Dreamland Review Archive

MSC (T)

Milk, Sugar & Cocoa written by ShikaDreamer108

i. COVER & TITLE

I'm back and I've had COFFEE (if you're new here, coffee reviews are much more fun but also much harder to follow). I'll do my best to be clear, but keep in mind my fingers are shaking as I type this at 110 WPM. Spelling errors will be present.

Excellent cover. I love it. However, you've got a big subtitle. We want subtitles to be snappy. Short. Attention-grabbing and easy to read. I'd recommend making a quick switch of your subtitle to this: Sometimes, broken people need each other to be fixed. This gives off the same vibe but is far more straightforward. And last thing, I always recommend authors to put an actual name on their covers, because the underscores and numbers don't look professional. Even just writing Shikadreamer would be better in my opinion than what you currently have. And another cool thing you could do: just write your name as Shika, in all caps at the top, without the 'by'. That's a snappy writing alias that I would appreciate immediately. Other than that, don't touch your cover. It's lovely.

I like your title. Milk? Sugar? What's going on? What does it mean? How does it connect to the story? I want to know. I want more. I wouldn't change a thing about it.

ii. BLURB

Your blurb begins with a cool lil paragraph that serves as a hook, but again, it's not quite at the level of snappiness it could be. I'll rewrite your blurb below, and you can tell me if you hate it:

A haunting past, a dark society, and broken people. The world is a cruel place.

After feeling an abusive life in her home country of Ghana, Jemimah is starting a new chapter with her father and his family in England. But the outside world is far harsher than she'd expected after being locked away for her whole life. She learns the stress of teenage life and the mental struggles that follow it, and she begins a path of self-discovery.

During her journey, Jemimah finds out that she's not alone. There are others fighting to move on from the past, too, and they all have to find out where they belong. 

But maybe it'll be easier together.

So I've shortened your blurb, cleaned up a few grammatical errors and organized it slightly. You'll notice I've added in the last sentence as a big finale. The ellipsis wouldn't really provide that same drama, and this ending also ties into your subtitle, which readers love. If you don't like this, I would recommend applying a few changes to your blurb--if only cleaning up the grammar slip-ups.

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