Sapphire's Review Store 4.0

Review by Olivier: Ms Esguera

Title: Mr. Esguera

Author: Fucked_up_euphoria

Reviewer: OGSmithson

Saying something is cliché has become so cliché nowadays, I don't even know what to say about today's book without sounding cliché.

Hi. I'm Olivier, and this is my second review for this store. Before we go any further, let's start with some product placement, shall we?

Okay, so I don't have anything to sell, but let's talk about Bollywood for a while. If you don't know, Bollywood is the Indian Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai. It is the biggest film industry in the world based on number of films produced per year and number of tickets sold, if all that interests you.

Now, Bollywood films have some of the most recognizable clichés ever seen: we've usually got a cast of thin people who are light skinned and have acted in a million other films (kill me if you find a Hindi teen-romance/romcom that doesn't star Alia Bhatt), acting skills aren't that necessary- you just have to be a good dancer and an adequate singer- although they are a bonus. Last but not least, you have to come from a rich and famous family with your ancestors at least having done some form of industry work. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Bollywood films tend to be cringeworthy guilty pleasures that you probably wouldn't want to pick out and watch, but would still watch them if you came across them.

Okay. Let's talk about mafia romances now: a mafia's son (who 100% of the time has a horrible relationship with the mafia) is requested to either kill or kidnap some girl to 'prove himself' that he can be the next mafia or something like that; he falls in love with his target and spares her; his relationship with his father deteriorates; he somehow finds a way to become a mafia king, becomes the biggest mafia king ever and forgives his father, though treats him like a slave. (I don't know much about this genre, so correct me if I'm wrong.) I think this is a legitimate reason for me to say I hate mafia romances; go fight with your neighbour.

Congrats if you read through that whole... story or whatever, now we get to why we're all here.

Rating: 1.3/10

To the author: I have nothing against you. I have no reason to hate you... I just thought this book sucked. I'd also like to point out that it's almost impossible for anyone to get a score lower than 2/10, so if that's happened then it means my problems with your story run extremely deep.

Fun facts about your reviewer:
- I don't hate Bollywood, please don't come at me.
- Despite my very apparent loathe for mafia romances, I promise that hatred played no role in how I received this book. I reviewed it as a work of fiction first and foremost, and not as a book about mafias and mobs. (Okay, maybe it played a little role)

Okay, let's get into it!

But wait! We don't know what we're doing yet!

Of course you don't! So today, we look at 2 things: characters and style. The author asked that I look into these specific fields; and though I'm itching to dive into plot, I would like to respect the author's wishes as far as possible because this whole process is essentially about them, and not about me.

So now we can dive right in:

Characters:

At the beginning of the book, we get character aesthetics, which is meant to give us a glimpse into the characters we'll be seeing. First thing I noticed was that we had aesthetics for only 2 characters, which was one of the first straws for me because it tells me 2 things: 1) the other characters are unimportant; and 2) we won't be seeing much (if any) development from them. As such, I too will only focus on the two characters we got aesthetics for, and I will gloss over the others (because I learned that I'm on the same page with the author on their importance to the story):