🌻Legacy of Libby Morningstar: Chosen One #1 by Fanfic-Girl2 🌻

Genre: Action, Fantasy

Chapters Reviewed: Prologue—Chapter 3

Summary: the first book of the 5 book series Legacy of Libby Morningstar Libby the 16 year old princess of Hell is eldest daughter of Lilith and Lucifer When the Angle Michael finds her she realizes that the Prophecy she's part of has begun.

inspired by Hazbin Hotel and Percy Jackson

Reviewed as of 10/31/24

Link to Story:https://www.wattpad.com/story/368293527-legacy-of-libby-morningstar-chosen-one-1

Review Type: Advance Review, Spoilers

Review: Note: this will be spoiler filled up until chapter 3.

Before I get deep into this review, I want to make one thing clear; I feel like this book would do better if it was categorized and advertised for what it truly was: fanfic. In the summary, it says it was inspired by Hazbin Hotel and Percy Jackson, and while I've never formally watched the former of the two, I've definitely seen my fair share of clips on social media to feel this wave of Deja vu when reading. It wasn't until I reread the summary that I realized why. There's a difference between being inspired by a story and writing fanfic. For something to be fanfiction, it needs to come from a fan of a piece of work that creates a story using the world, characters, settings, storyline, or anything of the likes. If a story is inspired by something, then it needs to have a clear difference, little to no similarities. Having the main character of this story have the same last name as the main character in Hazbin Hotel while following the story that she's Lucifer's and Lilith's daughter, finding them to be good, and even starting off in a similar way...it sounds awfully familiar to the show on Amazon Prime.

There are fanfictions that take the world of something and only focuses on original characters or takes a few characters from a franchise, changes them a bit, and puts them in a new universe. The writer of those fanfictions still recognizes they're fanfiction because it's not their own creative intellectual property. There's nothing wrong with that because they gave rightful credit to the original source material. In fact, those stories can still be unique in their own right.

Had I known this was essentially a Hazbin Hotel fanfic, I wouldn't have picked it up because I'm not a fan of the show (mainly due to the mature content). It clearly isn't the story for me (something I feel should be made known due to potential bias). The prologue essentially starts off the same way, explaining that Lilith was one of the first humans on Earth but didn't agree with Adam; therefore, she got close to Lucifer, and eventually, they were sent to Hell (different from what the Bible portrays, but the same, if not extremely similar to the show from what I understand). Even if the wording is different (and I'll admit, I do like how things are worded, but I'll get to that later), it's still taken from the show, hence why I'd call this fanfiction more so than being inspired by the show.

Honestly, if this fic were to add that as a tag and sell it in that light, I think it would flourish. Even if the events don't line up, it could be in an alternate timeline; something a lot of fanfics do. People would enjoy seeing your take of the show, how it could've gone, and how the characters would interact with one another. You could even add to it that you don't even have to watch the show for it to make sense if this seems like the show for you. I know of a few writers that have done that and have been successful in doing so.

After the prologue, I got quite confused. Chapter one starts off with Libby (who's the daughter of Lilith and Lucifer) in school, but the angel, Micheal, comes bursting in, wielding his sword to threaten Libby. Already, I'm confused and taken off guard. Libby is in school and no one is going to notice? The story said she was in school, so what class was she in? Why didn't anyone take notice that there were weapons in the classroom? If there was no one in the classroom, why was that? Why was her sister there? There needs to be some sort of description, some showing of what is going on in the story to help the reader understand the plot and setting better.

It's not just in the first chapter that this happens in either...it's in later chapters too. I will admit, there is something in writing where we, as writers, need to "show" not "tell", but not giving the readers any hints as to what's happening doesn't help. We know that the angels don't like Lucifer and Lilith, but they were banished to Earth. I don't understand what Micheal's deal is with it, but to go home and have Libby say she's putting them in danger being with them? Isn't it the parents that they'd be after more? If it's to do with the prophecy that's vaguely mentioned in the prologue and later one, then why wait all those years? It didn't make sense while I was reading and seemed very rushed to go right into the action without the needed exposition a story should have. This story speeds through important events. My biggest piece of advice is to remember the reader isn't going to know what's happening unless you paint a picture for them, and that requires slowing down. This can be done through editing. After writing a chapter, take some time to let it sit, maybe even write the next chapter or two, then go back to it and see if it still makes sense to someone who would have no idea what you're planning. Find places to add detail to and help slow down the pace. I know fast pace stories are great, but there is a thing as too fast of a pace that prevents the reader from comprehending the story.

