Book reviews are a great way to evaluate the reception of a particular book, are a form of literary criticism, and are often published in newspapers, magazines, and journals.
Understanding what type of book review you need will determine the best place to look. Generally, you might seek either (1) a review of a literary work, or (2) a review of an academic text written by a scholar around a given topic.
Looking for book reviews of academic books can be especially helpful during the research process as they provide a quicker way for you to determine which texts best fit your needs without having to read every book. Academic book reviews can provide not only summary information, but will offer criticism and comment on the quality of the text and it's place within the larger realm of scholarship that it belongs.
Note: Academic books might have both journalistic book reviews and scholarly book reviews. Journalistic book reviews offer short descriptions about the book written soon after publication that both help librarians decide on books to purchase, but also can help scholars stay abreast with what is being published. Scholarly book reviews are often more geared towards scholars in the field and are typically longer so they can go into more detail. You can often tell which you are looking at by both the length of the review and the nature of the journal in which it's being published.
