Title: Forever for you by dwarkaratna
Source: ELGANZA, INC. | AWARDS by TheCieloCommunity
Category: Comedy

Mature: N (blood, bullying, death, guns, loss of a loved one, medical issues, mild profanity, murder, PTSD, sexual assault, sexual references, violence)
Status: Complete
LGBTQIAP+: N

Special note (judging): I had four books in this category, and the other judge (YsmeriaGuilro) had four books.
Result: 71/100

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book, or click the link in the inline comments here. → 

*****

Rubric:
- Title: 5
- Book cover: 5
- Description (blurb): 5
- Plot & storytelling: 15
- Character development: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar: 10
- Originality & creativity: 10
- Emotional impact: 10
- Pacing & structure: 5
- Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5
- Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10
Total: 100

*****

Total: 71/100

Title: 4/5
I prefer capitalization in titles (Forever for You) so that's my only nitpicky complaint here. Otherwise, it's a cute, romantic title.

Cover: 3/5
I like the color theme and the imagery, and the font style, size, color, and placement of the title and subtitle, but I'd change the wording of the subtitle. The phrase is actually "push and pull," so I'd just swap that for "pulls and pushes." Also, the plain black text for your name feels out of place to me on this cover. I'm not sure you need to change the font style, but changing the color to something that works better with the tan color scheme would probably help.

Blurb: 2/5
As with Parth Probodhika, there are a lot of issues with awkward phrasing and grammatical mistakes, I'm guessing from a language barrier. I probably won't go into much detail in the grammar section for the actual story, but since this is a smaller chunk of text to work with, I'll go over what I'm seeing here and make some suggestions. (Note: The following is my first impression before reading the story. Addendum at the bottom.)

First, in the quote, you don't need "much" before "powerful," and there should be an article (the) before "right time." Since this is a quote and not dialogue leading into a dialogue tag, it needs an ending punctuation mark (period, exclamation mark, or question mark). Commas can't end sentences. In this case, the ending punctuation mark should be a period.

In the second paragraph, you can condense the wording a lot to be more concise and make the meaning clearer by changing "who was a reporter in profession" to "a reporter." Just offset that phrase with commas before and after (Trisha, a reporter,). I don't think the words "the last" work very well here, because unless her life is perfectly happy after this tragedy (or the tragedy kills her*), it's not the last one she'll ever face. And, judging by the rest of the blurb, there is more tragedy to come (and she's definitely still alive*). So, I'd cut "the last and." Then, I'd change "mafia" to "mafioso," because that is the word for a member of the mafia, which is an organization, not a person. Also, there should be a comma after mafia/mafioso, and both names need capitalization (Dikarsh Singh). There should be another comma after "that," and I think the preposition "of" would work better than "from."

There's a big gap in information between the second sentence and the third sentence about her being an aimless wanderer. The sentence about her not backing out of her mission makes it sound like she's still a reporter and still pursuing a lead, even after whatever tragedy occurred, and that is not wandering aimlessly. The last sentence makes it sound like the tragedy made her lose her drive and her way (and possibly her job, but that's just my interpretation), so how did she get from being a reporter who wouldn't back down to being an aimless wanderer?

Anyway, moving onto the third paragraph, you can be more concise by cutting "who was," and again, both names should be capitalized (Savyasachi Sanyal). There should also be another comma after that name to offset the phrase describing Parth. Then, "befriend with" should be "befriended," and you don't need anything after "Trisha." It's already implied by Parth befriending her that they established a good bond.

In the fourth paragraph, I'd change "After friendship" to "Then," because that phrase followed by the word "love" makes it sound like Parth fell in love with Trisha after they became friends. Obviously, the rest of the sentence makes clear that's not the case, but it still feels weird. Also, Parth's friendship with Trisha probably has little to do with him meeting someone he loves, so it's more of a chronological thing: friendship with Trisha, then love with Subhashikta.

Instead of saying "in name of," which is grammatically incorrect, I'd say "in the form of." Or you could simplify to "with," but I think you're going for a phrase like "in the form of." There probably should be commas in the next sentence after "desirable" and "college." Then, in the last sentence, I'm guessing you mean they had opposite opinions or personalities instead of opposite thoughts. Whatever the case, you can condense the sentence to make the meaning clearer with something like, "Their opposite natures brought them together."

