The Bubble Reviews 2.0 (ON HIATUS)

Sky_is_limit review: Charmed by the Artist

Book: Charmed by the Artist

Author: carolinengwalla

Reviewer: sky_is_limit

Hi there! So, you wanted me to focus on character development, plot, writing style, and overall enjoyment. As always, I mention other things too!

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Title/Cover/Blurb: 

So, I personally like your title. It's cute and it grabs my attention. You also get brownie points for choosing a unique title. When I searched on Wattpad, I didn't find any others with the same title. But, I must take away some of the points and some of the creativity. When I searched 'charmed by' a lot of stories popped up. Yours was among the first, but as I scrolled, a lot of titles had the 'charmed by blank' going on, and it kind of takes away the creativity of your own title.

I'm not a huge fan of the cover because that type of couple picture is overused. Cute couple kissing just doesn't do it for me. Honestly, I would have chosen something relating more to the art aspect because the MC is an artist and it's in the title. Your cover kind of ruins the hook for me a bit and I don't think I'd be keen to read on. But I will say brownie points for the title being easy to read and I like the simplicity of the font choices.

Your blurb isn't much of a blurb at all. That's unfortunate because, for me, the blurb is the make it or break it on if I'd actually read the story. There's nothing there that hooks me or draws me in. All we get from it is that the two MCs are going to be attracted to each other. While that's nice, what else? Is there no conflict? I highly recommend reworking the blurb 100%.

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Grammar (focus): 

So, your writing style is a focus area that goes here in grammar. I have a good bit to talk about and explain.

The first thing I want to talk about is dialogue. Often times, it was done improperly. While others won't really notice it, I do. For me, it's just a little bit distracting because it's something I struggled with and now that I know better, I pick up on it always. So, speaking tags such as said, told, spoke, get commas before the end quote. That is unless you use a question mark or an exclamation point. After, pronouns (she, he, they, etc.) should be lowercase, even with a question mark or exclamation point. Action beats get periods unless it's a question or exclamation. That is when pronouns are capitalized. That's something to definitely watch out for.

While we're talking about dialogue, I noticed something that often happened. When characters speak, you ten to use run-on sentences. A run-on sentence is when two or more independent clauses are separated by a comma or just a continuous line of words. You often used commas which turned them into comma splices. Run-ons didn't just happen with dialogue. A lot of the monologues also featured run-on sentences that need to be heavily worked. For me, that heavily disrupted the readability of the story. Don't be afraid to have multiple sentences.