Book Reviews

ᴘᴀʀᴀᴅɪꜱᴇ

Cover: I really love the cover for this story, and it intrigues me a lot. I would just change that font. The font is very default-looking, and it is offputting. Something with a straighter look would be nice. I will show you some nice ones. (All found on Canva) The font name is underneath each 'paradise'

Blurb: I think it needs some work. At the moment, it seems a little disco-ordinated.There are way too many names at the start, and it gets way too confusing and long towards the end. I spent about 5 minutes trying to understand "The funny thing is , the narrative really depends on the narrator , and most of us are not reliable , and hardly any logic was ever applied to the actions . So you could say that this story depends on how you see it, and who is saying it . " Paradise said.'' 

The blurb at the moment doesn't make me want to read. The fact that is that it isn't a blurb, it is just speech. And that speech is very confusing. I will show you how to fix it.

(After re-writing the blurb for you, I will say that I am still totally and utterly confused as to what the story is about. Even my re-written one makes zero sense to me)

YOURS

"What I am trying to say here is that, Me , Lyra , Mindy , Jasmine , Maddy, Linda , Helen , Lily, and Carter are connected and not connected at the same time . And you would have never guessed it . That their world and my world were related . The dots were far , but once you start connecting them you form this big picture and you can see how one thing led to another . A cycle you could call it . The funny thing is , the narrative really depends on the narrator , and most of us are not reliable , and hardly any logic was ever applied to the actions . So you could say that this story depends on how you see it, and who is saying it . " Paradise said 

 " The sad thing is , I could go on and search for an answer to this question , but all I know is that, I will end up with nothing . All I have is a story that only has an end , an end that I had to create , and a beginning that will forever be unknown." 

ADAPTATIONS

"What I am trying to say here is that me and them are both connected, and not connected simultaneously.''

No one would have ever guessed it. 

No one would have even thought for a second that their worlds were connected. Though the dots were far apart, once you started to connect them, they formed the bigger picture. Then one thing led to another. A sort of cycle, you could call it.

The funny thing is, the narrative depends on the narrator, so you could say that this story depends on how you see it, and who is saying it.

 " The sad thing is, I could go on and search for an answer to this question, but all I know is that, I will end up with nothing. All I have is a story that has an end. An end that I had to create, and a beginning that will forever be unknown."

Originality: I have read an extensive amount of books, but not all, so I won't be able to be very certain in this category. I can, however, tell you my own personal interest in the story. Is it something totally new and amazing, or just another copy of the same basic tale?

Flow: Your writing style is good, but you have a problem with spaces. Whenever you use grammar, you always use a double space, instead of a single space. I will show you what I mean using your blurb as an example.

(This is a screenshot taken from my computer. The red lines are from the app called Grammarly which points out all the mistakes)

As you can see, you always do two spaces after/ before full stops and commas. This is very distracting and takes the reader's mind away from what is actually going on.

There are also many spelling mistakes in this book. Even in the first paragraph, you use 'barley' ( a type of food) instead of 'barely' (close).

I would recommend downloading Grammarly. It is completely free, and you can download to your phone/ laptop. This ensures that you make minimal to no mistakes.

Chapter size: 3+ minutes at the moment. I would work on increasing this to 7-8 minutes. You can do this by extending each paragraph with more descriptive information.

Basics: Each chapter begins with 'Scene ...'.  I would prefer this to be changed to 'Chapter...'. Currently, it seems like a movie and not a book, and this would separate that confusion. The blurb needs real work. I would just recommend going through your book, and actually writing a blurb on what happens. Your blurb is just a quote from the book, which doesn't tell me anything about it. For example:

Say we have a book about a girl who eats a carrot and turns orange. She says: ''God, I have turned orange!'' During the story.

My blurb would be:

''God, I have turned orange!'' 

Ella, a 19-year-old girl takes a single bite from a suspiciously orange carrot and her whole body turns the same shade.

(I have no idea why this came to mind, but it did so I am using it as an example lol)

Do you see though? The blurb tells me everything I need to know AND makes me want to read.

Say the blurb was the way yours is, and just said a quote, the blurb would be:

''God, I have turned orange!''

This is confusing, and I have no actual idea why she turned orange. 

Overall, the whole story is quite confusing. My main points to fix would be:

1) THE BLURB

2) SPELLING/ MAKING SURE YOU HAVE THE CORRECT WORD

3) SPACES. PLEASE ONLY MISS ONE SPACE.