In the fifth paragraph, you start using the phrase "third party," which is technically correct, but in a romantic setting, the phrase is usually "third wheel." That better shows the awkwardness of the person who isn't a part of the romantic relationship. Also, you haven't given any indication prior to now that Trisha was in love with Parth, which I think you're implying here. And I don't really know what you mean by "not in a villainous way." Why would a third wheel be villainous? There's nothing inherently evil about being a third wheel. Leaving that out, I think you could rephrase and condense the first sentence to be clearer with something like, "Trisha went from being in love with Parth to being a third wheel."

There's a missing space between that sentence and the next one, which is another sentence you can condense and rephrase to make it clearer. That would also eliminate the grammatical mistakes with articles (missing before "curtain" and "fatal" and probably should be "the" before "threat"). Looking at this, I think I may have an idea of what you mean by "good way," but that goes back to me not understanding how a third wheel is villainous, so my interpretation may be wrong. Anyway, this is what I was thinking could work for this sentence: "But that became a good thing when Parth and Subha were threatened with death."

And that brings us to the next paragraph/sentence, which is a question with the awkward "good way" and "third party." Following the train of thought I've had with these editing suggestions, I think you could rephrase to something like, "How was it a good thing?" Or, "How could Trisha, the third wheel, help them?"

In the next paragraph/sentence, there's a missing article before "whole" (the whole), and you don't need "single" before "question," because "this" already specifies that there is only one question. Then, in the final paragraph/sentence, you're probably fine, but I think I'd change "all" to "with" and add some hyphens and backslashes: "Presenting you with a college life-based romantic/thriller story."

Overall, I think the content of this blurb is fine. It introduces the main characters and important plot points without giving too much away. I don't see anything really humorous here, but the awkwardness of being a third wheel leaves plenty of room for embarrassing and funny situations, so I guess I'll see how the story goes.

Addendum: After reading the story, this feedback changes significantly, but it all ties into the plot so heavily that I'll address it in the next category. And I wanted to leave this here to show you where it got my mind going before I started reading.

*Yep. Unless it kills her, right? 😅

Plot & storytelling: 5/15
Let me start by saying the plot is good, but there's a huge disconnect between what the blurb prepares the reader to expect versus what the story actually presents, as you can see from my first impressions above.

First, the blurb makes it sound like Trisha is the main character, Parth is the male love interest, and Subhi is a side character. There's a big emphasis on Trisha's backstory and her relationship with Parth, and that led me to expect the story would start with Trisha, the reporter, investigating Devrash, the mafioso; then it would introduce Parth, who Trisha would befriend and fall in love with; then Subhi would come along, and Parth would fall in love with her; then there would be an awkward third wheel situation where Trisha would be the odd man out (so to speak) on dates; then, when Parth and Subhi are threatened (probably by the mafioso), Trisha would rescue them.

None of that happened. Actually, after reading the story, the blurb tells it in reverse, giving away what should have been a huge plot twist at the end and telling the reader about it right up front. Subhi is the main character. Parth is her male love interest, but he's looking for a girl he fell in love with as a child, so he won't acknowledge his feelings for Subhi. The mafioso's son, Denansh, is obsessed with Subhi, and he drugs her and Parth both, tries to assault Subhi in front of Parth, and is stopped by Trisha, who...is confusing.

It sounds like Parth maybe knows her already, but maybe doesn't? I wasn't sure if Parth's secret meetings with the girl (or Trisha) happened when he was a kid or started a few months before this story began. If they started before this story happened, she should have been mentioned prior to chapter eight (when she shows up), because it really feels like the reader should have known about her already.

Anyway, she has the pendant he gave that girl as kids, so he thinks she's the girl he loves, except he's more attracted to Subhi than he is to Trisha. Trisha finally gets him to admit that to her, and then she returns the pendant with the confession that she took it from Subhi when she rescued her from Denansh. So, Parth is happy, yay, he loves Subhi, all that.

So, no love triangle. Trisha is a side character with very rare, infrequent appearances in the story.

And then there's the whole bit with Subhi's amnesia due to past trauma. When that gets unraveled and Trisha suddenly shows up again, this time as a ghost, more confusion. She has no physical body. Subhi tries to hug her and goes right through her. So, how did Trisha pick up an object and hit Denansh over the head with it? How did she steal Subhi's pendant?

