Title :: Astray

Author :: taekoo_kii

Reviewer :: Nola @/SURREALGGUK

READER INTERACTION :: 5/5
Good going, I can clearly see readers commenting on your book, so there's some level of enjoyment from them.

COVER :: 4/10
To be honest, it's not eye-catching at all. Though the effort in masking is worth recognising, it doesn't look aesthetically pleasing to me overall, especially because of the font. I personally think the font should be changed, and should be in another colour.

Next, this is a Taekook fanfiction. Hence, your cover should have BOTH Taehyung and Jungkook in it, which is something I'm not quite seeing here. I've looked at the background faceclaim for minutes on end and I'm a hundred percent sure that it's Taehyung, which is why I'm bringing this problem up. If the faceclaim in the background is actually Jungkook, please ignore this whole paragraph. I'm fairly certain it's Taehyung, however.

I understand not everyone can make good covers (me included), but fret not, for our community has a graphic shop with a team of friendly and talented designers who will be more than willing to help you!

DESCRIPTION :: 3/5
I roughly understand the flow of your story, but the grammar mistakes are too prominent to ignore. Besides, the excerpt you provided in your descriptions seems more like a transcript of a film rather than a work of fiction, especially because of the "Tut tut... Calling TaeTae". I believe this excerpt can be tweaked a little to make it fit more into the fiction requirement.

TITLE :: 2/10
I somewhat understand the relation of the title to your story. However, you seem to have a misconception of the word "astray". You see, "astray" means going into error or morally questionable behaviour. In your book's case, Taehyung just went missing, and Jungkook is trying to find him. Hence, this is not the apt situation to use the word "astray" here.

PLOT :: 6/10
I'd like to comment on the realism of some events, i.e. how Taehyung went missing. I was feeling neutral about the whole 'going missing' concept, but the fact that he got missing in NORTH KOREA had me raising my eyebrows. Did you know that South Korean citizens are routinely denied entry into North Korea? So how did Taehyung and the other trainees get into North Korea? The only way I can think of is by human trafficking, but I don't think that's possible without their phones getting confiscated. I suggest that you change this aspect of the plot because it just doesn't make sense.

I'd also like to point out that there are nearly zero pictures of North Korea's interior. At most, you can only find pictures of their leader and the military, and 'touristy' pictures that the government wants people to take. Hence, how is Jungkook going to know where exactly Taehyung is? For all we know, North Korea could be swarming with forests. If the area Taehyung is in is "a mountainous area", which one is it? Furthermore, independent travel in North Korea is not permitted, and you cannot leave your hotel without a guide, whose company is managed by the government. This means that your every move is going to be monitored by the government, so how is Jungkook going to pull this off?

Also, how does Taehyung know how Victoria looks if Jungkook didn't show him a picture? He only described the kind of person she was, so even if Victoria had a name tag on her clothes, there's no way Taehyung would have immediately connected the dots and found out that Victoria was the person Jungkook was talking about previously.

I really don't like how the story ended. Sure, you may have wanted to go for a cliffhanger sort of ending that keeps readers thinking, but it's the fact that even you don't know whether the person talking is Taehyung or V that raises all the red flags. You, as the author, will have the closest bond with the piece of work you are writing, so if you don't even know who the person is, how can you expect your readers to know who it is?

I feel like the story is pretty generic for a fanfiction. It starts off with a minor conflict, then escalates into something serious, just like your work. I feel like more research could be put into your story to make it more realistic and enjoyable for the readers.

GRAMMAR/VOCAB :: 3/20
The fact that the amount of grammar mistakes made this book nearly unreadable when it's only the prologue just shows how important grammar is in attracting readers and getting them to stay for long. It doesn't matter if your plot is disastrous and horrific, good grammar is enough for a reader to stay on and read your story. I'm really strict on grammar and vocabulary usage because to me, this is the most important in writing a good book. I assume English is not your first language from the language and grammar use in the book, but I won't be going easy on you, because this just means that you're going to have to put in more effort than native English speakers. Here's some of the grammar mistakes I saw and how to correct them:

[...to cover his mouth as his jaw was dropping to the floor on which I was kneeling down in front of him.] doesn't make sense. The language use just makes this whole part of the sentence confusing, as even though I roughly understand what you are trying to convey, you wouldn't want your whole book to be this confusing, right? According to what I interpreted, this part of the sentence should be [...his jaw fell to the floor as I knelt down in front of him.] It's slightly different from the original, but the meaning is still the same.

