Author: Caille_Vinn

Genre:
Science Fiction

What I liked:
- Your prologue was good. I liked how you start us out with a grim setting and really put the situation in our hands as the two children you introduce are killed. In addition to this, we are teased about whoever the Conrad family is and that they are being hunted—or have been hunted, to be more accurate.

- In the prologue, the one sentence that really brought it to life for me was this: ". . . deny the fact that her brother is dead, the unmistakable stain of crimson that bleeds out from the door blinds, and the cold stillness of her can's string implies the truth she's not ready to face—Billy is dead." That was a scary sentence, but it made the whole of a dead body much more real.

- Your naming was good. I appreciated that the names weren't "John" or "Amy", but they still fit in while being unique. You started almost every one with a different sound in the mouth and each is descriptive in its own way.

What I didn't like:
(1) The word choice bothered me. You use a colorful word, but that word only half means what you're intending it to mean and it sounds weird in the sentence, which then breaks the tension you are trying to build. A few paragraphs later, you use the same word again, and it is still used incorrectly. It's as if the correct word is too simple, so you use a thesaurus to find a new word, but it's a bad thesaurus and the meanings and usages are offset.

I realized when I returned to the book that your phrasing is wonky, too. You take an exotic word, then add an exotic adjective to it, only to use another colorful word later in the same sentence describing the same thing. This adds up and becomes extremely distracting to the reader. The use of unusual words is nice, but only on occasion. For instance, I wouldn't use the word "flamboyant" twice too close to each other. Flamboyant is a colorful word that not very many people know, and it carries power because of it. If I were to use flamboyant in a sentence, I would then remove it from my vocabulary for a while after that to let my readers get used to it.

One of the words I noticed you use in the prologue is "encroach." I have never heard the word before, and I thought it was an interesting use of it. However, I wouldn't use that word again for a long time because I'm going to remember that you had a unique use of the word and it will immediately strike me as redundant the next time you use it, which just happened to be later that chapter. Whenever you find yourself using an uncommon word, be wary of your later uses of it. The rarer the word, the rarer you should use it. This is one of the most prominent aspects of your book that really set me off.

(2) We should definitely know what the Shearing is before reading through two whole chapters revolving around it. The Kill Queue is introduced a little late as well. Along with characterization is the telltale task of world building. The two lean on each other, and if one leans too far, they both fall over. In this, the characterization was imbalanced with the world building and I was introduced to these amazing people and didn't know where or what was happening because you didn't tell us. The thing is, we can only imagine so much. You need to prompt us. Don't describe everything in great detail so that we are overwhelmed with meaningless facts and images, but just give us hints of what is around the characters because the plot remained unexplained.

(3) There is a cringeworthy amount of inconsistencies. Chapter two, when Byrne is at her job and the announcement goes off, there are several aspects of this that don't make sense. For example, if everyone in the store is transfixed on—mesmerized by, you could say—this broadcast, then why aren't any of her coworkers watching? Why don't they show any interest at all? In addition to this, if there were a broadcast listing the names of the city's most wanted, it would be repeated. They're not dumb. If there's an important message that needs to be relayed to that many people, there is no question that it would be repeated or broadcasted publicly over speakers or something. Moreover, if the surname is what matters, why would Byrne only change her given name? Why would she come up with a fake first name when only the last name matters? And what about the lady who asks Byrne her name? Why would she tell the truth? It just doesn't make any sense. The thing that makes it worse is that if these facts were corrected, none of it would have even happened. These inconsistencies just make the book unbearable.

(4) The chorus people—that's to say, the crowd—are all mindless vermin. That's the impression I got from the broadcast in chapter two. They applaud—to the television, no less—and all wear malicious smiles, mimicking to some extent the exact facial expression of the blatantly evil people on the tv (see (5)). Are these people being mind-controlled? Or are they just stupid? I don't know. To me, they don't seem like they have any personal livelihoods at all. Why would they purposefully torture the "Ashers" guy before shooting him? If they're only getting paid to bring him in, then why would they deliberately team up (which also doesn't make any sense) and prolong his pain? Do they have any humanity at all? This scene was just way out there in so many ways and that's only the example.

(5) As mentioned in (4), the antagonists you introduce in chapter two need some work. I've talked about this in previous reviews, but the thing about bad guys is they're still human (most times), meaning that they aren't purely evil with no reason. Now don't get me wrong, I don't know anything about these guys, but your introduction prompted the assumption that these guys follow what I'm about to say. They're evil. That's it. They're just evil. What I mean by this is that they are shallow because they are not relatable. Take the Disney villain Captain Hook.

If you haven't seen Peter Pan, Captain Hook is the leader of a band of pirates in a place called Neverland that terrorizes our protagonists throughout the span of the story. Now this character doesn't have a long, droning backstory, but we still manage to relate to his evilness because of the hints of his history that we are presented with. In the movie, we learn that Peter Pan (the rambunctious main character) has been, in a way, bullying Captain Hook, which led him to get his hand bitten off by an alligator, hence the hook. In his anger and pain, Captain Hook aims to seek vengeance on the meddlesome Pan. So we see here that even though we still love and support Peter Pan in this children's story, we know that he is not entirely good and spritely. His confidence and wit sometimes lead him to do things that aren't right, which is what drives the motivation for our villain. So in addition to giving our main character a flaw, we also give the villain a motivation and a brief backstory as to why he is evil.

(6) Um, where is the environment? In the action scenes, you need to keep a solid form of the environment for your readers to be able to focus clearly on the characters and what is around them. I think the problem with this is your initial descriptions are lacking important features, so as your characters continue to interact with this thing, those important features pop up and entirely change our image of the environment. This is not good when we're trying to follow the story! Give the environment a base so we can focus on the characters. What happened to the descriptions? I sure don't know. Point is, keep it straight so we can focus on the characters and the plot.

(7) I've mentioned this many times in previous reviews, but the chapters are way too long. I would say 2,000 words max. It was painful to read that much in a single chapter repeatedly.

Suggestions:
(1) Improve your word choice and stop repeating words.

(2) Introduce the world and its happenings at a closer to equal rate with the characterization.

(3) Do a reality check on your storyline and plot.

(4) Give the crowd some logic.

(5) Give the antagonists purpose.

(6) Give more meaningful descriptions and keep them consistent.

(7) Shorten your chapters.

Side note: pick a tense and stick to it. At one point you were switching between past and present tense several times within one sentence. And every use of the word "albeit" is wrong. It was killing me.

I would rate this a 3.5/10.
The writing here is painful. It would have scored higher for creativity, but there are too many inconsistencies that it becomes too much to ignore really fast. I can't keep up with the storyline, either, because the characters are constantly going from one "we're totally gonna die" situation to another, but no one gets injured through any of these, and when they do it's as if they forget it the next paragraph. Overall, this in need of a complete rewrite. I quit at chapter five. Think critically about the story and consider the realism of your characters' situations because this was just off the hook. Good luck!

This is merely my opinion and my advice, please do not try to correct it. This is what I thought of your book while I read it and it is entirely your choice what to do with it. That said, I worked really hard on this. Please be nice and remember that I'm trying to help you improve your writing.