Trisha's backstory takes all of one paragraph. Maybe two. It's just another detail among many in the full story about what happened when Subhi witnessed her father's murder. Yes, it's important, but it isn't the driving force behind the story, and like I said, it should be a big plot twist the reader doesn't see coming. Except they read in the blurb. Right away.

So, that really, really confused me when I started reading the story. The first name in the blurb is usually the main character, and especially since Trisha had been given so much importance, I was looking for Trisha right away. There was no Trisha. There was Parth's twin, Krish, and the spelling is similar enough that I wondered if he was Trisha. Then, I was overanalyzing and dissecting Subhi and Radhika's relationships with the twins, and I actually thought for a while that Krish and Subhi were together and Parth was the third wheel. But, no, Krish and Radhika were together. Once Trisha actually showed up, it all fell into place, and I realized I needed to completely disregard the blurb if I wanted to understand the story.

Long story short, the blurb needs a redo. If I hadn't read the blurb before reading the story, I wouldn't have had a problem following the plot, because your storytelling is otherwise great. I noticed this with Parth Probodhika as well, but you have an interesting technique of telling the story from a perspective outside the main character, and I don't just mean that it's in the third person. It's mostly from Parth's perspective, not Subhi's. Even so, Subhi is the clear main character, and everything revolves around her.

I mentioned this in Parth Probodhika as well, but I liked the morals or thoughts you start each chapter with to help put the reader in the correct frame of mind for the content they're about to read, and I liked the addition of the songs in this book. Usually, I'm not too big a fan of them, as they usually distract from instead of enhance the story for me, but the songs you chose worked great, even though I couldn't understand the words. Which may have been why they didn't distract me, come to think of it.

I also talked about flashbacks in Parth Probodhika, and my opinion hasn't changed. Blatantly stating "flashback" and "flashback ended" is really jarring. It interrupts the story's flow and the reader's concentration, and you could create a smoother effect by just italicizing the flashback and offsetting it with section dividers.

I had a few questions that turned out to be intentional points of inciting curiosity on your part, like why Subhi fell asleep as soon as she got to college (dosed with sleeping pills), why she assumed a person standing on her lawn was a thief (PTSD), that kind of thing. I still don't understand why Parth said he loved her in a different language, though. He'd never used that language previously in the story, and he never used it again, so it seemed really strange that he would use those words to confess his love to Subhi.

Character development: 10/10
It's interesting to watch how you develop Subhi's character by the observations of the people around her more than through her own thoughts and emotions, and that goes along with your technique of telling the story from an outside perspective. She's the same sweet, caring girl Parth knew as a child, only now, she has the maturity of an adult. I loved her argument for why Suchi's father should allow Suchi to marry outside of their caste. It was a very clever way to shift his thinking so he would grant his approval, meaning the couple could start their new life together with their families' blessings.

I also love how you show Parth's sensitivity toward Subhi. Even before he knows about her past trauma, he has the sense to step back, not take her quiet, withdrawn behavior as an insult, and try to find out what's wrong. Then, when he knows, he's careful to support her, help redirect her away from her trauma, and try not to trigger anything that would bring her more pain.

Parth is definitely the serious brother, and his twin, Krish, is definitely the goofball, keeping it light and giving his brother a boost when he senses Parth is down in the dumps about something. I love their parents' relationship, too. Actually, of all the characters in the story, the parents were the most humorous. Their playful banter with each other was funny sometimes, and I loved when Krish picked up on something and used that to tease them back, like he and Parth sneaking out to meet their girlfriends at night, just like their dad used to do with their mom. It's also funny to me how the boys could do no wrong according to their mother and grandmother.

Smriti is an interesting character with very quiet development in the background. You definitely use her as the red herring throughout most of the story, so the revelation about how she had been secretly protecting her ex-lover's family all these years was really touching. I also loved how adamant Subhi and Radhika were that they wanted her to stay with them, because they considered her family now more than ever. I would have liked more about their mother, though. There was just the mention of her in a wheelchair at the beginning of the story, and then she shows up again when all the secrets come out, but she really doesn't figure much into the girls' lives at all, before or after the truth comes out.

