↻ AUTHOR ࿐྄ྀ Chaosimsystem_
↻ REVIEWER ࿐྄ྀ astrxzaki

First Light :: 7/20

» Title :: 1.5/5

A title’s purpose is to give insight into what your book is about. It must be interesting and suitable to the story’s main plot, something significant that will catch a reader’s attention. And although your title gives clues as to what the storyline is, it’s too cliche. It’s your choice whether or not you want to change your title, but I recommend you switch it to something more unique, anything that will make your book sound more special and different from the rest.

» Cover :: 3.5/10

The background of your cover is quite pretty, and that, along with the theme and color scheme, is fitting to the story, so you don’t really have to change anything in that aspect. Although, the title’s fonts and positions are quite bothersome and unsuitable.

I suggest keeping the title in one or two lines and position it at the center of the cover. And also change the font to something more fantasy- or possibly medieval-like, seeing as your novel’s genre is supernatural romance. I also suggest you minimize the font of your/the author’s name, but not too much that it’s no longer noticeable at first glance.

» Blurb :: 2/5

Much like the title, the blurb’s sole purpose is to summarize your story’s plot. It must immediately be noticed by the audience, and is interesting enough so they would continue reading it. Upon reading the book’s bio, I think it’s a bit too lengthy. A bit too exposing, in my opinion. Blurbs are usually only two to four sentences long, and I advise you to shorten it so it fits within the limit.

I also suggest you remove or merge some of the unnecessary sentences, especially those that seem to stray away from the main plotline or give out too many spoilers.

Example:

Cleo Harper lives on the planet Irantus where she lives with her husband Georg in a small house. But one day she is taken by the vampire king Xandros who has her brought to his castle in their part of the planet. Not only is Cleo told that she must marry him, no. She will also have to compete in their annual games. Where survival is the only option. Fighting, she tries to beat her way through not only, the castle but also at those games. Her mission is to stop these games and return home to her husband.

can be changed/combined to:

Cleo Harper was leading a simple yet peaceful life with her husband, Georg, until she was taken hostage by Xandros, the Vampire King. Xandros brought her to his castle, not just for him to make her his wife, but also for her to compete in a series of deadly Vampire games.

With the loss of her home and family and Xandros’ piercing eyes watching her every move, her only choice was to keep surviving until she figures out a plan to escape.

Dawn :: 3/10

I’ll be blunt― I didn’t quite like the information dump at the beginning of the book. Yes, writing about the novel’s universe is important for world building, but too much information all at once is quite bothersome. It ruins the flow of the story, especially at the start.
Think of it as adding salt to scrambled eggs. If you place the majority of the salt (in other words, details about the story) into the first few bites of egg (in other words, the story), the rest of the scrambled eggs will be bland. But if you carefully scatter the salt all around it, the salt will provide an even ratio and will not ruin the taste of the eggs, if not make it better.

I suggest you remove most, if not all, of the non-significant details, only the ones that won’t emerge during the first few chapters. And then slowly introduce the world, little by little, to the readers as they continue reading the book.

The prologue’s pacing is also hasty, especially since the length is shorter than usual novel prologues. Many events happened in the span of three to five paragraphs, which completely ruins the mood, if you ask me. I advise you to extend and prolong everything, like adding more narratives and dialogues, so it won’t be so rushed.

Plot and Idea :: 9/20

I mean no offense when I say that your story’s plot is a tad bit unoriginal. Vampire AUs are quite common within the Wattpad community, along with the ‘main (mostly male) lead kidnapping the reader’ trope and ‘deadly games/fight to the death’ stories. It’s, truthfully, boresome; especially to those who, like myself, have been reading all kinds of novels for a long while now.

Whilst it’s not really a completely terrible idea, if you want to garner more readers, I suggest placing more distinctive aspects and uncommon tropes and details into the mix. Through this, readers can get a fresher take on your story, each unique twist and turn leading them down a path they most probably won’t predict. And for mystery/horror/action/etc writers, this― in my opinion― is a must.

Characters and Emotions :: 5/15

Again, I’ll be blunt and direct about this: I don’t exactly know where Cleo/Cara’s love and loyalty lies.

In some parts, you show that Cleo is devoted to her husband and adores him― as she should, because marriage is serious and should not be tainted/messed with. But in other parts, she’s somehow aroused and turned on by this mysterious vampire who took her against her own will, trapped her in his castle, made her participate in deadly high-stake games, and more. She seemingly loves her husband, but is sexually attracted to another man― correction, a vampire who could suck out all her blood and kill her then and there.

