Reviewer: Mila_333

Review: Reye's Butterfly

Client: ThunderstormsAtNight

🌻

Title

The title corresponds to the plot totally and I love how you created the link between the term Lepidopterophobia and the whole plot, regarding the relationship of the protagonists. It is extremely unique and creative. I also love the name of the female protagonist, adding up to the uniqueness. The whole point of all this is that it does make the title seem catchy to readers, just what you have to accomplish actually, and you did.

Blurb

The blurb is well written. It contains all the required information and corresponds to the plot. The writing is also great and surely catches readers' attention, hence accomplishing the purpose.

Cover

I really love the cover! It matches the story perfectly and the illuminating background is so magical, totally representing what you described on the female protagonist. The butterfly wings are so dope, so in sync with the figure representing Reye. The font style, color and size of the title couldn't get better, considering the background color and overall design of the cover. I would surely rate the cover as a five out of five!

Grammar

As you should have already noted in the comments, I have come across some grammatical mistakes throughout my read and amongst others are lack of punctuation marks (especially commas), typos and incorrect use of prepositions. Hence, I strongly advise you to proofread your work and then start editing. Your grammar isn't actually bad, however, the polishing is needed to make your work more enhanced.

Plot

The plot kicked off nicely, showing the friendship of the female protagonist with the other characters. I really love the description you provided for the winter season and how you associated this particular scene to the female protagonist's actual life situation. I think the plot took off really great at the very beginning. The interaction of G and R was also well described. The female protagonist's reaction to G was very well understood. However, at a later stage, things started becoming more complicated between the characters. I certainly didn't expect all the plot twists. So, I guess the drama you created between the characters made the story really interesting and so many things happened that readers wouldn't see coming. This element is indeed a great achievement for it makes the story more enticing. Now, no matter how much things get spiced up, as a reader, I certainly didn't like some of the things going on, for example, Reye's best friend kissing the male protagonist. I am not hating on her, but it is actually so messed up. Also, I found the chapters to be a bit short, especially the later chapters. The events happening could have been explained in lesser chapters (combining two chapters in one), and as such the story became unnecessarily long. Apart from that, sometimes when you explain a scene, it would lack emotions, that is, it more likely seems like you are explaining what is happening rather than showing the emotions that should be derived from the scene and touch the readers. Hence, in my opinion, this is something that you should work on and it has to do with your writing style (I will come to that in the writing style section).

Writing style

One thing which is very important in a story is that it should have its own voice and it is your writing style that determines this. It is really important that you become successful in conveying the character's emotions throughout the story. Narrating the story is one thing and actually making the readers feel the characters is another thing. In my opinion, you have successfully narrated the events in the story, but the characters' emotions have not really been felt much. While you're writing, you're more focused on describing the events happening, I mean there's a lot of drama going on and you managed to relate to that only, hence ignoring the required part of making the characters to be really heartfelt. I could judge the characters by the things that they did because you were able to narrate that part very well. However, I was unable to connect fully to them because a portion of the description based on their thoughts/emotions is missing. I was able to feel the emotions in the introductory chapter, however the connection faded as the story went by, since more attention was based on simply narrating the events. The death scene of Reye's dad was well described, that is the part when she finds out about the death of her father. Reye's character itself is explained quite well. What is missing is that connection between the characters, or sometimes, there's a certain disruption caused to feel the character properly. The bonus point here is that overall your writing is pretty good, so you won't have much difficulty accomplishing the required task.

Character

The female protagonist's character is full of flaws, leading to making her character more real than ever. I love how she's such an introvert and how she manages to open up, in regard to the different situations she happens to be in every time. However, one negative point about her character was slapping her mother. I'm trying not to be judgemental here, but this was a big NO for her character. It made me lose respect for her, because no matter what you don't slap your own mother. Besides, her father didn't get sick because her mother went away. Rather, it is actually part of the dad's mistake that he chose to keep silent on his deadly disease, which happens to also be a natural aspect of life. Anna comes out as the one to blame because she is the reason the father chose to die slowly. As such, I don't see the entire fault being on the mother, hence the slap being too far-fetched. A substitute of the slap could have been an incessant yelling by the female protagonist. This would work out well being the introvert she is, transporting her completely out of her own element.  I'm just trying to lean away from the physical part. I also appreciated Reye respecting Sam's feelings for G, although she really didn't have to do that. She prioritized her best friend, making her own character more enjoyable, at the same time, Sam turning hers the opposite. 

Greg's character was a bit over the place to be honest. At first, it was going well. Later, it was like I wasn't sure where he really stands. This happened probably due to Sam's doings and also Brody's. However, it was crystal clear he was supporting Reye at all times, except where R was purposely ignoring him. I loved how he supported Reye all along though and how he is hideously believed to be the butterfly. It totally matches the concept of the plot and I liked this element.

Originality and Reader's enjoyment

As mentioned above, the butterfly concept is really unique and creative. The fundamental concept of the story is actually pretty normal and is something we regularly see in movies and books. However, the implementation of the butterfly concept with the story made it creative and unique.

All the plot twists and drama made the story fun to read and I really like to see things happening in a story that I don't see coming. So, the reading was quite enjoyable!