Book Reviews For All! (ON HOLD)

Review 44: Mission 17 : ALEXA BLACK (UNDERCOVER)

AUTHOR: @Smallgirlbigattitude

REVIEWER: Lirusen

Let's start off with the cover -- not bad, though the title doesn't quite fit within the space. It's usually a better idea to not use more than two fonts, so I suggest changing the font of 'SHADE' to the same one as 'Mission 17'. Other than that, it looks lovely and appears to fit the theme of the story. (Also, awesome character aesthetics!)

Your summary is short, concise, I can tell what themes/genres are going to appear (though as a side note, it appears more professional to write numbers in word form).

Moving on to Chapter 1 - immediately we know that Alexa's in a library to meet someone, and now I'm interested to know what her mission is.

Your grammar, for the most part, is fine. Sometimes you forget to put commas when dialogue tags are used, and I think you could extend your sentences and vary their lengths more often so as to not disturb the pacing (e.g. "If I didn't know any better I would have thought that this man was just courteous. But one look at him and I could tell he was just using me to make sure it was safe." could sound better if the full stop of the first sentence was replaced by a comma).

I would also like to see some kind of description - there isn't very much, to be blunt. When Alexa describes the man she's meeting, she says, "One look in his eyes and I knew he was the one. The kind of shit that one goes through in my line of work wasn't something that could be hidden easily." But, hey, I'm the reader, and I don't know what that look looks like. I don't know whether the bags under his eyes sag with the weight of such a difficult job, if apprehension hangs around his hunched, strained shoulders and that glint that sparks in children's eyes has disappeared from his. As a result, I don't empathise with him or Alexa as much as I could.

Let's fast forward to checking the file, where we finally get a mention of this Jonathon C. James. These few paragraphs are slightly confusing - I'm initially told that most of the file is redacted and that Alexa's surprised they even got the name of the city, and only after that do I find out that her boss managed to track him down. This confused me the first time reading through it, and I suggest swapping those two mini events with a little more detail and depth, because overall it is quite brief and abrupt to me.

I'm surprised a security guard let her in simply because she was holding up a file - what if that file had been stolen, or faked? Perhaps there should be more efficient security, or the guard could even know her personally and lets her in. Alexa is a federal agent, after all; her agency may be a little more careful. When Christopher came barrelling in, it continued to appear the security wasn't the best -- if this is such a big operation, there might be precautions taken to make sure that no outsider happens to stumble across it.

Marion's dialogue sounds somewhat bland, and she doesn't appear to have much of a character in that one scene we have with her (she seems hella dodgy though). Some of the humour/banter between Chris and Alexa, while still amusing, sounds a little forced. Don't take out the humour, but perhaps make them seem a little more professional -- progressing into Chapter 3, I'm seeing what use Chris might have in this operation other than comical purposes, but even so, Alexa seems to be the most focused by far. It's a very big operation to catch the third most wanted man in the country, so her colleagues will still be on a similar level to her in a professional aspect (there is a reason, after all, why these three are chosen). Chapter 2 could use some more insight into Jacob's professional side and his skills as well as his flirtatious personality (unless this is intentional).

Up to the end of Chapter 6 it seems like typical teen fiction so far - Alexa's popular, makes friends and enemies on her first day alone, and to me, she seems more rude to her teacher than giving off a cool vibe (merely my opinion).

But those burns to the guys are cool, and I like how she stood up for that girl.

Overall, a nice story. Perhaps more description, especially with show not tell considering I haven't seen much imagery and use of more advanced vocabulary would be cool. There doesn't seem to be much of a difference between how they act at school and at 'home', though they've not been to high school - how do they adjust? What's different between the education system Jacob and Alexa might be used to and your average state school?

I hope this review helped, but this is still my own opinion -- don't feel obliged to agree with it, and I hope I didn't sound too harsh!