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Short story book Review: Where Jezebel Went

Author: wigglysubu

Title: Where Jezebel Went

First thought on the title: When I first saw the title I thought that this might be the crime story of a missing prostitute in the south. Kind of like Gone Girl set at a different time, I will be the first to admit I have never heard of someone's name being Jezebel but that might just be me, I've heard it used in a derogatory manner though. The title though is short sweet and to the point and since it asks the reader a question that will have them opening the book to find out. 10 out of 10

Cover: So this is your cover and I must say it looks very professional, I could very easily see this on a bookshelf in the mystery thriller section next to the other crime novels. I'm assuming that the red part is a blood drop if so I do recommend perhaps making it a slightly brighter red to truly capture the effect. I believe that that's a brick wall behind that which is kinda hard to see, if you take it out make the rest of the background back it'll make it even better. 9 out of 10 it needs some tweaking here and there but it's still an incredibly well-made cover.

Summary: ❝where did Jezebel go?❞

In which Liam's enigmatic girlfriend disappears.

She disappears leaving behind a broken heart, a thirst to kill and a cobweb of deceit.

Thoughts: Short sweet and to the point, It asks the reader a question, sets up the conflict and gives us a small bit of an answer but leaves the rest of the answers to the book itself. Your summary is one of the perfect examples of how to draw the reader in hook them and keep them wanting to answer the questions your book asks. I'm getting major Gone girl vibes so I can't wait to read this and see if the book itself lives up, so far though it's doing it incredibly easily. 5 out of 5.

First and second impressions:

1: In the beginning, I was kind of confused on who's text messages these were the ones that confused me were text message four and text message five. I recommend placing the A/N you made on text message 1 instead of 10 so that any confusion is cleared up immediately. Other than that I actually love this formatting it's incredibly interesting. Liam is getting bullied but I also loved the way you show how he's becoming more and more unhinged sounding more like a crazed delusional stalker than Bella's boyfriend.

I thoroughly enjoy how you portray his thoughts getting slowly more crazed with the way he views religion, how he says that he must punish those who hurt Bella and upset God. In text message 25 we truly see how unhinged Liam is as he burns Josh's house down presumably with Josh in it which is just like woah this went from a poor bullied boy missing his girlfriend to a Criminal Minds' or Law & order episode like holy shit Liam.

2: Holy shit I was right this is a criminal minds episode, after revealing Liam's home life I was seriously wondering if he was schizophrenic or had psychosis and Josh wasn't actually making up rumors Liam just believed he was because of how obsessed he is with Bella. Also, Bella with the "I don't love you" text message might have been the worst thing she could do in that predicament, I'm kind of wondering why she didn't just take her phone to a police station since Liam told her literally everything. While the book isn't finished yet at this point I wouldn't be surprised if he kills her or has her body in his closet and does ugh things to it.

10 out 10 Liam's sudden turn from sweet worried boyfriend to insane crazed stalker was one of the best twist ever. You slowly spoon fed the hints in the text messages which was a perfect drip feed of information. Liam's insanity was built up incredibly well and sound very believable. I especially loved seeing the relationship between him and his mother which gave off Ed Gein, Gary Ridgway/The Green River killer vibes, it actually made me feel very uncomfortable when I read it which is hard to do as I absolutely love horror.

But you've mastered the art of Fridge horror which is basically the deeper and longer you think about something the worse it gets like spoiled milk in a fridge. The more I thought about Liam's unhinged texts the more horrifying it got especially when he talked about religion. Then I saw the chapter with him and his mother and oh boy did that milk in the fridge turn black.

Grammatical rating: 5 out of 5 I saw no grammatical errors in your story while the beginning is a bit confusing that can easily be fixed by moving the A/N from chapter 10 to chapter 1. Other than that everything was great pacing, and flow were also perfect.

Genre Ratings:

Short story category: 5 out of 5 on descriptiveness and hook, I was honestly hooked from the summary and page one and it kept me hooked throughout all the chapters that you currently have. 9 out of 10 while it flowed well at the beginning until I got to text message 10 I was incredibly confused.

I figure that one text was Liam's and on the next page was Bella responding, like I said it was text 4 and 5 that confused me because I thought Bella was the one doing the texting and was responding to Liam, other than that your word count is pretty low and once you know who's talking everything just clicks into space.

Sub-genres:

Mystery: 4 out of 5 while the mystery of what happened to Bella is the main focus of the story, when the reader sees how unhinged Liam is especially considering what he did to Josh and the situation with his mother they'll automatically assume he killed her so when you finally hit us with Bella's response in text 33 it catches them way off guard. And makes them want to keep reading to finally figure out what happened to Bella, did she run away due to pressure from her parents? Did she run away because of Liam or maybe that might not even be Bella texting Liam at that moment it could be one of her siblings seeing the stuff this guy is sending their sister.

9 out of 10 at the moment all of the clues seem clear cut and in order we know what Liam has done to Josh as does Bella, but due to the book being incomplete we truly don't know if he did something or is going to do something to Bella because of how his crazed mind works.

Suspense: 3 out of 5 while the text message format you have is done amazingly well it also becomes a double-edged sword for you for this part of the category as you only put what's necessary in the text messages. However when you broke away from using just text messages such as in chapter 1 and chapter 2 the visuals were done very well sadly however we get very few uses of description in the text messages. The text messages that do have it such as 4, 5, 7, 17, 20, 23, 26, 28, and 32 sometimes have not enough or the perfect amount. There's not really an equal balance happening here.

10 out of 10 oh boy did this paranoia stick with me, especially on chapter 1 I kinda wanted to crawl out of my skin as you thoroughly detailed Liam and his mother's relationship especially the bath scene I felt like and probably was watching a serial killer in the making. In fact, I know for an absolute fact that the Green River killer's mother did the exact same stuff to him that Liam's mom is doing. The only difference is daddy dearest was smart and normal, he chose not to stick around but also doomed his son Liam to be under his mom's craziness.

Trailer Rating:

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I'll be honest I didn't like the music it feels like it should start out with this lovey-dovey type of music then switch to something tenser when it gets to Liam's part. I did like the editing it was just the music that didn't stick it was kind of like a well-edited poorly timed AMV (Anime music video). I really recommend changing the song, I believe that the song Death with Dignity by Sufjan Stevens would fit pretty well as it still has that soft melody but with a more melancholy tone and sadder theme. If you're looking for something with a kick however then I recommend the song If you only knew by Shinedown as it also fits really well.

The editing was on point though, what editing program do you use? 13 out of 15

Overall scores:

Title: 10 out of 10

Cover: 9 out of 10

Summary: 5 out of 5

First and second impressions:  10 out of 10

Grammatical: 5 out of 5

Genre:

Short story Category 1: 5 out of 5

Short story Category 2: 9 out of 10

Sub Genre:

Mystery Category 1: 4 out of 5

Mystery Category 2: 9 out of 10

Suspense Category 1: 3 out of 5

Suspense Category 2: 10 out of 10

Trailer Rating: 13 out of 15

Final Score: 9 out of 10 this book was amazing but it definitely still needs a bit of work here and there, maybe add a bit more detail to the text I listed in the suspense category 1 because as I said it is a double-edged sword. I really also suggest changing the trailer music to something less lovey-dovey considering that the chapters you currently have up go from sweet puppy dog love to wanted by the FBI murderer edition. It's also the reason I didn't put you down for the romance category, as your book hints of romance in the beginning and then takes a turn into full horror and suspense. Still, I really loved this book and definitely keep updating it.