And then comes said vampire, Xandros. At one moment, he’s being all loving and caring to Cleo so he can try and change her mind, then boom, his mood does a complete 180. He becomes possessive, and not the wholesome clingy type. He’s toxic, always yelling and shouting at her, firmly reminding her that she ‘is his wife now’ and that he should ‘listen to whatever he says because she’s his’ as if she’s some sort of property he inherited, not his so-called partner.

It’s perplexing. Please stick to one specific design per character only― specific details of what their personality is like, how they act around people they like and dislike, and more― and refrain from straying away from them.

Ah, and this may seem like it belongs in the ‘grammar’ area of this review, but I’ll just say it now since it’s somehow related: the excess exclamation marks (!), especially in the scene descriptions, are a huge turn off. Yes, you want to show the character’s emotions, but this isn’t the way to do it. Instead, try conveying what they felt, explain in detail how frustrated they were at that moment. 

Example:

“Accept it or not! You are mine now! And I want you to apologize to leave the table before I said so.” He is crazy! I’m not going to apologize!

“No!”

can be changed to:

“Accept it or not, you’re mine now,” he growled. “And I want you to apologize for leaving the table before I said so.”

“Apologize?” I scoffed. He’s crazy. I wasn’t going to apologize. “As if!”

Writing Style :: 7/15

In a regular reader’s POV, your chapters are average in length, and your writing is easy to understand. You don’t over-describe the narratives, but I think it’s lacking a bit, so you should also work on that. A well-written scene can certainly let the audience feel like they themselves are there, witnessing that scene firsthand, and it will boost their enjoyment and, sometimes, can even make them feel the emotions the characters are feeling.

I also noticed how you sometimes seem to switch from past tense to present tense, which is slightly distracting to some. I suggest sticking to one tense to prevent confusion, and so your book would look proper and uniformed, if that even makes sense.

Example:

He cursed and walk away from me slamming the door behind him. I don’t know what just happened, but it is odd.

can be corrected to:

He cursed and walked away from me, slamming the door behind him. I didn’t know what just happened, but it was odd. (First POV, past tense)

or:

He curses and walks away from me, slamming the door behind him. I don’t know what just happened, but it was odd. (First POV, present tense)

Grammar :: 8/20

The grammar for this book is simple and basic― which isn’t always adverse, depending on who you’re asking. Though, if you were to ask me, I do recommend you expand your vocabulary and use other and/or similar terms. For example, instead of ‘hard’, you can use ‘difficult’, ‘strenuous’, and more.

This also prevents repetition of words; which, quite frankly, is displeasing to some readers― myself included. It’s tiring having to read the same word over and over again in the same paragraph. Try searching for terms with similar meanings on the internet if you want to avoid frequently using the same phrase in your narrative. A thesaurus― or even a dictionary― will help, as well.

Punctuation is also not quite a big problem in your book, though I was able to spot a few mistakes scattered here and there. I’ll try to explain it as best as I can, so bear with me― and I deeply apologize if you don’t understand a word I’m saying. When you put a dialogue tag (i.e. ‘said’, ‘whispered’, ‘called out’, etc.) at the end of a character’s dialogue, you put a comma (,) before the quotation mark (“) instead of a period (.).

Example:

“...They are going to do this game with us.” He announced to the vampires.

should be:

“...They are going to play this game with us,” he announced to the vampires.

Likewise, when the character does an action, instead of using a comma before the dialogue tag, you use a period― or a question mark, or an exclamation mark.

Example:

“Yes.” He smiled at me, before laying me down onto the couch.

Another thing I noticed is the lack of commas (damn, with the amount of times I said ‘comma’ in this review, I feel like it isn’t a real word anymore), along with misuse of specific punctuation marks. If you want, an editor or proofreader can assist you with pointing out the errors you made or edit the text altogether. Or, if finding someone is too much of a hassle, simply use editing software like Grammarly and such to help you.

Example:

Later I go downstairs to get some food I was so hungry.

can be changed to:

A while later, my stomach grumbled so I went downstairs to get some food.

TOTAL :: 39/100

Reviewer’s Notes :: Hi, hello. I sincerely hope you didn’t get offended by any of my words. Believe me, it’s not my intention to do so. But I do hope you take note of my critique and use them to improve your book, along with your writing skills. I believe in you!

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Yours Truly,
SeeSaw Fam.