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《Blade》The Mystery Power

REVIEW - THE MYSTERY POWER (Rutujakdam)

REVIEWER - Blade DeathBlade__

Title: 2/5
- The title fits with the plot of the book, being that Alice’s power is a mystery, even to her. Other than that, it doesn’t have anything unique about it. It sounds a lot like many mystery books and it isn’t intriguing enough to pull a reader in.
- I’d suggest you switch it up to something that isn’t too common. On Wattpad alone, you can find many books of similar fashion.

Cover: 2/5
The font is simple, which matches the simplistic nature of the cover. The cover looks good but it also feels like more of a mystery book. This is good since the genre is supposed to be mystery/thriller but from the mention of powers in the blurb and the first chapter, there are obviously some fantasy elements in the book. It would be nice if you could incorporate them into the cover so that it truly represents what we’re going to see in the book.

Blurb: 2.5/5
The blurb does a good job telling what the book is about but it’s not written in an intriguing way. First of all, you mentioned her name, Alice Addison too many times. It sounds very repetitive when you could have just used pronouns.
Another thing is that there are too many breaks in the middle. Some sentences could have been continuous. I’d suggest you change the format of the blurb and write with fewer breaks as it ruins the flow of the reading.
You wrote Alice Addison thought that she didn’t have any power. Instead of writing it like this, you could have written Alice spent her whole life believing that she would never get her power. This makes the reader understand her better.
Overall, the blurb conveys everything required, just not in the right format. If you fix that, it should be good to go!

Writing Style: 0/10
There is not much I can review. The story is written in a play format which already reduces the writing style by quite a lot. Still, scenes in between dialogues could have been described but they just weren’t. You simply state what happened instead of showing us.
For example:
Before going to sleep, she heard a knock at the door. Instead of writing this plainly, you could have described it as she got ready for bed and heard three knocks at the door. You could have shown her get out of bed annoyed as she opened the door (since it is 12 a.m she is bound to be cranky)
This is just one example. Even in the starting scene, she gets a phone call and you just wrote that it arrived. Since it’s an unknown number, you could have written how she hesitated to pick it the call before finally convincing herself to do so.

Besides the lack of description, the writing style also doesn’t remain consistent. The book started off by showing everything is play-based writing (Alice - Hello? who is this?). But then, just a few dialogues later, it goes like this: Hello, says Alice
This then repeats in several other instances:
Well, I heard a girl yelling for help, said Alice
“You’re intoxicated because you are turning 18”, said Olivia
For your special day, I have a plan, Olivia says (etc)

Also, some of your dialogues have “ “ and some don’t. I feel like you should be consistent with it.

Dialogues are written in italics whereas the scenes are written in bold with “ “. This just makes it seem like it's too much and it’s genuinely unwanted. Since the writing style is play-based, I’d say there’s no need to use “ “ for showing the dialogues. At the same time, bolded text is not required for the scene either and neither is “ “. It would be best to just use italics while showing a scene.
For example, instead of “Phone call interruptions” you could write Phone call interruptions.

Overall, I wouldn’t suggest writing in a play style at all. It really minimizes the scope for writing style to improve and there doesn’t seem to be a particular reason for adopting this style.

Grammar: 4/10
The grammar could use a lot of improvement. There was only one chapter and it was a small one but I still found numerous mistakes. The biggest mistake I spotted was with tenses. One scene would be in past tense and the immediate next would be in present. For example,
A call from a number has just arrived
A girl screams from the opposite side.
As you can see, the first is in the present perfect and the second is in present. This can be noted in various other places

“Hello,” says Alice
Well, I heard a girl yelling for help, said Alice
The said in both instances are used in different tenses. This was the most common mistake I found. I’d suggest you decide exactly what tense to use for the book and continue to do that because errors like these make the book less enjoyable.

Plot: 0/10
- The pace of the plot really needs to be worked on. In one tiny chapter alone, so many things happened and it seemed out of place. First, we find out it’s Alice’s birthday, then she hears someone scream, she talks to Olivia, and then randomly starts talking about not having powers. The flow of action feels very forced and it doesn’t flow smoothly.
- The fact that she doesn’t have powers is only mentioned in the blurb but in the book, it comes up rather abruptly. We don’t see her thinking about it too much, it’s only when her parents come that she brings it up. This is mainly because the writing style isn’t executed well (as I have already mentioned).
- I’d suggest slowing down a little and placing everything effectively so that it’s fun to read and the flow feels authentic.

- Other than the pacing, the plot feels cliche. In a town full of people with magic, she’s the only one without them. This seems like the start of every fantasy book ever (except yours is a mystery). The girl screaming could have been intriguing but it was brushed aside too quickly.
- I’d rather read Alice wondering what happened to the girl and who she was than see her brush it off and celebrate her birthday.

I know it’s only been one chapter and there isn’t much to judge but the opening wasn’t very enticing. The first chapter makes up a huge chunk of a judge/reviewer’s first impression and it wasn’t executed well. You could have started off by showing a tiny scene of the girl who was screaming instead of reading Alice brush it off and celebrate her birthday. Birthday scenes just don’t make for compelling first chapters, especially when there are no hints that something terrible will happen.

The plot needs a lot of polishing. Just work on the pacing and make sure it’s not too similar to other books. People would rather read a new concept.

Characters: 0/10
Again, this is due to the lack of description in the books. The characters feel like robots since they ignore their emotions. For example, Alice hears someone screaming for help and she’s not even a little worried or scared. That is the barest reaction she could have given and even that wasn’t present.

Olivia was so quick to dismiss the fact that someone would have screamed and instead she claims that Alice is drunk. There was nothing that led to her thinking that way and it felt so out of place.

Even Alice’s bond with her parents seems artificial. They wished her on her birthday and her father says he hopes she succeeds. Every parent wants that but saying it outright felt very weird to me. He didn’t show any signs of love through his actions, only through words (which is not advisable).

The main problem is that these characters don’t seem real to me. It’s been only one chapter but still, there should be something about their character that I know, and that just wasn’t the case. I hope you put more effort into the characters because they really make a book so much better.

Overall Enjoyment: 0/5
There is a lot to work on in the book. I’m not saying that writing in a play-based format is wrong but I’d prefer it if it wasn’t a lot more. That just allows more room for description which aids in the overall development of the plot and the characters.
The grammar wasn’t great but it is the easiest to fix. You could re-read the chapter yourself or have someone else do it for you.
With the plot, the pacing is one of the greatest issues, originality being the next. I strongly suggest you work on what I mentioned because it is very important to make a great book.
The characters need to feel more human or else the readers will not be able to relate to them.
All these issues together didn’t let me enjoy a book as much as I should have. If it was just one of these I could look past it but it wasn’t the case. In any case, since there is only 1 chapter that is out, there is plenty of room and time for improvement and I hope you take it and better your book.
I hope this review doesn’t discourage you and instead gives you an insight into what to change. Take this as a push to improve your book and I wish you good luck!

Total: 10.5/60