Amaryllis | REVIEW SHOP [ CLOSED ]

《Sadie》Mirrored in Her

Reviewer: Sadie twoshortnails
Book: Mirrored in Her
Author: june_berrin
Chapters read: All
Cover:
I’m interested in your cover, especially the image you chose. From far away the blurred and pixelated quality of the image isn’t too noticeable, so it doesn’t bother me that the image isn’t the highest quality. The splice effect used reduces the need to find a good face claim, so that’s quite clever. However, the image used doesn’t reflect much on the title ‘Mirrored in Her’.
In my opinion, it would be really cool to experiment with the idea of a mirror, and you can still keep the splice effect, just make it more discreet. You can also play more with the idea of ‘blue smoke’ for her powers. I know you already have the blueish background, but it doesn’t draw much attention to any powers that she has. Perhaps try a smokey blue background instead?
Regarding the text in your cover, I quite like the placement that you have decided on. It’s simple and legible, and your title is visible even from far away. I think I’d prefer to have the title a bit lower down though, so it clashes less with the image you have used. Bring it down so the bottom of ‘in Her’ is the same distance from the bottom of the cover, as the top of the author’s name is from the top of the cover. Tell me if that doesn’t make sense!
I dislike the variation of the font in the title, and I prefer the second line of font much better to the first (font for ‘in Her’). But I do like the light blue colour because it contrasts better than the dull grey. I suggest using the font for ‘in Her’ for all of the text, and change the colour of the title to the light blue of ‘Mirrored’. The author’s name is okay, so I wouldn’t bother changing the colour, but maybe try changing the font.
Overall, your cover is interesting and looks good, just some small things to pick up on!
Title:
Your title is unique and a cool concept. Mirrors generally play a large role in fantasy and fiction worlds, so it is also suitable to the genre you are writing. Apart from the blurb, the book so far doesn’t have many references to ‘mirrors’ and the idea of reflection, so don’t forget to include that in future chapters. Just keep your title in mind as you write, so the content in your book is suitable for the title and vice versa.
Blurb/Description:
I’m very impressed by your blurb. It ticks all the right boxes: grammar, content, explanation but not too much explanation, and anticipation. There’s a lot of good work in your blurb, so well done!
Whilst your grammar is technically correct, there are some sentences that can be phrased better. This problem also occurs in your book as well, so it is quite important. ‘And after being on the verge of getting caught’ is correct, but there are redundant words that overcomplicate what you are trying to say. Instead, you should rewrite that phrase as ‘And after almost getting caught’. This new phrase gets straight to the point so the flow of writing isn’t disrupted.
The first sentence of the second paragraph is over complicated as well. You’ve packed way too many adjectives into one sentence, and ‘well-known prestigious family’ is a complete mouthful that I’d prefer to avoid. I suggest taking away ‘well-known’ as that adds unnecessary detail — prestigious already implies that they are well-known.
The first sentence of the third paragraph doesn’t need ‘by the wicked’, it really does complicate the sentence. Whilst it is grammatically correct, it just sticks out and feels weird, disrupting the flow of your writing.
The content in your blurb is perfect! As well as some world-building, but letting the reader work everything out themselves, lots of respect for that. Generally, authors either over explain everything, or leave the reader completely clueless. You’ve got a good balance in the middle.
I’m not a big fan of the first sentence being separated from the rest of the blurb. Surely, it would work better after ‘…unravel and cause havoc on the already altered world.’ It would look something like this:
‘…already altered world. (paragraph) Forced to play hide and seek, Averil is sought for by people determined to hunt her down, no matter what. She learns a hard lesson, that: it is a mirror that reflects the light over the truth overshadowed by lies.’
Of course, this is just an idea for you to play around with. Finally, just differentiate the warning from the blurb itself. Perhaps use italics or just separate it with a double paragraph?
Overall, I’m really impressed with the grammar and especially impressed with the content!
Characters:
Your characters are good. They have dynamics, personality and interest, which make them appealing and realistic to readers.
Averin is a great main character. She has realistic thoughts and struggles with grief and fear throughout the eight chapters published, but maintains the idea of a strong female lead. Her background with self defence could be explained more, and I also feel that sometimes her strength isn’t exactly realistic. For example, when she’s attacked in Chapter 3, surely there would be a moment where she would be frozen with fear, regardless how much training she’s had. Incorporate her fear before describing her response, so her actions are more realistic. I love the flashbacks of what her father taught her — very effective and useful for the reader.
The other characters are also interesting, and I like the way they interact with each other. You are a great writer and show relationship dynamics well, so I respect you for that. Sometimes, the characters’ names are a bit complicated and even unmemorable, like Everard. Especially because his name isn’t mentioned a lot, I keep forgetting who he is and what his name is. This shouldn’t really happen, but if you are happy with the characters names, then just take care to mention them more so readers don’t keep forgetting. This is also important with Averin, I forgot her name several times and ended up calling her ‘Aven’, so do try and include her name more in speech.
