Facing Fear written by MiyaHikari
INITIAL IMPRESSION | 13/15
Title & cover
This cover is very representative of the genre, simple and clean. The title, in my opinion, could be a little easier to read if it didn't have that white-on-white, but it's not a big deal. And if someONE hadn't pointed out the backwards hand in this cover I probably would've never noticed it, or I would've assumed it was Skye handing her the cube. Now that I've seen it, though, I'm not unseeing it. Just lock up all the people who know and swear them to silence. (I just realized I pointed it out to everyone reading this review, so oops.)
In terms of sprucing it up, there could be a more dystopian feel to the cover. As of now, the only cyber-like cues are the font of the word 'fear', which is great, but could definitely be leaned into a lot more--something I'll say a few times in this review. Cyber world dystopian is a super cool genre, and when you have a super cool genre, it's a great idea to use it as effectively as possible to capture attention. Lastly, I think seeing the coin somewhere the cover would be great--even just if it was rice stalks or sprouts.
As for the title, it ticks all the boxes! Relates to both the blurb and the overarching content/message of the book, is short and snappy and easy to remember. No problems there!
Blurb
While this blurb is well written and interesting, I think there are a few unnecessary details (like the name of the game Mori used to play; since there's two games being discussed, I think it would be cleaner to name just one and not get it twisted) and some missed opportunities to capitalize on the originality of this book. For example, the most stand-out part of this blurb is about the game in question and how it analyzes the human psyche, but it only comes into play three paragraphs in. In addition, I'm a big advocate for starting blurbs in the present here and now (rather than eight years ago, for example) because it really draws people in. In my opinion, if you reorganize this blurb to start with the sentence, Facing Fear is a simulation designed to analyze the psyche of its players and adapt itself accordingly, you can really capture attention. Then, if you go on to say something like, but it's all gone wrong, and now Mori's sister is trapped in it, you've created a high-stake scenario right off the bat. The rest of the stuff, like how Mori used to be a high-rank gamer but doesn't play anymore, can be added in after.
This way, the same info is conveyed, but its done in a more tactful way that builds a lot of suspense!
LOGISTICS 14/15
Commas
There are very few comma errors in this book, so I'm not sure if the ones I've picked out are habitual or just typos. I saw the dependent-preceding-independent comma error a few times, so I'll sneak it in here quickly just in case. Here's the example I'll work with: (A lot of following context has been taken out because I didn't want to jumpscare anyone with gore in a review)
'Another scream and the club smashed in the player's...'
We typically think of commas separating independent clauses, but there's also a rule that a dependent clause that comes before an independent clause needs a comma, since it acts like an introductory clause. For example, the way I just wrote 'for example' and then a comma. So that above should look like this:
'Another scream, and the club smashed in the player's...'
Just to be perfectly clear, this only applies if the following clause is independent, and in this case it is!
