maadmob

OK, so let’s see if we can find any that don’t use the same template throughout…(a couple listed here don’t do this)
Maybe it’s just the information architect in me, but I think the home page should look different to an index page and different to a content page. I really dislike sites where I can’t tell if I’m on the home or a content page.

In your style sheet:
text-align:center

I have a new book review site that does similar things:
https://maadmob.net/maadbooks/
It would take some work with the style sheet and template to duplicate exactly what you have, but you could get pretty close.
To have just the first entry with the review, I’d use a custom field for the first entry (I use custom fields in my site for author name, other reviews and quotes). Email me if you have Qs: donna at maadmob dot net

I managed to do something similar to what you want, but with one template for categories and one for individual entries.
I’m not using .htaccess as I couldn’t get it to work. Instead, in the permalink options, I set the first box to:
/indiv.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/
and the second to:
/catname.php
This gives me three templates – one for the home page, one for category listings and one for posts.
Here’s the result (available but still a little work on the content):
https://maadmob.net/maadbooks/

From memory (and I only installed a few days ago) that long list of things (installing WP-links etc) is a list of what the program has done. There should be a nice message at the bottom – something like ‘all OK, continue to next step’
You don’t have to do anything.