Brutally Honest Reviews™

His Scarred Beauty (N)

-Also, the use of second person here is ineffective (like it is 99.9% of the time) since it's assuming that the reader doesn't notice any of these types of "faceless" people in life that may or may not be there. Second person is intrusive and even more so in a book's description. Let the readers open the book first before trying to force these accusations down their throats y'all!

-Reminder: Write out numbers that are less than three digits, people!

-Excerpt: [Worse than the hate, Brendan, a boy who is everything she isn't, begins showing an interest in her, and how can she hide from that?

Will Valentina be able to get through the year with her secret hidden, or will the new interest in her lead to her finally being unmasked?]

*Blinks* I'm making a conscious decision to ignore the comma splices.

-I know that the latter sentence is intended to be a hook, but it's failing to do so. At least for me, it is. I think what's annoying me about it is that it refuses to ask the proper question here: the question that drives this character to be the way she is and makes the choices she does and will possibly make. Instead, the question that's posed here is shallow, shortsighted, and frankly, drab and uninteresting. I wouldn't read on if it weren't for the review. On the other hand, the former sentence is structurally ugly, is using the wrong "worse/worst", and doesn't make much sense as a conflict. Although I can infer that *checks for MC's name* Valentina has low self-esteem because of this tragic accident so she exerts a lot of energy into being a wallflower, and that's understandable, but it doesn't make sense to sneak in this other character to clearly force a romance rather than elevating the audience's interest in the MC and her plight. It just seems out of place.

Overall it's not atrocious, but then again, that isn't something to congratulate. Boop.

(-2)

Plot: Anti-ableism campaign meets a high school 2004 movie? Aside from this possibility, the conflict overall seems weak but hopefully, I'll be wrong.

Opening thoughts:

-Excerpt: [Blood.

That's the first thing I see. Covering my body and the singed wooden floor around me. My head snaps up when I hear a creak, my eyes widening at the way the roof is torn apart, pillars of wood hanging precariously.]

*Intakes air*

-Besides from the choppy sentences throughout this paragraph, the opening sentence is one word and it's weak. It says nothing at all except for a noun that can be saying numerous amount of things so...nothing at all. One-worded opening sentences usually try to dress up as being more than they are and I think they can only be used effectively when building tension or a beat/rhythm in the story that's already there. Not to mention that it decides to lead into fragmented, uncreative exposition. This ain't it sis.

-Example: Heat, so much heat. Red fluid dribbled from my body and onto the floorboards beneath me. It was the first thing that became visible through the persistent cloak of fumes.

-Not the best, but: same premise, different execution. This opening sentence immediately infuses a picture of the character's situation into the reader's head (to create a further level of intimacy), while the sentences that come after it builds upon this image and refines it as it goes on, thus pulling the reader into the scene and showing the clear stakes and disorienting state of said character. This is one way this scene can be opened up to for the reader.

*Breathes out*

-ANYWHO, the first chapter is a prologue that sends the readers back to the traumatic experience that still haunts the MC in the present day, and for the most part, it's decent. Well, decent until the flashback becomes a "nightmare memory" and this is the second book in a row during this special that has done that. Can't we have nice things?