Amaryllis | REVIEW SHOP [ CLOSED ]

《Maria》No Escape from Reality

Reviewer: marshaa1306
Written by: tannyprecious

Title/Cover - 10/10
The title is simple, yet it has some weight. It almost implies that there will be no escape if you start reading.
I like how your cover is designed. It’s white and colorless to perhaps suggest a bland, mundane reality. The picture of a circular road is also quite clever.

Blurb - 9/10
The blurb is pretty nicely written and it obviously corresponds with the title. I like how you introduce the main characters and the conflict without giving away too much of the storyline. Also, the question at the end is thought-provoking for your readers. The one critique I would offer here is to maybe give more information on what happens in New York. I think you could introduce Tasha more and elaborate slightly on that situation. That way, it’ll seem like Yeo Jin is very invested in her life in New York when her past suddenly comes back to bite her.

First few chapters/Exposition - 10/10
I like how you jump right into the story and introduce things as you go along in the first few chapters. The flow of the introductions is really natural. It’s also really nice how you use a flashback to clue readers in on how Yeo Jin got into the situation she’s in. I haven’t seen this approach in a while, since most of the stories I’ve read recently use a prologue or introduction to set the stage. Your approach was quite refreshing. Also, let me just say that your translations of whatever language your characters are speaking (my apologies, I don’t know what language it is) are very helpful when I’m reading. The dialogue provides a touch of authenticity, and the translations help readers like me to understand.

Plot - 16/20
The storyline moves along pretty well, but you include a lot of details that aren’t really necessary. For example, in your second chapter, you outline everything Yeo Jin does in the morning from her stretching routine to playing Candy Crush. Her stretching routine makes sense because she’s a dancer, but do your readers need to know that it took her an hour and a half to complete? Do they need to know that Yeo Jin even played Candy Crush at all? Probably not. Those details aren’t very important to the story as a whole and just load your readers’ brains with unnecessary information. The same rule applies to your dialogue. You include the entire conversation with the fast food employee at Kat’s when that whole scene could be summed up as “I ordered pancakes and a cappuccino from one of the vendors and surveyed the room, looking for a place to sit.” I advise taking out these unimportant things to make your writing more concise and help the plot move along a tad bit faster.
When you fight past all the random details, the gist of the story is solid. Jin has to adjust to a new place while battling her origins and finding her place in the world. That sounds like a pretty wholesome story to me. I can see where the story is moving, but there are some gaps between the chapters. For example, the switch between chapter two and chapter three is really strange and doesn’t make a lot of sense. You go from Jin talking with Austin and Tasha to her contemplating her love for dance and dance school without any sort of transition in between. If your story is making a jump in time, make it obvious by adding a transition. Otherwise, your readers could get easily confused.

Pace - 7/10
The pacing of this story is largely affected by the amount of irrelevant information in your writing. The random, unimportant details you include tend to kill your momentum and slow the pace of the story a lot, making it get boring quickly. So, as stated above, please edit for things that are unnecessary and don’t need to be included.

Grammar, Punctuation, Syntax & Diction - 8/10
There’s a minor issue with your dialogue. Generally speaking, you shouldn’t end a quotation with a period if there’s a speaker tag directly following it. Instead, you should have a comma before the quotation marks. Here’s what I mean:

Incorrect: “No need to thank me. It’s my job.” he said.
Correct: “No need to thank me. It’s my job,” he said.

This is kind of a confusing rule as you can end a quote with an exclamation point or question mark. It’s an understandable mistake, but it does need to be fixed.
You tend to combine sentences with just a comma when they need to be either 1) separated into two sentences or 2) combined with a comma and a conjunction. If there are two separate thoughts in one sentence, it’s a good idea to just make that one sentence into two. That will decipher between things for your readers.

Characters - 13/15
Thank you, thank you, thank you for including nice character descriptions! It really helped me to visualize what was happening in your story, and I feel like so many authors neglect proper descriptions of their characters. That being said, your characters are decent. Each one has their own personality and quirks. My main critique here is that your characters are pretty cliche. Tasha is the girl who talks too much, Austin is the overly-confident playboy, Zoe is the loyal best friend, and Yeo Jin is the nice, innocent protagonist caught in the middle of it all. I could name more stereotypes, but I’ll spare you. It would benefit your story if you could tweak them so they are a bit more unique. Then they will stand out a bit more instead of blending into their stereotypical crowd of characters.

Overall Enjoyment - 12/15
This story was okay, but it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I thought that it didn’t have a lot of action, and it grew boring after a bit. I think making your storyline more concise and revamping your characters will help your cause a lot. Thanks for submitting your story to be judged; I hope some of my suggestions are helpful!

Total Score: 86/100