Speaking about prophecy, what is it? In the last chapter I read, she quickly brushes over everything she needs to do, but why? There needs to be a purpose to a prophecy, a need for the character to set off on their quest to fulfill it, and it shouldn't just be that they were told to (unless being told somehow strongly connected to the character's personality, but that has to be shown). All we know about the prophecy is that Libby needs to defeat Satan and kill God...why? Those are two totally different beings that are fighting on opposite sides, and one person is supposed to fight both, single handedly? Again, it's vaguely mentioned. What exactly does the prophecy say about it? How was the prophecy brought up? Again, it goes with my last point of just speeding through points that it makes it hard to follow and leaves the reader with more questions than answers. I'm not saying to spoon feed the reader everything, but there are ways to balance the two through details that would make it easier to comprehend.

Another thing that would help with storytelling would be separating dialogue. Dialogue rules are tricky–as my ELA teacher back in high school once said, there is nothing more tricker in writing than writing dialogue correctly–but whenever a new character speaks, there needs to be a new paragraph that happens. No two characters should be speaking in the same paragraph unless they're talking in unison or are breaking the rules occasionally to give a short respond (like if the character were to ask a long question and without using dialogue tags, you show the other's response...it's tricky to do effectively). It helps the reader follow what's going on and it helps them have that visual cue of "oh! New character speaking. Got it!" Now, in the beginning of the book, there are some strong moments where after some dialogue, pronouns are lowercase after it followed by dialogue tag. As strange as it looks, that is correct. Take this snippet from Chapter 1 for example, "'What are you going to do with that, throw it at me?' he sneered..." (yes, I had to single quote it because I'm quoting it...in the book itself, the actual dialogue is quoted correctly with two quotation marks around the dialogue). "He" in that sentence is lowercase which is how it should be. Later on, that's forgotten. Make sure dialogue rules aren't forgotten.

In fact, there are quite a few capitalization issues that are very apparent in the book. Whether it's the first word in a sentence or paragraph, there are quite a few words that are lowercase that should be capitalized. It's something to be careful when editing this book and especially when writing and editing future ones. I'd suggest going through the chapter a day or two after it has been written to see if it makes sense to someone who may have never read the story or knows what is going on. It helps us slow down, catch grammatical errors, and even notice pacing with it. Even taking it off Wattpad and adding it to Google Docs or having Grammarly check it can help these common mistakes.

Now, there was one thing I absolutely adored in this book, and it was the vast vocabulary that was used. It makes the writing seem so flowery and fun to read. Just be careful that you're spelling angel correctly though, because most of the time, it's spelled as angle, including the picture that was drawn for chapter 1. I did like that it was included in there to show one's interpretation of the angel, but the wrong word was used there, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. It's great artwork as it adds to the story, but seeing the word "angle" instead of "angel" does make one pause for a moment to process it.

While I loved how that picture helped contribute to the story, it'd be nice to see what the other characters looked like. This can be done through description, describing what you see. It doesn't have to be all at once. Maybe it's one feature given in a subtle action like "she tucked a red strand of hair behind her ear," or "she has the same colored eyes as her mother." But, if this was fanfiction, and these are the same characters from the show, then you wouldn't necessarily have to do that as much unless you wanted to reach an audience that was new to the show or could read it without watching it.

Alright, I think I picked at this story long enough that I think it's time for a rating. Now, keep in mind, this story does have great potential if the time and effort is put into it. I can tell the author put time and effort into the story when writing, don't get me wrong, but it just needs fine tuning and some more details added into it. I don't think I was the right audience for this book. With those two factors going into play, I give it the following...

Rating: 2/5

It's not the worst story I've read, but it's not a story for me. The storytelling could be a bit stronger by taking the time to add detail and flesh out everything, so the reader can actually gain that picture in their mind as to what's going on. I think with some editing help, correcting grammatical errors, fixing dialogue mistakes, and spelling the word angel correctly, it'll help the professionalism of the story. Finally, if this were to be recategorized as fanfiction, this story has potential. Future stories to this series would have potential. After all, there were some strong points, such as the strong vocabulary that was woven into the story. That's always nice to see.