While the terms "review" and "criticism" are often used interchangeably, there are differences between them.
Literary criticism is the study, interpretation, and evaluation of a piece of literature and its place in literary history. Literary criticism usually offers interpretation of things like meaning, analysis of structure and style, judgement of its worth by comparison with other works, and an estimation of its likely effect on readers. Literary theory (e.g., feminist, postmodernist, etc.) often informs the critical analysis of a work. Literary criticism differs from book reviews in several ways: it entails both analysis and judgement; it may be published many years after a work is released; it is usually longer and more complex than a book review
A book review is more "consumer-oriented," placing more emphasis on recommendation than analysis.Book reviews are usually written around the time of the work's publication, and then perhaps again when a reprint or new edition is released.
Reviews of books may be found in online databases that index newspapers and general interest magazines (e.g., New York Times Book Review, New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New Republic, etc.).
In-depth criticism and analyses of literary works may be found in more scholarly or academic publications (e.g., PMLA, New Literary History, American Literature, etc.) indexed in disciplinary databases, like the MLA Bibliography or scholarly journal collections such as JSTOR or Project Muse.
Databases specializing in literary criticism:
Literature Resource Center Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline. Click here for a guide to using LRC.
MLA International Bibliography. This is the largest and most comprehensive database for literary criticism in all languages. The MLA also covers, to a lesser degree, subjects such as folklore, linguistics, and film studies. In addition to journal articles, the MLA indexes book articles, books, and dissertations. It does not, however, index the book reviews included in literary journals. Click here for a guide to using MLA.
Interdisciplinary databases that include many literary journals:
Academic Search Premier. Multi-disciplinary database with lots of full text. Contains both scholarly and popular material. Limit to peer reviewed, if that's what you need.
JSTOR. All scholarly, no full text, up to a period averaging about 3-5 years prior to the present date. Multidisciplinary. Heavy on the humanities. (Bethel does not subscribe to JSTOR content, hence the lack of full text.) Use AtoZ (see search box to the right) and interlibrary loan to locate the articles you need.
Google Scholar. "Google Scholar aims to sort articles the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each article, the author, the publication in which the article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature. The most relevant results will always appear on the first page." Click here for a guide to using Google Scholar.
Full Text Finder checks all library resource (both online and print) to see if the article you want is available in full text.