchscreen will be easy on the eyes. All of these features make it an especially great option if you’re looking to trade in your old Kindle, which you can do through Amazon to save 20 percent.

We also like that this Kindle is equipped with Bluetooth, so you can pair it with wireless headphones to listen to audiobooks on Audible (though you can also send books to your Kindle to read for free if your local library uses OverDrive). However, keep in mind that there are no hard page-turn buttons, and you have to pay $20 more to get the model without ads.

Kobo Clara HD

If you’re looking for an Amazon alternative, Rakuten’s line of Kobo e-readers is the best option for perusing ebooks as well as digital documents in a huge variety of file formats. It’s also the best for library users, since it has built-in support for OverDrive (you can still send e-books from OverDrive’s Libby to Kindles, just not directly—which means you can’t browse for books right from the device). Unlike most other e-readers, it can also support Pocket, an app for saving and reading articles from the internet. An excellent affordable Kobo is the Clara HD, which compares to the Paperwhite with a six-inch screen, 8GB of storage, 300 ppi, and a 16Hz processor.

Amazon Kindle Oasis

The Oasis is the most premium Kindle you can buy, starting at $250. Its design is thin and light, with a large seven-inch screen. Like the Paperwhite, it’s waterproof with 8 and 32GB storage options, 300 ppi, and Bluetooth connectivity. However, it has a more powerful screen with 25 LEDs, an adjustable warm light, auto-adjusting brightness sensors, auto rotating, and page turn buttons.

Kobo Libra H2O

Now, if you want a reading experience comparable to the Kindle Oasis, just not at that price, Kobo’s Libra H20 has all of the features you’d want while being more affordable at under $200. Despite its plastic (instead of metal) construction, it boasts a seven-inch screen that can switch to landscape mode, as well as manual page-turn buttons. It’s also waterproof rated at IPX8, and it comes with all of the same benefits as the Kobo Clara HD in terms of library app compatibility.

Nook Barnes & Noble Nook GlowLight Plus

Amazon Kindle Kids Edition

If you want to get your kid reading but don’t need the added distraction of yet another multi-purpose screen in their life, consider an e-reader like the Kids Edition of a Kindle. Instead of playing games or watching videos, they can immerse themselves in titles from Amazon Kids+, which you get a free year’s subscription to (it typically costs $2.99 per month). The Parent Dashboard also allows you to adjust age filters, add books to their library, and view their reading progress. Though it’s unfortunate that a device made for kids isn’t waterproof, you’ll at least appreciate the generous two-year warranty to give you some peace of mind.

Paige Szmodis is an editor for Runner’s World, Bicycling, and Popular Mechanics, who researches and writes home, tech, and outdoor product reviews and news.

.css-cuqpxl:before{padding-right:0.3125rem;content:'//';display:inline;} Best Product Reviews, According to Experts and Consumers .css-xtujxj:before{padding-left:0.3125rem;content:'//';display:inline;}

The 7 Best Home Printers

The 5 Best Gaming Laptops You Can Buy Right Now

The Best Ceiling Fans for Cooling Down Your Space

The Best Metal Detectors of 2024

The 7 Best Portable Power Banks of 2024

The Best Showerheads for Bathrooms

The Best Touch-Screen Laptops of 2024

The Best Christmas Tree Stands For the Season

The Best Water Filters for a Great Tasting Glass

The Best Cheap Microwaves Under $150

The Best Remote Car Starters

• Where Do I Start?
• Our Beliefs
• Our Philosophy and Practice
• Our Ratings
• Frequently Asked Questions
• What Our Readers Say
• How to Submit a Book for Review

Latest Reviews

Starred reviews, picture books.

• Easy Readers

Middle Grades

• Family Read Alouds

The Good Book

• Redeemed Reader Series
• The Hive: Resources from Gladys Hunt
• Reflections
• Your Account
• Golden Key Fellowship Benefits
• Silver Key Fellowship Benefits
• Free Member Printable Resources

Get your FREE Summer Reading Book List Today!

Browse our book reviews, looking for a particular title or author, try the search bar at the top of the page..

All the latest reviews

The best of the best

Early Readers

Bible Resources

Read Alouds

Wide age appeal

Ages 12 and up

Popular Subjects and Categories

Note: We recognize that descriptions of people (races, ethnicities, etc.) are always changing. We have continued using the terms we first used in 2011 (i.e. "African American" instead of "Black") in our general subject categories and terms because many of those terms are more easily searched and because we have a large database of books already categorized as such. Occasionally, a word or term will change its culturally recognized meaning (i.e. "diversity" now includes more sub-categories than it did in 2011); for those, we have done our best to use terms that best convey our meaning in a given context.

Genre/Format

Realistic Fiction

Historical Fiction

Science Fiction

Folk/Fairy Tales

Adventure/Thriller

Graphic Novels

Biographies

Special Interest

Reluctant Readers

Cultural Diversity

Retro Reads

Christian Titles

Devotionals

Discussion Starters

Award Winners

Resources for Adults

American History

Revolutionary War

Church History

World War II

Special Topics

Thanksgiving

Family Relationships

Character Values

Honesty/Integrity

Perseverance

Life Issues