Book: Love Again

Author: Mzschivious_kookies

Genre: Romance

BLURB

I think the blurb was intriguing and a good synopsis for the story. However, I think that giving the ages and a character appearance didn't really fit well and was unnecessary. Your blurb would've benefitted from shortening it so only the main points are shown. You can develop characters in the story itself, rather than giving the information away early.

WRITING STYLE
I think your writing style was lovely. It seemed like you were searching for a deeper connection with the reader. I feel the author had a unique perspective which is always interesting to see. I think your work has incredible potential.

GRAMMAR

There were quite a lot of mistakes that I picked up on. Firstly, a lot of the sentences did not make grammatical sense. I was able to gauge what you, as a writer, were trying to portray, but the broken grammar made it a little hard to follow the plot. You often mixed-up tenses in your paragraphs.

Original: 'I was struggling to get up due to lack of sleep, I check the time from my phone and realize that I was late for my morning shift in the café I'm working at. Not once, have I ever woken up early as I always promised grandma'

Edited: 'I struggled to get up due to my lack of sleep. Checking the time on my phone, I realise I am late for work. I always promise grandma that I will wake up early. However, I never fail to disappoint her. (please note I am using British English so that wasn't a mistake on mine or your part)

The tense has changed from past to present. I recommend changing 'was struggling' to 'I struggled.' Also, there are few other mistakes in this paragraph alone. For example, you have put a comma after 'sleep,' In its place, there should be a full stop as you are starting a new sentence. A lot of the writing could be rephrased. This is just one paragraph but the list of errors is too extensive to list. I only do overall reviews, so will not be going into detail about this but I recommend using an editing shop. If you would like recommendations, feel free to PM me, although I'm sure you will easily manage to find one x

CHARACTER COMPLEXITY THROUGH SCENES

I really wish that characters were developed and backgrounds were established through scenes and dialogue. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing to list character history, but I definitely feel it would develop scenes as well as characters and make the book more appealing. An example is:

Original: 'He was still in his office, smoking as he always does,' Instead of simply stating that, perhaps you could use that detail to your advantage and write something like this:

Edited: 'I cautiously entered the room, shaking slightly as possibilities to what would come ran rampant in my mind. When I pushed the door ajar, a huge whiff of smoke directly hit my nose, causing me to let out a strained cough. I should be used it by now, considering his above-average smoking habits, but the stench never failed to catch me off guard.'

Or considering the fact that they didn't enter the office:

Edited: 'my eyes wandered over to my son of a bitch boss sat in his chair like he was some sort of God. Everything about him screamed, 'don't hurt my ego,' or 'look at me, I have a fragile, toxic masculinity.' Everything about him frustrated me, but the one thing that stood out amongst his other insufferable traits was his obnoxious smoking habits. The door was transparent for goodness sake, showing us everything inside. And yet, he still didn't have the decency to try smoking elsewhere.'

As you can see, I've added more imagery, rather than simply stating what happened. By developing scenes, I feel this book could be extremely successful!

Also when you describe Makayla, I think you would've benefitted from introducing her with a bang. Instead of telling the reader her personality traits, provide them with scenes and dialogues that portray these traits instead. Pay attention to little details like slight movements or tones of voices that could suggest a 'nasty personality.' This can be added in context with other chapters and scenes throughout the book.

PLOT & DESCRIPTION

The plot was a little cliché. I've seen books play out this way before and it was pretty easy to guess what was coming next. However, I did feel you managed to add your own little twist to it, which was interesting to see. I think your story really does have potential! Moving onto the description, I felt that sometimes unnecessary information was presented, that often had little to no relevance in the progression of the book. I recommend taking these bits out and instead focus on character development!

OVERALL

I understand this is your first novel and therefore should be extremely proud of yourself for managing to create such a wonderful piece of work. Hopefully, you will take on board some advice listed. I hope you continue to progress as an author <33 Good luck!

▹so that's three reviews done for today. I'll try and get some more done tomorrow! <3