The book assigned is chosen by the instructor, but the instructions are fairly standard for book reviews in most disciplines. Typically a book review will include three things: description of the book (bibliographic details), a summary of the content of the book, and a description of the usefulness of the book (usually includes personal opinion).
Check with the instructor about detailed instructions and about the chosen style guide (APA, MLA, or whatever).
Here are a couple of books that deal with writing literature reviews:
Doing a Literature Review in Health and Social Care by Bibliographic Information
Typically a book review begins with a bibliographic description of the book being reviewed. This part will include the author's name, the title of the book (including subtitle if given), publisher information, date of publication, and any other details asked for by the instructor (page numbers, hardback, paperback or eBook, etc.).
Author Information
In some cases, instructors will ask for a small paragraph about the author. Name, dates, education, occupation and special events in their life are often included. The idea is that this section establishes the author as an authority on the subject of the book or gives a personal context to the conclusions of the book.
Typically the bulk of a book review is a summary of the content of a book. This is usually a detailed description of the book and its contents. You can think of this section as a chapter by chapter summary of the book. If the book is too long, or the chapter too short, then the idea is to summarize the major thoughts or sections of the book.
Thesis Statement / Methodology of the Study
To begin the summary of the book being reviewed it is not uncommon to state, right at the beginning, the thesis of the book. This puts the rest of the review in context and will demonstrate how the rest of the content is related. In some fields, if the book is a case study of some sort, this section would be the conclusion of the study and a statement of the methodology of the study (quantitative/qualitative, experimental, observational, etc.).
Content Summary
Here you will state, typically, a chapter by chapter a summary of the content of the book as related to the thesis. You do not tell all the details, but focus on summarizing what is important to the thesis, what drives the book. It is not uncommon, in some book reviews, to focus on one particular idea or chapter and go into more detail on that idea. That is done, usually when it is what drives the importance of, or your opinion of, the book.
Importance of the Book
Here the importance of the book is stated. The focus is on how important is the book to the field of study. Is the book ground breaking? Is it a simple summary? Is it just a waste of 250 pages and dead trees? How is this book going to effect the field in which it is in?
This conclusion is based, somewhat, on you opinion, but should be backed by your understanding of the field and its literature. One way to "research" its importance would be to see if others have written about this book. If there are many positive book reviews, then this may be an important book.
Personal Opinion of the Book
This section is a bit about your personal feelings about the book. You are telling potential buyers and readers what they may experience while reading the book. It is OK to compare the book to others in the field, if you have read extensively. In the end you are expressing what you got out of it in relation to their thesis; did the author prove their thesis.
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