This is my second reviews book. Inside, you'll find out 10 books reviews, all of them with my honest opinion and some advices to the books authors.
If you're reading it searching for a review then I am sorry but this book is finished. BUT I'll proba...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Title: Fake Me To Church Author:BlueJay325 Genre: Mystery/Thriller Read: 29 chapters
Your story title is undoubtedly appropriate considering the plot and also a very good choice, really original and with no doubts something that grabs attention.
I must say I liked your story idea. It is not very original - I've already read some books with the same idea - but it is an idea with a lot of potential - that can lead to an spectacular story if you know how to take advantage of it.
The beginning (either the beginning of the prologue and the beginning of the chapter 1) is really interesting and a way to grab attention. The beginning of the prologue made me - and probably many other readers - wonder what's happening and continue reading to find out. The beginning of the chapter 1 is undoubtedly a funny way to describe the school and to introduce one of the main characters, making the readers curious to know more about him.
And speaking of introduce your main characters, I really liked how you did it. You spent two chapters - one for each character - doing it (very well, may I add, since I just needed those chapters to understand what type of people they are) and giving consistency to your story. Some writers are afraid of doing it, afraid of make their stories seems boring and, because of it, they start immediately in the middle of the action or really close to it - and when we're talking about Mystery/Thriller stories many doesn't even wait until the end of the first chapter to kill someone. I don't mean it is a wrong way of doing the things. But spend some time giving consistency and creating characters are also important and, as you showed so well, it doesn't need to make the story boring.
And not just the characters creation but also their development is amazing. You can almost see the characters 'growing', changing their minds, understanding some of their errors and becoming better - or trying to. It could look like as if I'm talking just about Steven. But I am not. Ahmed, Irina, Sam. All of them did wrong things. All of them changed. Ahmed becomes more courageous and lately his unconscious choice of give Steven a second opportunity was very important - to both.
Of course, there were two things very important in the characters creations to make them so good, things that are interrelated: your descriptions and your talent to write in the first person. And how are those things related? Because just your talent writing in the first person allows the reader to clearly understand what the character is thinking and what they're feeling while they describe what they are seeing and just your incredible descriptions allows us to understand what they're thinking and to clearly imagine what they're, in fact, seeing.
But with that story, you didn't just show your talent when the matter is write in the first person. You also showed how well you write in the third one. You write very well, being able to allow the reader to understand clearly what the characters are thinking even if we're not 'in their heads'. And speak about the third person reminds me one thing: I really liked your choice when the matter is the Twelve Years Ago chapters. I liked how you wrote them in the third person, thus evidently distinguishing the past from the present.
And after all those things I still didn't talk about the most important one: the plot. Yours is, indeed, amazing. Interesting story, amazing characters, unexpected twists and, more important - since it is a Mystery/Thriller story -, mystery everywhere.
Unfortunately, there are also things I think that were strange and that I didn't like...
>> Your pace - good during almost the entire story - slows between the first and the second murder. I know you needed to develop your characters, to make the readers now what they think - for example - about Madame Caroline. But when someone reads a Mystery/Thriller story that person expects to find people investigating - to read about that investigation -, to find main characters bothered because of the murder - especially since they were who found the body. In your story, between the first and the second murder, we find two main characters worried about anything and everything but not about the murder. Even if your story still grabs some attention, it is not as much as it did before the first murder and will do after the second one. The only reason why your story still grabs attention is because after a murder anyone can resist to the desire of find out the guilty. And it shouldn't be the only reason.
>> In the chapter 10, there's one thing that does not make sense. Why would a completely stranger give them the room number without a good reason? It is not credible. But it's possible to happen but probably not like that. Probably Irina would need to insist a little more before the stranger - Audrey - accept. After all, even if she hates her boss, we're talking about her job.
In my opinion, almost everyone can create a killer, write about a murderer, create a decent plot, give it some unexpected twists - or not - and then ends the story. But it is necessary a talent to make all this things, being able to keep the readers attention during all the time, to make them continue thinking about your story - trying to find out who the killer is - even after they start doing other thing, to make them doubt everything they read before and everything they think every time they start a new chapter. So, I must say - or better, I need to say - that you have a big talent to write Mystery/Thriller stories.
So with no doubts I am looking forward to see how your story continues!