[He crawled through the hall and went through the balcony of his beautiful apartment which feels lonely nowadays.] The problems here are that 1) the tenses changed from past to present, i.e. crawled/went to feels, and 2) you used an informal English word in your writing, i.e. [nowadays]. This word, though technically correct, is colloquial and strikes the wrong tone in written English. It is perfectly fine to use this word when speaking to someone, but not when writing. Instead, this sentence should be [He crawled through the hall, going through the balcony of his beautiful apartment which felt lonely lately.]

[Jungkook and taehyung are six months married and hoseok and yoongi are still boyfriends, planning to settle up after the camp is done.] These kinds of sentences really exposes the fact that English is not your first language, so I really need you to put in more effort in expressing yourself. I understand that this isn't an easy thing to do, but the path to become a skilled and experienced author is certainly not going to be easy. I suggest that before you want to write something, e.g. a vivid sentence that accurately and explicitly describes the scene you want to write about, search it up first. Search up the words/descriptive phrases you are going to use to check whether it's correct, or try to find more complex synonyms to make your story more descriptive and eye-catching. Besides doing this, you may also want to read other books outside of Wattpad, as those books have already been vetted and approved, and will definitely have sentences more descriptive and vivid than the ones in Wattpad books. This sentence should be [Jungkook and Taehyung have been married for six months, while Hoseok and Yoongi were still in a relationship, planning to settle down after the camp was over.]

Another thing I'd like to point out is that you're getting really comfortable not starting your dialogue with a capitalised word. This is perfectly fine in informal text but not when you're writing a book. Capitalising the first word in any dialogue is basic grammar. In some cases, you mixed unsuitable words into your dialogue, such as [ohhhhhhhhh]. This is informal English, and should not be used in your writing.

ATTRACTION :: 6/10
I like that you tried to include some twists into your story, but instead of drawing me in, I was deterred instead. After your twists, I became more convinced that this was just another generic fanfiction that can be found everywhere on Wattpad, and affected my reading experience.

However, the addition of Taehyun following Jungkook around really spiced up the story in my opinion, as I ended up wanting to read more about how Jungkook is going to get out of this situation, so good job for this!

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT :: 6/10
There are some things I'd like to point out about the characters.

For the characters: I don't think the character cards describing their personality are necessary. It spoils the fun of reading on to piece together details of their personality as it's all just written in the card. The reading experience could surely be improved if the cards were removed and the readers were free to interpret the characters' personalities for themselves.

For Jungkook's character: you mentioned at first that Jungkook despised doctors because his previous significant other was a doctor. This seemed pretty immature to me, to be honest, but that's not the point here. The point is that afterwards, Jungkook mentioned that he despised doctors because of their lack of sympathy towards him when his mother passed away. These two reasons are completely different. If Jungkook had built up that hatred for doctors ever since he was young, he would not have tolerated being with his previous significant other, much less apologise for his shallow judgement towards Taehyung. The fact that he apologised so easily despite building up the trauma from a young age raised some red flags for me, so I believe this part needs to be fixed.

I think you need to put in more effort in immersing yourself into your character, to think and feel like how they would to really bring out the best in their characters and allow the readers to feel something from them.

WRITING STYLE :: 5/10
I do see some effort in adding descriptions in order to allow the reader to better imagine what you're trying to express in your writing, but I think that you can add more descriptions, especially after the dialogues, as I believe that the reading experience would certainly be amplified if readers are able to imagine what the characters are doing, or interpret their feelings through their actions while conversing with someone. I'd like to commend you on your effort in adding description, especially at the start of Chapter 2.

I'd also like to point out that your transition between scenes can be better. For example, the transition between the first paragraph to the second one in Chapter 3 was quite confusing for me, because in that one paragraph, the characters, location and events were changed without any proper warning whatsoever. I believe something can be done about the transition, i.e. put the first paragraph in the previous chapter to avoid confusion.

OPINION :: 4/10
I think this is the kind of book I'd be reading if I were still a 12-year-old. I'm sorry to tell you this, but the story was way too generic. I can easily find books like this anywhere on Wattpad.

OVERALL ::
I think that your book needs a lot more work, even if it's already finished. The grammar mistakes in the book really threw me off, and as the story progressed the urge to throw my laptop away just grew stronger and stronger. You really need to put in more work into your book, with the grammar, vocabulary and the realism of the story. If I were a reader, I don't think I would've continued reading after the prologue.

However, I believe that this story does have the potential to do well if 1) the grammar mistakes are fixed, 2) the story is more realistic. I hope my review has helped you, and if you think I made a mistake somewhere, please inform me so I can refine the review to help you as best as I can. Happy writing!

TOTAL SCORE :: 44/100