You’ve asked me to focus on character development, which is something you are quite good at. You bring in little bits of the character's lives, and build them up so the reader gets to understand them. A nice example that I like is when you introduced Elowen as someone with the ‘physique of a gymnast’, showing that she probably has a history of gymnastics or she’s fit. I would say there isn’t much to improve, just keep working on those small details to build everything up!
Generally, I’m impressed with your characters and how they interact.
Plot/Storyline:
There’s a lot of great drama and great use of language to create that great drama. I genuinely enjoyed reading what you wrote, and I did get a bit invested, and it feels cruel that the book is still unfinished…
Your plot is quite quick, diving straight into death in the first chapter, and then the main character gets attacked in the third chapter, not to mention the verbal attack and suspicion in the first chapter. This is good, and maintains the reader’s interest, so make sure to maintain the same pace throughout the rest of the book.
When I talk about this ‘fast-pace’ plot, I am thinking more about what happens in each chapter. A slow plot could be like a slowburn, where two people do basically nothing, and the chapter simply becomes a slowburn. Your writing, however, is fast and quick paced because there is always something important going on in each chapter. Whilst slow plots are also interesting to read, for something like a fantasy with the element of ‘hunting’, the way you have approached the speed of the plot is completely right.
Now that you have established the drama and mood of the book, you need to start building more backstory into the action, and help the reader by explaining main elements of the dystopian society that Averil lives in. What exactly do wielders do? There’s this whole blue smoke mystery thing going on, but I’m never actually clear on what the blue smoke thing does.
You could try and explain some of the dystopian society through speech, initiating a conversation between (example) Averin and Everard, where they have an argument about their lives and how to improve it? Something where Everest or Averin want to do something rebellious, but the other disagrees because of the society’s rules and norms. This little conversation will help the reader grasp the dystopian society better.
Keep working with the plot and don’t let down on the pace, but now, you should try and bring in more backstory, and more worldbuilding (not about the characters but about the world).
Grammar:
Firstly, in the author’s note, you mention ‘This story contains mention of violence, blood and death which might trigger some readers’, twice! Delete one of them to avoid confusion. Also, it should be ‘contains mentions of’, not ‘contains mention of’.
Your grammar is good, but there are holes that need to be filled. Throughout your writing, there is some tense confusion. ‘Maisie has been’ should be ‘Maisie was’. ‘In the past few weeks, it has seemed’ should be ‘In the past few weeks, it had seemed’. These are small things that one can easily skip when proofreading, so if you proofread again, comb over every sentence with a fine toothed comb. This is essential, because tense is one of those things that you just can’t screw up in grammar.
There are also minor issues such as ‘I struggled hard to compose’ to ‘I struggled hard to compose myself’. In the first chapter as well, you wouldn’t ‘dump’ hands into an apron, but generally good use of adjectives and alliteration.
As in the blurb, some sentences can be phrased better: ‘taking the same scene from all different angles possible but however, they take it she will never wake up’ would be better phrased as ‘taking the same scene from as many different angles as possible. But however many pictures they take won’t change the fact she’ll never wake up.’
There are also many instances where you overcomplicate sentences. I suggest using more full stops and shorter sentences to avoid packed sentences, without having to take away adjectives. Everything I said in the blurb related to overcomplicating sentences applies in your book as well!
You need to use apostrophes to make speech more realistic: ‘She is… dead,’ to ‘She’s… dead’. Without this, it sounds like the characters are Siri, which is definitely not a vibe, unless you actually want them to sound like Siri. This is a really common problem that you should address when you proofread.
You should check your speech in general, because whilst your speech punctuation is generally correct, there are some instances where you use full stops instead of commas at the end of speech. A quick reminder, speech should look something along the lines of this:
“I need to buy eggs on my way back,” she says.
Note that after ‘back’, there is a comma and not a full stop. This is important!
Your descriptions are very remarkable, and create a great visual for the reader. The next step for you is to include writing devices, like similes, metaphors and personification into your descriptions (and writing in general), to uplevel them even more.
To clear up these grammatical issues, you can get your book edited, or if you don’t want to wait that long, you could just run your book quickly through Grammarly then delete it after because Grammarly is really annoying. Just clear up these problems and your grammar will be perfect!
Summary:
To sum up, I’ll make a few points of things you should aim to do!
Check tense and grammar, especially the points I mentioned. Proofread, get an editor or Grammarly works.
Experiment with the colour and font of the text in the cover.
Start developing backstory and start worldbuilding.
Think about how memorable the characters' names are, and to help readers remember, include their names more.
But you did so many great things with your writing as well!
Your plot is captivating, quick and engaging, it flows quite well as well.
Your descriptions are very impressive!
I like the concept of your title.
Your main character is well written.
I hope you appreciate my feedback and use it to benefit your writing.