Aphrodite Reviews

nineteen | forbidden territories

Book: Forbidden Territories

Author: forbiddenterritories

Genre: romance

LANGUAGE

I was blown away! The figurative language is so amazing. However, despite some of the beautiful, meaningful sentences, they sometimes didn't make grammatical sense. For example:

Original: 'The snow subdued the heat in my heart, the stinging flames just before it would combust and take everything down in its way.'

I see exactly what you were going for, but I can't seem to find a way to place punctuation in a way that makes sense, whilst keeping your vision. Perhaps consider changing it to something like:

Edited: 'The snow subdued the heat in my heart before it could combust, spreading stinging flames on its way.' or I have re-punctuated the original, although I'm not sure if it flows as well as It can. It was just a minor change, so it wasn't correlated with the second clause.

'The snow subdued the heat in my heart- the stinging flames - just before it could combust and take everything down in its way.'

Original: 'I once was able to scream on top of my lungs.'

Edited: 'I once was able to scream at the top of my lungs.'

In the original, the phrasing wasn't correct.

Original: 'Focused on something, focused on me.

Edited: 'Focused on something. Focused on me.'

The original doesn't make grammatical sense, and so I recommend editing out the first bit. However, I kept your vision in mind so decided to just give an edited version, where there is a full stop instead of a comma. This differentiates the two. I will point out one last thing. However, bear in mind, the list is pretty long.

Original: 'I took quick steps behind him, trying to catch up with his much larger ones.'

Edited: 'I took quick steps behind him, trying to catch up.'

So, the original is pretty lengthy and can be shortened. Also, making a comparison between quick and large steps doesn't make much sense. If you want to keep the length of the original then perhaps try something like:

Edited: 'I took small steps behind him, trying to catch up with his much larger ones.

GRAMMAR

Overall, this was really great, and I am astounded that English is not your native language! However, the main issue I had lied within comma usage. For example:

Original: 'If I had learned anything it was that you can't scream at the world and expect the world not to  scream back.'

Edited: 'If I had learned anything, it was that you can't scream at the world and expect the world to not scream back.'

There was also one issue I had with tensing

Original: 'I stood in my place and just try to keep my knees from shaking.'

Edited: 'I stood in my place and just tried to keep my knees from shaking.'

In the original, tensing changed from past to present.

Also, I loved the opening of chapter 1 and the description of the surroundings. However, punctuation was a little off.

Original: 'I hardly registered what was going on around me, the story on-screen sucking me in, to the point, the spoon hovered in front of my open mouth and stayed there.'

Edited: 'I hardly registered what was going on around me, the story on-screen sucking me in, to the point that the spoon hovered in front of my open mouth and stayed there.' The extra commas is not needed, and also 'that,' would benefit sentence structure. 

There are many other errors I won't list but I will leave you with this one little note. Often, sentences were pretty long with no commas to break them up. This can be damaging for the flow of the book and so I really do recommend an editor! If you need any tips on finding one that is suitable for you, let me know <3
(Tensing was the other main issue)

CONNECTION

So when I say 'connection,' I mean the connection established between the novel and the reader. I felt this was very strong and it was thanks to your outstanding writing style. The story really had depth to it, and so set it apart from other novels.

REPETITION

This was something I noticed a lot in your novel. You would repeat character features which were a little odd. Also, you used the same words in close proximity, meaning sentence flow wasn't ideal. This is the reason I recommend an editor, as most of your issues could be fixed with one. The content itself was amazing, but I think you do need some extra input from someone else's eyes.

PACING

So in the prologue pacing was really good and so I expected it to stay this way through chapters. However, this wasn't the case. The scenes felt pretty rushed and I think they would benefit from some expansion. You seemed to jump into the next scene pretty quickly, meaning a lot of things occurred in a short span of time.

DIALOGUE

I definitely think this was your strong suit, and you portrayed scenes beautifully through this. This was my favourite aspect of the book, alongside the depth of the characters.

OVERALL

I have to say, this is an incredible book and it is clear the author has a lot of talent. Despite me listing quite a lot of things to improve, most issues lie in editing. This means that errors can easily be fixed. As I said, find an editor you connect with and read some of their novels before working with them too. With some polishing, this book can be a great success! I wish you luck in your book series <33