Story: Shadows of Perfection
Author: FearsomePersona

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Reviewer: Jeon_Dinara

ꗃ﹕❜Cover and Title: 8/10

ꗃ﹕❜Cover:
The cover was lovely! The graphics that were laid on it looked really cool. The title was written in such a fantastic way. The black, red, and white theme looked stunning. The characters however were not being distinguished properly. Are these the protagonists? Is the front character Akina? Does she have short hair? Apart from that, I think it’s a perfect fit for the book.

ꗃ﹕❜Title:
The title was very appropriate and unique! Instead of keeping the group’s name “Phantom Thieves of Hearts” you kept something that the main protagonist felt during her journey. The title suited the story and the life of the protagonist.

ꗃ﹕❜Blurb and Prologue: 9/10

ꗃ﹕❜Blurb:
The blurb was really amazing! It contained all the points a good blurb must contain. It gave the gist of the story. It gave us a few details about the main leads which made me interested in them. The short introduction about Akina and Ren was really nice. The only thing that was off was the division of the blurb into paragraphs. Yes, I get it you did it for the aesthetics, but sometimes it feels a little non-formal and childish. This totally depends on the type of goal you have in mind. If you’re writing the book only for other fans to read, then it’s okay. However, if you’re doing it for it to be seen as a high-end book in the future, then you may remove the emojis. Another thing is that the blurb had a perfect flow, even though it was divided into paragraphs!

ꗃ﹕❜Prologue:
The prologue was really interesting. It told us about the past of the protagonist: Akina. The Prologue type used here is the ‘Flashback’ type at first and the ‘Exposition’ type later on. I overall liked the prologue. In the end, you set up a conflict .i.e, Akina fights to remove the ‘Shadows of Perfection’ from her life. I loved the way you portrayed the pain Akina was going through to meet her father’s expectations. The line “To be continued” that you have written sounds good in trailers but not much in prologues. It would be a bit better if you remove it.

ꗃ﹕❜First Impact: 9/10

ꗃ﹕❜Book Aesthetics:
The cover was amazing, it was definitely eye-catchy. The chapter ‘Cast of Characters’ made me imagine the characters easily and the book became fun to read. Even the banner used was pretty riveting.

ꗃ﹕❜Blurb:
As a reader, I would want to read the story by reading the prologue. It was almost perfect! The way that you introduced Akina as ‘Silent genius’ made me relate to her really well.

ꗃ﹕❜Grammar and Vocabulary: 8/10

ꗃ﹕❜Grammar:
I did not find any grammatical or typo errors in the book. The punctuation used was also on point. The verb patterns used were fleek too. I feel you read your chapters after writing once, which many Wattpad readers don’t, that result in you having such flawless chapters.

ꗃ﹕❜Vocabulary:
There were many outstanding words used in the book like: perplexed, itinerary, averted, etc. I would categorize this type of vocabulary as C1 type. Many new readers can learn a lot of words from your work. From the vocabulary comes the target audience, and I feel anyone in the mid-teens and above would be suitable. However,  noticed you used ‘perplexed’ and some other words a lot of times in the book. You can just use its synonyms like baffled or bewildered instead of repeating the word.

ꗃ﹕❜Story Flow and Pace: 9/10

ꗃ﹕❜Story Flow:
The story flow was sublime. The chapters were connected in a really great way. The sequence of events that took place was also smooth and good to read.

ꗃ﹕❜Pace:
The narration of the story was perfectly paced. However, sometimes I felt you tried to skip a few scenes just to “go with the flow” of the story. For example: In her scenes in the library, you passed them just like that. You could’ve given a little insight into her thinking. Even when she used to write her diary, I’ve seen you didn’t really put emphasis on what she was writing. Rest all was fine :))

ꗃ﹕❜Character Focus and Development: 10/10

ꗃ﹕❜Character focus:
The main focus of the entire story was mainly on the protagonist but you did not miss telling the story of the other characters. We slowly got to know each character’s pov and back story which made the story overall fun to read! At first, I felt there were too many characters and I would get overwhelmed, but the way that you slowly revealed each character made me even more interested in their personalities.

ꗃ﹕❜Character Development:
You introduced Akina who was very shy at first. Later on, we saw her personality get developed. She became bolder and stronger. Even Ren, at first a mystery was kept as to who he is and how he was on probation while having such a great personality. His character was slowly revealed and developed.

ꗃ﹕❜Plot: 18/20
The plot of the story was pretty interesting and was divulged during the prologue itself; when Akina says that ‘the shadows of perfection will fade’ and she will rise above the darkness to find her own light. The rising action was the best part of the plot I feel because it was the phase when she wanted to do something but could simply can’t because of the situation her father had put her in. However, she got out of that phase and started to prove her worth, which is much more than just being ‘perfect’ in the eyes of others.

ꗃ﹕❜Writing Style: 9/10
I really liked your writing style, there was a good blend of narration and dialogue. In the middle, you even kept what a certain character was thinking which impressed me quite a lot. The paragraphs were neither too long to make it boring to read nor too short. This type of writing is pretty common and popular among fantasy and fiction writers.

ꗃ﹕❜Uniqueness: 9/10
Uniqueness: The whole plot and story were very unique. If a third person knew Akina and her back story they would be like “A perfect girl, who’s forced on being perfect tried to escape from reality with the help of her friends.” Even the Love interest i.e, Ren was portrayed as very kind and sweet and falsely accused which is rarely seen in fanfiction (yes I’m talking about stories like ‘My boyfriend is a Bully’) Even the virtual reality game concept that you connected to a poor, depressed soul who wanted to make her future bring was really exceptional.