/8/
BOOK TITLE: THE PERFECT CRIME
AUTHOR: SherryRS
GENRE: Thriller/Mystery
WARNING: May include gruesome death+
REVIEWER: Lilly
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SCORE POINT
•Cover: 8/10
•Blurb: 9/10
•Writing Style & Presentation: 17/20
•Character & Dialogue Development: 15/20
•Plot Originality & Development: 16/20
•Grammar & Punctuation: 16/20
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TOTAL POINT: 81/100
/REVIEW/
The perfect crime is a thrilling tale of a police detective on the trail of a mysterious psychopathic killer. The killings are gruesome but the evidence and search make the process exciting. If thriller and mystery tales are your thing, then this is a book for you!
The cover is pretty simple and it has that mysterious crime vibe to it; plus I think it’s right for the story.
The blurb is also well written, I love that introductory paragraph at the top, it really added the extra magic to the story description and it caught my interest. Nice job!
I love the way this story is presented. The different fonts and style here and there, made it pleasurable to view. Now the problem comes from the POVs in chapter one, we have about three POVs together and they kind of make the story clearer but I also think it makes it look like a whole lot of things is going on in one chapter. You could focus your first chapter on the murder scene only or the doctor or the detective, which ever you choose focus on only one, this will help you develop that particular moment or scene better because you won’t feel like you have to rush over it; in the end it will be easier and more detailed.
The next chapter brings new murder scenes. Again there are so many ideas all clustered together. At a point they were thinking about the killer and how he operates at the same time Jason was thinking about how Ruth was too beautiful for the job. Again, I’ll say, focus on one thing. You could start the chapter with Jason describing each of his coworker and then get him comment on Ruth and maybe others and then you might say he gets an emergency call which will bring us to the murder scene. Remember everything must be done in a way that connects each paragraph to then next, achieve this, and your story will have a perfect flow.
I noticed a little inconsistency; At the second murder scene you mentioned the wounds having burnt marks as the first but the first murder didn’t have any signs of burns. These kinds of things happen all the time with every author. When I want to recreate a scene, I go back to the first one I wrote and read it again and again; sometimes I even jot down some very important features; when I am done and satisfied, then I can go ahead and write the scene, this way I won’t have inconsistencies. I believe this will also work for you if you adopt it.
Character and dialogue development: you have a lot of interesting characters and I itch to find out how they all connect to this mysterious killer; but I feel your characterization could be better if you make your dialogues come off as natural and real. You give just the necessary information, the rest you summarize which shouldn’t be the case. Express your characters emotions and reactions through your dialogues and tags. Do not make it robotic or it will bore readers. Engage them, do a role play in your head and make their conversations interesting. I'll give a quick instance;
‘Get in,’ he said. Ethan got into the car.
‘What happened to you? You look like a floating kite.’ Ethan said.
‘You should be kidding me,’ Jason said.
‘I’m serious. Did you skip meals?’
‘No,’ he lied. (✖)
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‘Get in,’ he said. Ethan got into the car and made himself comfortable, scooping piles of papers off the chair.
‘What happened to you?’ Ethan asked as soon as he noticed the very pale face Jason was sporting.
‘You look like a floating kite! Are you okay?’ He demanded again, concern flooding his features. The Jason he had met a few days ago had a healthy skin, this one looked like he needed medication and it worried him.
‘You should be kidding me,’ Jason scoffed, focusing on the road. The last thing he thought he needed was for Ethan to start acting like his mother.
‘I’m serious. Did you skip meals?’ Ethan flared. As a doctor who cared immensely for the people around him, he hated to find his own friends destroying their bodies.
‘No. I – I had . . . I - I didn’t skip my meal,’ Jason stuttered. Again, he couldn’t face his friend because he knew how bad of a liar he was.(✔)
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I know I probably screwed their personalities above but I hope you got the message. Play around with your dialogues. Do not be stiff with it. Let us be able to tell their attitudes, likes, dislikes and whatsoever from their dialogues and tags.
Another thing is character description, I think aside the murders, up till chapter four; there are no descriptions of what your characters look like.
Sometimes, authors prefer leaving the imagination of the characters to the readers but I suggest you give us a little something. A tiny little physical detail perhaps that can help identify them.
Finally, your grammar, spellings and sentence structuring need a lot of work. I suggest you get a beta reader for your book or an editor.
I understand that English isn’t your first language and this is your first book, so for coming this far, I really admire and commend you. There is nothing one can’t achieve if they put their minds to it. Read books; ask people; Get articles online, edit again and again and trust me, you’ll get to the point where even you will look back at your own writing and say, ‘did I write this?’ because it will be that good.😊
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YOU ARE READING
TGE Reviews
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