Book Reviews

10. Shadows & Dreams

Review done by Ash & Aimen

Title: Shadows & Dreams

Author: Merry10002

Review done by Ash

🔴 Writing Style

⭐️⭐️= 0.4

🔴 Grammar and Punctuation

⭐️⭐️⭐️ = 0.6

🔴 Dialogue

⭐️⭐️⭐️ = 0.6

🔴 Cover

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️= 0.8

🔴 Summary

⭐️⭐⭐⭐⭐= 1

Ash's Total = 3.4

Writing style: One of my biggest pet peeves is the use of photos, especially when it's taking over the most important parts of writing - character building and describing. The bolding is a little too much, especially in big sentences. My eyes are drawn to the big words, making the long paragraph harder to read because your eyes want to keep shifting to the bolded words. However, most of these are small things. Adding more descriptions to your characters instead of photos and fixing up some formatting issues will improve your story a lot. Your writing is great, so it's just a few small things! I would suggest using words like "it's" as saying "it is" all the time creates a choppy flow.

Grammar: There is a lot of sentence fragments, sentences that start with conjunction/transition words (And, But, maybe. ... ).Which you are not really supposed to do, and it happens quite a bit. The idea of a short, impactful sentence is to stop the reader and create impact. If you're doing that a lot, it becomes quite choppy and really messes up the flow of the story.

Dialogue: I wasn't sure if she was speaking or thinking. I would be careful with italicizing and quotation marks as it causes confusion. You can also state what's happening at the end of context to give us more of an understanding. They also seemed like really random pieces, it confused more than the mystery excited me. There was also quite a bit of space (description) between the dialogue, so it was a little hard to follow/ was too broken up.

Cover: I wish there was a bit more for the over, it seems a little too simple. I do like that it matches the title, summary and is easy to read, though! . You changed the cover halfway through my review, I like this one more, but I still wish it had something more. I did, however, add a star (I was going to give you 3 before).

Summary - Your summary is great! I love the little intro that hooks the readers, followed by the information about the book. It's a great length as well!

Ash's Overall Notes- I think your prologue could use some work (it's where most of the points were docked). You chapter one, was a lot better though! You used the shorter sentence and bold technique better ( I pointed out some example thorough my comments).

Review done by Aimen

🔴 Writing Style

⭐️⭐️️= 0.4

🔴 Grammar and Punctuation

⭐️⭐️⭐⭐️️ = 0.8

🔴 Dialogue

⭐️⭐️⭐️ = 0.6

🔴 Cover

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️= 0.8

🔴 Summary

⭐️⭐⭐⭐⭐= 1.00

Aimen's Total = 3.6

Writing Style: Your writing is good . The plot and the way you're trying to progress the story is quite nice . I would recommend avoiding too much description because sometimes it's just a turn off for the reader . At the same time usage of shorter sentences is a great method .

Grammar and Punctuation: I didn't came across any major punctuation mistakes but as Ashley has already pointed out try avoiding using conjunctions at the start of your sentence .

Dialogue : There was a lot more thinking than talking in the first chapters , try to cut it a little short . Also I would recommend using separate paragraphs for the remarks of judges when the girl performs because it was getting a little jumbled up .

Cover : I like the new cover alot more than the previous one . It kind of fits in with the title and the theme . Still it can be way more good and better so that it can give the readers an insight about the story .

Summary : I really liked the summary . It's just gives the right amount of information about what's coming and what to expect.

Aimen's Overall Notes: The idea of your story is really nice . Just try working on your writing skills a little more as pointed out above .

Overall Rating  3.4+ 3.6= 7/10