SCRIPTURIENT REVIEWS | OPEN

❄ HER SPY | SILVER ❄

Reviewer: PeterPan2210
Reviewee: Andrea_Viju
Story reviewed: Her Spy
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Cover:

7/10

It’s very basic and doesn’t really satisfy the title. I mean it’s supposed to be a mystery/romance but it looks like it’s Y/A or coming of age romance. So consider changing the overall color theme to something more along the lines of black/purple/ red/ Silver themes.

Description:

7.5/10

It’s not even a description, it’s just a scene and nowhere does it mention the “spy” part of your title. Now I’m not against keeping scenes from the book as your description because it does garner views but I’d still prefer if you kept a description-like description in the description box instead of just a random scene from the book.

Basic plot:

7/10

I couldn’t really find a plot. It just seemed like you were making it up as you went. Do you have a pre-built storyline? I couldn’t really tell because the story seems to be going nowhere.

Contents:

7.5/10

The pace is too fast. There was no plot or structuring. It just seemed like you wanted to make Matt fall in love with rose and vice versa as fast as you could and in that pursuit, you ruined the mysterious element of the book. If you’re titling the book “Her spy" then there needs to be a balance between the “spy" part and the romance part.

Furthermore, The characters don’t have any character development throughout the course of the book. Matt is the typically clichéd confused bad boy/spy and Rose is confused but in love. It’s all very k-drama like, even your antagonist, Jenny. The first thing I thought when I started reading your book was, “K-drama”.  That’s something I do not appreciate. If I think anything other than the words “brilliant” or “original” after reading a particular book, then you should know that there’s something wrong with that particular book. I’ve read and watched enough stuff, both English and foreign material, to distinguish an original writing or narrating style from an unoriginal one.

But yes, on the whole, the book was cute.

Grammar/Phrasing+ Tone+ Voice:

7.5/10

The Grammar was not particularly good. Loads of mistakes. At some places, you’ve used ‘texting slang' like “r" instead of “are". And you haven’t added the apostrophes required in “don’t” and “can’t”.

I didn’t particularly like the voice and flow. It was disconnected and awkward at certain points in the story. Maybe you should read over everything and consider changing the voice from first person to alternating between first person and third person. That’s one advice I give to everyone who has had their books reviewed from me and have written in first person, present tense. First person, present tense is a difficult voice to write a story in unless you’re proficient at it, main reason being it’s such an intimate writing combination. It requires practice and alertness while writing, enough thought while developing your characters. Not a good voice to write in for beginners.

Maybe good for writing short stories because they’re short and there’s a lot less scene changes in a short story than there will be in a full length novel. I usually discourage people from writing in this particular person-tense combination but if you’re confident enough you can remedy the awkwardness it causes, then sure, go ahead.

Though there’s another way to go about writing in first person if you’re adamant on using that. Use first person- past tense. It's still a bit easier, gives more flow and structure to your paragraphs.
So those are suggestions you may choose to take.

Overall score:

36.5/50

Don’t be discouraged. I think it’s just the person-tense combination that you’re using that’s a major issue. On the whole, the thought is brilliant but needs a little bit of a pinch here and there to take off the awkwardness.
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Thank you for choosing me.
Rate this review out of a 5.