Sapphire's Review Store 4.0

Review by Anjali: Terminally Thoughtful

Title: Terminally Thoughtful

Author: soph_avocadoes

Reviewer: scrabblepost

Cover, title, blurb-

Cover: The design is simple, elegant and eye-catching for an adult. However, the novel is targeted towards both teenagers and young adults; the simplicity of cover is not captivating enough for teenagers. Young adults will look at the content more than teenagers. The author's name is too small and the colour of the font makes it almost invisible; it seems as if the author is trying to hide her name.

Title: Title is really thoughtful, no pun intended. The title not only grasps the reader's attention but also justifies the theme of the book.

Blurb: Although the blurb gives exact information of what's in the book, it doesn't give readers a reason to read it. What's the difference between this book and any other love sick novel?

The blurb is the first part of the book that readers actually read, if they don't find it captivating they will put it back on the shelf.

There's a little mistake in the blurb.

"Tara was just sixteen years old until she got diagnosed..."

Until she got diagnosed?

Her age didn't change when she got diagnosed, did it?

A better way will be- "Tara was just sixteen when she got diagnosed..."

Prologue/ Authors note- N.A.

Grammar and punctuation-

Grammar is decent, the punctuation needs some work.

Ex: "Yeah, headache again," The nurse muttered into the phone.

It's the first sentence of your book. Now starting with a dialogue is a good choice, but starting with poor punctuation is a bad decision.

Here "The" should not be capitalised as there is no full-stop/period before it.

The correct way is:

"Yeah, headache again," the nurse muttered into the phone.

Ex: "It is though," She giggled from inside the car.

Since there is no period/full-stop denoting the end of dialogue "she" should not be capitalised.

Don't put period/full-stop before dialogue tags.

Ex: "It's spinning Mom, it's spinning." I said softly.

I said softly is not a sentence, it's just a dialogue tag. Use comma instead of period/full-stop.

The correct way is:

"It's spinning Mom, it's spinning," I said softly.

Figure of speech:

Ex: "DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M BUSY RIGHT NOW?"

The character was supposed to say this sarcastically, but it is written in a literal sense.

"Does it look like I am free right now?"

Replacing the word busy with free gives a sarcastic tone to the sentence and adds the verbal irony.

Don't capitalise words in the middle of the novel, it makes the novel look juvenile.

Ex: It wasn't just bleeding, it was BLEEDING.

If you want to emphasise the word just use the single quote: 'bleeding'

It puts the emphasis on the word without making it seem out of place.

Vocabulary-

The vocabulary is simple and not too complicated. Teenagers are the part of target readers, so the use of simple words is a smart choice.

Plot-

Plot of the story flows smoothly and all parts connect with each other beautifully. But realism lacks in certain places.

A mother would never hide any serious health issues of her daughter from the father.

The father didn't lash out when he found out about his daughter's health. Just a simple "Oh", will never be the response from any father.

Even though the daughter is on terminal stage, the father didn't accompany her to the hospital.

A doctor would never break a death news to an underage patient directly. They will first consult the parent and then the minor, in that order.

Description-

Character description: It is not upto mark, the readers don't have any clue how Tara's mother, father or friends look like. The only description of Alyssa is that she is tall and skinny. Characters who have little to no significance in the story can be left out without description like Dr. Walter. Paris, Alex, Tara's mother, father are the main characters and need more description.

Places/settings: What is the colour of Tara's house? How big was the house? What's the type of couch in her living room? How was the weather at the time of visit to hospital? What was the time of the day?

Readers can't picture anything because it's not described in the book.

Show don't tell: Don't narrate what's happening, describe what's happening.

Ex: His face turned to a surprised expression. His eyebrows rose and his eyes got really wide...

His eyebrows rose and eyes got wide, is enough description to know he was surprised. There is no need to write, his face turned to a surprised expression.

Ex: My mom looked beyond exhausted.

How will the readers know what beyond exhausted looks like? Describe how she looks rather than telling how she looks.

Dialogues-

The dialogues of teenagers are almost perfect, with a bit of an exaggeration at some places.

The dialogues of adults are not realistic.

Ex: "We will schedule your first chemotherapy session for friday, so you have tomorrow to process this all..."

That is some horrible counseling, no doctor talks like that.

Tara's parents did not ask any questions about how she got the brain tumor, they jumped directly to chemotherapy.

Flow and pace-

The flow of the story is good, there are just a few jump cuts. The pace is good as well, it is not too slow to bore readers, not too fast to make them wonder, what just happened?

Character development-

There was little to no character development. The lead was an empathetic introvert from the beginning to end. An addition of new unpredictable ticks to the character would have added a little spice to the story.

Originality-

A sick teenage girl dying of cancer and wants to live her remaining days to the fullest, is not the most original concept. It has been repeated numerous times, but still there are always readers who will pick it up.

Final thoughts- Even though it is not the most original idea but the execution keeps the readers hooked. The use of emotions is good, but there is still a lot of room for improvement