Chloe's Book Reviews {CLOSED/ HIATUS}

Sakura Eyes

"...with short bristly hair."

(Chapter Three)

Your example...

"Your mom is being headed to the king..."

My suggestion would be...

"Your mom is being taken to the king..."

This flows better.

Punctuation-

(Chapter One)

Your example...

"I gulped and felt embarrassed tears rise to my eyes as I fumbled around, searching for the coins..."

I noticed a few things from this sentence.

1- there is a missing comma that could be inserted after "embarrassed"

2- I noticed that you use the word "felt" a few times since the beginning. It's okay to use this word, but one thing I learnt is that this word almost takes away meaning. (That's what somebody told me anyway)

You can show that she is embarrassed rather than saying she is.

My suggestion would be...

"I gulped as my cheeks warmed up, my eyes brimming with tears as I fumbled around, searching for the coins..."

I did change "tears rise to my eyes" because I didn't feel like it fit, but that's totally up to you.

✿

Your example...

"I could hear her annoying piping squeak over the loud bargins sellers were yelling and the rustling of townspeople moving around as I looked over my shoulder."

One thing I noticed in this sentence is that yelling and loud are similar. You could probably remove one of them and change the sentence a little for an easier read.

My suggestion would be...

"I heard her annoying, piping squeak over the bargain sellers yelling and the townspeople rustling around."

However, I would start a new sentence with the "as I looked over my shoulder."

Here is what I mean...

"As I looked over my shoulder, I recognized a tiny girl staring at some pieces of jewellery..."

(Chapter Two)

Your example...

"...until I changed into something "appropriate", but I had no dresses..."

I would use quotation marks instead of speech marks around "appropriate" because she is quoting something. Speech marks are when somebody speaks out loud.

Also, make sure you put the comma inside the quotation/ speech marks.

My suggestion...

"...until I changed into something 'appropriate,' but I had no dresses..."

Character Development-

I love her relationship with her younger sister, May. May seems bright and is a lovely little character.

Even though you don't tell us May's age at the start, I can tell from how you describe her to be much younger than your main character. May does seem to act or at least talk a little bit younger than 12. At first, I imagined May to be about 7 or 8. A suggestion would be to knock off a few years or change her talks just a tiny bit.

I like how you introduced her mother to be of the older generation, that's the impression I got from the way you described her. The wrinkles, the way you describe her walk as she hobbles and how she loses her balance. This is nice showing rather than telling. Good job.

In chapter two, I noticed you have a few errors that people have kindly pointed out. I understand if you want to wait until you edit, but I think you should fix the small errors, so you won't have so much to do when you finally come to edit. Plus, you won't have lots of people commenting on the same issue.

This chapter was intriguing, especially towards the end. I like the contrast about how it's supposed to be a normal day, a family going to a festival and then bam! Tragedy strikes.

It's got me thinking about who could purple eyes be? Does her mother know him by any chance?

So, I was right. The mother does know what is going on. I like the little pieces of information given during chapter three. It's easy to follow too.

I love Justin and Triston's personalities as they make the dialogue entertaining. So far, I really like your main character, and I would say she is quite well-developed.

Overall Enjoyment-

After your first chapter, you pick up momentum, which is great because the first chapter was my least favourite. I think it's because I was waiting to see where the demons would come in and it seemed pretty mellow, until the second chapter and third chapter when everything started to come together.

This is a unique story, and I quite enjoyed reading it.

Your grammar is good. I only pointed out the mistakes that I could see, and the same with missing commas.

If you have any questions, just let me know.

Feel free to not take my suggestions, but if you do, I hope you find them useful.

Thank you for letting me review your book. Please check "Sakura Eyes" if you've got time.