Book Title: The Right to Die
Author: avadel
Reviewer: Read-aholic2006
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(This review is based on only the first 21 chapters of the book.)
Title: 10/10
It's an eye-catching title. Not a mouthful, not very revealing and strikingly ominous. And about 20 chapters in, the title is placed into perspective and clicks into place.
Cover: 10/10
One can tell that the cover is well-thought-out once you spot the symbols—the witchcandy, our MC with his signature beanie. I'm not sure if that building is Scrollschool or the Golden Mansion, but that's the least of my concerns. Also, if you look closely, you can see a whole city in the background, with its tall glittering infrastructure; these details are cool. And the colour scheme is interesting and simple—soft blue and confident black melting together perfectly. And thank goodness the author actually made her name visible. I also like the glitch effect on the title, adding to the desired atmosphere of a digital world.
Blurb: 10/10
I love this blurb. It's intriguing. It's to-the-point and not long and tedious. The first paragraph already hooked me, because personally, I love it when our protagonist is a teenage street criminal with a specific skill set, ready to pull off the impossible, especially if that criminal is a revolutionary.
The diction is gripping and powerful ("fat bureaucrats"..."gleaming city"..."starve and die"). By the end of the second paragraph, readers want to know what this fatal "tool" is. The last line of the blurb is definitely the home run. And to top it all off, there's not a single grammatical error.
Creativity/Originality: 10/10
This book revolves around the sci-fi genre, so there's bound to be plenty of creativity. There are several technological inventions: the linkcard, the hover, LMS. And even the popular drug (witchcandy) the author came up with impressed me. And her subtle worldbuilding is pure genius (I'd rather not spoil anything for potential readers, however).
She even came up with her own colloquialism for the characters.
Plot/Flow: 20/20
The more you read, the more you realize how interesting and intricate the plot is. And the pacing is flawless. I wasn't bored for one second. The author focuses equally on her plot development and her overall descriptions.
Nothing is forced in this story. And there's no info dumping.The plot isn't shoved down the readers' throats and neither is M'yu's character goal—he doesn't even have a clear-cut goal. The guy has ambition, a dream...a vague plan to bring down the whole government system with a virus he doesn't even know how to build.
The author slowly and carefully bleeds information throughout her story, leaving a thin trail of breadcrumbs for her readers. The dialogue, which is very amusing at times, is just as informative as the narration itself.
The sudden yet natural inclusion of snippets from M'yu's past—dark, beautiful, chilling flashbacks—are intriguing and somewhat revealing.
