With the reduction of conventional oil and gas resources and the accelerated development of unconventional resources such as shale oil and gas, how to obtain accurate shale mechanical parameters to provide guidance for drilling and fracturing was the research direction of scholars at home and abroad. The research progress of the stress-strain characteristics, rock failure mode, constitutive model and strength concept of shale from three aspects of laboratory experiments (such as uniaxial, triaxial, acoustic experiments), theoretical research and numerical methods (such as finite element, discrete element, etc.) of shale rock mechanics were reviewed. The deformation characteristics of shale have been mainly brittle, and the peak stress showed obvious bedding correlation. The failure characteristics of shale were closely related to bedding direction, confining pressure, fracture characteristics, burial depth and soaking liquid. The constitutive model was mainly based on damage theory because of a lot of micro pores and micro cracks in shale. The strength criterion has been established based on the single weak plane criterion and transverse isotropy. Prospects such as 3D printing technology combined with shale model to print out rock-like samples with given parameters; The research prospects of rock mechanics such as constitutive model and rock failure criterion under multi-coupling factor control and multi-weak surface structure are considered.