"The Risk Book"
CLOSED
All feedback contained here is pure opinion; some of these opinions have changed over time as the reviewer has since received professional training, but this book remains posted for the authors to look back on. Use discretion...
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Title I like it. I do.
Cover Although I like the image, I think the text needs to be rethought. First of all, you need to capitalize "tempest" in your title. Second of all, I think it would look better if both the title and the author's name weren't so close to the top and the bottom and the corners. Centering then and moving them closer to the middle would look better, I think. Also, I don't recommend using a text that looks like Arial on what looks like a romance or fantasy cover. It really doesn't match with the italicized title, and it looks slapped on. There are so many fonts at your disposal! Experiment!
Furthermore, I'd like to point out that I have a Cover Shop just down the road if you feel like you may want a different one.
Blurb Your blurb. Okay, here we go.
You need a space after every comma, exactly like what I just did. I don't know if "nd" is a typo or what. "?????????????????????????????????????????????????????" is way to many question marks. One at a time, please! I don't think the line-breaker ("- - - - -" or something like that) is needed whatsoever. You're missing some apostrophes to represent possessive nouns (I think you have "world's gods' something" maybe). The all-caps proclamation that your cover is "crappy" is definitely unnecessary. Be confident with your work. If you're not confident in your cover, make a new one for find someone who will (hint: I'm a cover-maker).
And aside from all of that, your blurb seems to short to me. Although it presents a potentially good idea (it seems very interesting), it doesn't give me a good picture of what this story will exactly be about. I need a bit more.
All in all—although you present something interesting, the errors would have made me not read this story if I had the choice. That's definitely not what you want!
*since your story comes in eight parts, I will review two at a time, coming to four portions of review*
Author's Note–Chapter 1 The author's note...is in all-caps. And it has multiple punctuation marks and repeated letters ("VOTEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!").
*le sigh*
Those are all my biggest pet peeves, so I'm going to just move on...
Okay. There's a lot to say just by reading the first chapter. The comma is supposed to go within the quotation mark for dialogue. You repeated "suddenly." You didn't capitalize the start of the second line of dialogue. You're missing commas with participial phrases and name-calling. Your dialogue is choppy. You used all-caps again. You need to make a new paragraph every time a different character speaks. You need an end-mark at the end of every single line of dialogue. You confused "your" and "you're." You're missing capitalizations. Ellipses (the "...") should mostly only be three dots. You forgot an "I" for "I am." That was a mouthful! I likely won't be repeating those issues again, so please, please keep them in mind and fix them. These errors combined really make your story hard to read right from the start. I had trouble understanding what you were trying to say at first, and I'd definitely put down this story if I was reading for fun right away. I'm subtracting two points for that, making your total negative two.
However, I promised to read it through, so let's continue and try our best to ignore the obvious grammatical errors (your story is chock-full of them).
All grammar aside (*glances at mountain next to me*), your chapter is quite short and a bit cliché. The "run into the hottest boy ever" trope has been done so many times. I expect a good twist somewhere! I did like the magic addition and I liked that Eric/Ben or whatever his name is was popular while Eva was not. That's pretty interesting. +1 for that, your total being negative one.
Chapters 2–3 In the second chapter, you commit another cliché of the hottest guy she ran into earlier being a transfer student in her first hour. Now where have I heard that? Everywhere. You'd better shake it up soon!
This grammatical/spelling error was too funny not to mention: "the first word war." Ha! I think you mean World War One. I don't mean to ridicule you at all, but be careful about spelling errors that could potentially change the meaning as well as be wrong!
Wait. You mean to tell me that hot boy Alek is in every single one of Eva's classes? Hm. I don't buy it. If there's a reason (like perhaps the fact that he was sent to get Eva), I need an explanation.
Holy smokes! That ending was very unexpected! Interesting. I would have liked more emotion and suspense, but you definitely twisted the tropes. +1! Your total is zero.
Chapters 3–4 Oh boy. Chapter 3. Here's what I liked: you just shattered those tropes with Eva being knocked unconscious in the restroom by a demon and Alek being sent from a magical kingdom and Eva being a "witch heir" or something. What I did not like is you switching from to Alek's point-of-view after only a paragraph of Eva's POV. That's a no-no in my book. If you're going to switch POVs, you must be consistent, which means you must establish a pattern. I recommend every other chapter if there are two POVs you want written from. Comment if you'd like clarification.
Something I hadn't mentioned before is the grammar of internal thoughts. Treat it like dialogue just like you did, but put it in italics instead of putting quotation marks around it.
Another thing that should be italicized is the type of demon ("irkno-something").
The spell (in Latin) should also be italicized, and the text in parentheses ("open in Latin") should not be there. If you really want us to know what it means, make a glossary and put it at the back of your story.
Wait...another POV shift? Don't do this to me! Also, I have no clue what the "whitesphire" is. Okay, so Cassandra is likely to become Eva's guardian not by choice. I see. I really don't like the placing of this scene and I believe it could be taken out, however. It takes away from the plot at hand and makes Eva and Alek's dilemma not as exciting. Also, the letter shouldn't be in all-caps. It's a little irritating.
"Wiyowiyowiyo" is really not necessary (although it made me laugh when I saw it because it just looked so ridiculous). It's not necessary because the next sentence, "The sirens blared," implies the "wiyowiyo" sound.
In Eva's POV shift (not again!), you don't need to say "dream state." All you have to do is put the dream in italics. It will be much better.
Chapters 5–6 I think autocorrect might have changed Alek to Alex a few times.
Another POV shift...okay. Moving on. I already said what I think about them.
You have another POV to Jules?
Okay. I think I'm ready for my final thoughts.
Overall, Mad-hatter-lol-2-xd got zero points! The idea is interesting, though you only had six chapters for me to review. I liked the idea of a "witch heir" and lots of supernaturals at Salem. I liked the idea of supernaturals hidden in plain sight, and your twist on cliché tropes. You have something solid.
The way you executed a solid idea would have made me put your story down very early, I'm afraid. The grammatical errors and the multiple POV shifts in particular made it really hard to read and fully picture what you wanted to say. I recommend a proofreader and a better knowledge of English grammar. If you take English, take to heart what your teachers teach you about English! If you don't take English, then perhaps it's time you start to learn the mechanics of the language.
Thank you very much for requesting a review! You have a good idea. Execute it better next time!