Devrash and Denansh are very stereotypical bad guys. There isn't much depth to them at all. They are the black-and-white sketches of the villains in a comic book, all beady eyes and wicked grins, with hearts full of evil. And I think that's okay. It's not the most realistic portrayal, but your focus isn't on them, so it works out.

Writing style: 8/10
Obviously, I had a much easier time reading this book than Parth Probodhika. I think part of that is familiarity with your style and phrasing, but this is a different kind of book altogether. That was a poetic, descriptive, mythological epic, drawing heavily on cultural references that an American like me just misses, and the language barrier didn't help anything. This is a contemporary story written to a contemporary audience. Your descriptions are much less complex, and your characters are much more relatable. The language is easier, too, although there are still issues with awkward phrasing and wordiness, as I pointed out in the blurb.

My notes in Parth Probodhika about differentiating thoughts from dialogue still apply here, since you write thoughts just like dialogue, in normal font within double quotation marks. I think using a different method to make them distinct from dialogue would be a good idea. I also have the same suggestions about dialogue I made in Parth Probodhika; namely, keep one speaker's dialogue and actions together in one paragraph, and then, when the speaker or actor changes, start a new paragraph. That helps cut down on confusion about who is saying and doing what.

Grammar: 3/10
All the grammar notes I made in Parth Probodhika still apply here. There are frequent missing articles, noun/verb disagreements, missing commas, dialogue tag punctuation and capitalization issues, missing prepositions, pronoun errors, compound words that should be hyphenated or all together without a space between individual components, and missed capitalization for titles. Problems with verb tense happen, too, although more commonly from using the wrong past tense form rather than slipping into present tense. Trailing periods should be limited to just three for an ellipsis (...), and Subhi, Smriti, and Dekarsh's names get misspelled occasionally.

Characters often use the greeting "Hlo" in dialogue, and I'm not sure if this is supposed to be "Hello," or if it's a greeting I'm unfamiliar with. If it's the English "Hello," then spell that out.

I put together a list of word swaps from close misspellings. The word you used is on the left, and the correct word (in whatever context it showed up) is on the right: chose/choose, foot ware/footwear, of/have, we're/were, dinning/dining, phrase/phase, God shake/God's sake, advice/advise, prospectives/prospects, loosing/losing, affects/effects, blurred/blurted, node/nod, indicting/inciting.

Originality & creativity: 10/10
Well, this is definitely original and creative. There's no question about that. And even though your descriptions aren't as vivid as they are in Parth Probodhika, there are still gems like this one: "The well wrapped scarf around her neck was getting hit by her ear rings as if insisting her scarf to allow the wind to touch her neck." There are grammatical errors in that sentence, but I love the idea of Subhi's earrings insisting the wind should be allowed to touch her neck, as if they're in alignment with Parth's thoughts and want him to see more of her.

And here's that sentence edited: "The well-wrapped scarf around her neck was getting hit by her earrings, as if insisting her scarf should allow the wind to touch her neck."

Emotional impact: 8/10
I didn't really connect emotionally with the characters, but I understood their feelings, for the most part. This didn't strike me as a comedy book, though. I think the language barrier hides the humor. The only chuckle it got out of me was when the twins were interacting with their parents and their dad got called out on sneaking nighttime visits with their mother, so he wasn't in a position to tell them to behave.

Pacing & structure: 4/5
There are some unnecessary section dividers that literally come in the middle of a scene for no apparent reason (chapters 7, 10, and somewhere else I forgot to jot down), but otherwise, the divisions make sense, and the pacing is perfect.

Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5/5
Free points. Yay! 🙂

Overall enjoyment & engagement: 9/10
I'll be honest. I was worried I'd run into the same comprehension issues with this book as I did with Parth Probodhika, so it was a relief when I didn't. Again, that could be because I'm more familiar with your work now, but I think the type of book made a huge difference. The contemporary setting made it a lot easier for me to understand everything that was happening. And I love how you show close family bonds and sweet, innocent romances. That's probably why Subhi's solution for Suchi's wedding stuck with me as much as it did. There's such a strong emphasis in a lot of romance literature on ignoring family wishes and casting aside tradition to chase a partner who isn't any good, so your stories are a breath of fresh air. Family, tradition, mentally stable romantic partners and healthy relationships—your stories are so much more romantic than most popular romance novels.