Kat Reviews [CFCU]

Impish Gambino | Wrenna

TITLE: Impish Gambino
AUTHOR: kek_lee_writes

REVIEW FATE CHOSEN: Ashes

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|| COVER/TITLE ||
4/5

Your title, "Impish Gambino," is instantly memorable for me -- it's unique and not easily misplaced among other Wattpad titles. The cover fits your story and title perfectly as well, not to mention how aesthetically pleasing it is. 

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|| BLURB ||
4/5

Let me start off by saying that your blurb was what instantly sold me to review your book. It's witty, catchy, and made me want to pick up your story more than anything else. The only critique I have for it falls in the third paragraph:

"Nicci--reckless, sharp-wit and even sharper tongue--is suddenly stuck with a stack of old flames (one of whom she's falling for all over again), more secrets than an episode of 'Pretty Little Liars," and feelings she'll rather shove out her car's rear end."

This sentence is a bit of a run-on and is easy to trip over when reading. Something I often do is read sentences aloud to ensure I don't stumble through them, which is something I would recommend trying here to avoid its clunkiness. A lot of that feeling comes from having both a sentence break with the em-dash and a snippet in parentheses in the same sentence. 

I would also recommend changing your phrasing on "reckless, sharp wit and even sharper tongue" to polish up the grammar. The sentence could be fixed in a fashion similar to:

"Nicci -- reckless, sharp witted, and with an even sharper tongue -- finds herself stuck with a stack of old flames. As she falls for one of them all over again and is faced with more secrets than an episode of 'Pretty Little Liars,' she'll rather shove her feelings out her car's rear end."

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|| OPENING SCENE/HOOK ||
3/5

I have to say, your opening line ("What do you mean your mother's ghost asked you in a dream to call off our engagement?") is hilarious. Even reading it back now as I'm writing this, I still chuckle over it. The only thing I would recommend, to make sure that opening line really packs a punch, is to remove "in a dream." It eliminates wordiness and really gives that line the snappiness you're going for.

I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning with Bob breaking off their engagement, Nicci whipping out the document (already prepared) from under her pillow, and then unleashing rats into his new girlfriend's room. 

As the scene continued on, however, I found myself a bit lost with the appearance of Nicci's mother. Her insistence on Nicci being a part of her cousin's wedding (essentially forcing her into it) and threatening to send her to a nunnery if she doesn't come back with a husband made me pause. I'd had the impression up until that point that the characters are a fair bit older (30s, perhaps), but this was one of the moments where I felt that the characters seemed much younger (more on that later). It almost read in a parody style, but rode just enough of a line that I couldn't tell if they were serious or not.

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|| PLOT/PACING ||
3/5

Your plot itself is very fun -- I love a good love triangle, and the revelation of Nicci and Santan's pasts was brilliant. The reason I had to back this out to 3/5 was entirely due to pacing.

There is a lot of wordiness in your prose, along with many unnecessary details and bunny trails that make it hard to follow the plot itself. While your descriptions are often beautifully-worded, they become purple prose more often than not and I found myself wanting to skim to get back to the meat of your chapters.

One example of an unnecessary detail would be in your chapter "Mind your business, nosy bitch," when Nicci realizes that Rumi is her cousin's fiancé. 

"I supported my weight against an antique dwarf statue close by. I would have gaped at the intricate carvings on the dark ebony wood if I weren't so flustered."

This stood out to me in particular because, in that moment of shock, where she is on the verge of fainting, the detail of the intricate carvings is out of place. 

Another spot I would like to point out is in the chapter "Father Hitler." I found this one particularly hard to follow due to Nicci's internal dialogue veering in different directions. Between her debate on the priest needing a name change, and her long monologue about Disney's plot holes in Cinderella, it detracted from the action in your chapter. It does make the reader skim a lot and could lead to them missing important details because they want to get back into the meat of your story.

With that said, you do have a good knack for humor -- the story itself just gets lost within these bunny trails.

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|| CHARACTERS ||
3/5

This is always a hard point for me to admit -- but, until I reached chapter eight, I found Nicci to be an unlikable main character. When she and Santan finally sat down for the serious discussion about their pasts, I felt that was the first moment I could see who Nicci really was. 

I love a good sarcastic, witty character, but there are many times when Nicci's thoughts and actions border on cruelty. I found it very hard to relate to her or sympathize with her until learning more about her true self. Up until that point, she had been purely bent on revenge to those who wronged her and complaining about nearly every aspect of... everything. I was glad that you requested I read an additional five chapters, because without reaching chapter eight, I would not have found many redeeming qualities in her at all.

As for the rest of your cast, I find them to be very zany and fun, if a bit... less adult than I'd expect. I can tell you are trying to go for an older cast of characters, but they often feel better suited for a story about a younger generation. As they are currently, a good majority of them seem to lack maturity.

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|| DIALOGUE ||
4/5

Witty, zany dialogue is my favorite, which is something you do quite well. I love finding good one-liners in everything I read and yours supplied many that made me chuckle and say, "Same." They also sound like real people -- and I absolutely love this about your writing. Dialogue is a huge strong point for your style.

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|| GRAMMAR/SPELLING ||
4/5

Your story is well-polished and it shows. I found very few grammatical/spelling errors in your book -- and none were overly pronounced. Just a missing comma or quotation mark on occasion, but it was clear that they were only typos and would be easily fixed by another sweep of edits. Well done!

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|| OVERALL ENJOYMENT ||
3/5

You have a very entertaining story on your hands. While, personally, your style may not be for me, that doesn't mean others won't love it. I found that the story rode too much of a gray line between rom-com and parody, where I couldn't tell if it was meant to be serious or not -- and that made it difficult for me to enjoy, on top of the pacing/detail issues I mentioned above. But, again, this is a style preference on my own end.

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Thank you for requesting a review! <3
-Wrenna