Reviewer: 2storytime
Book title: The Haunting of Manor Saldonïeré
Author: @LadyLightSword
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Welcome yee old farts! In honour of the paranormal genre, I'll be drinking red wine during this review. Why? Because blood is too addictive and I won't go back there. God give me the strength indeed.
I'll try to be even more constructive than I usually am in this review. I'll give the problems then give a solution, a suggestion. Okay let's dive into this!
COVER AND TITLE: 1.5/5Yeah I didn't like any single thing about your cover. It looked haphazard and messy. In a sense it actually was a foreshadowing of what I was about to read... Ooops. Okay the cover and title don't carry much weight with me because they are easy fixes.
Your title was good and that's what most paranormal books are titled anyway. The one and a half points are for this.
The cover and font, on the other hand, were a miss. The picture in the cover did look paranormal but it was messy and I think that has to do with the size. It dominated the space and the artwork lacked balance. Find smth that doesn't completely dominate everything.
Together with the domineering photo, came the clunky space consuming font. It was space filling yet I couldn't read. Pick something spooky and again, use space well.
BLURB: 4/5The blurb was fine. It gave me enough information to know what in fucking hell was happening. That being said, nothing was remarkable about it. Try using a tense moment from the book (for now you have none) just to show readers what you got.
Otherwise apart from that, I had no qualms here.
PROLOGUE: 9/10
Everyone at this point knows my obsession with prologues. Yours was gripping, well written and informative.
I loved the narrative voice in the prologue so much. You clearly did your research on how language was used in yonder day.
I liked the part about the older girl and how she so creepily killed herself within the enemy's house so that she could haunt him. Unfortunately when she murdered herself, I feel like she murdered the entire story as well. From there, your story went from an elegant hearth fire, to a dumpster fire. I mean yikes.
I hesitated to give you full points due to the fact that I'm not sure if revealing so much was a good or bad thing. I honestly don't know because it's too early on. Also grammatical and sentence errors.
Anyway for this beautiful prologue I say NEVER STOP WRITING YOU BEAUTIFUL HUMAN BEING!! .....especially because you need to fic the rest of this shit. I'll explain how.
PREMISE: 8/10
The premise is pretty standard Paranormal shit. A woman dies in a house. Her spirit seeks vengeance and justice, haunting all who come into the house.
A hapless teenager has to, by way of research stay in this spooky devil's wazu of a house. Meery now has to stay in this fucked up house from hell so as to gather research.
This is a good enough premise. It promises to offer a take on the themes of human worth over monetary gain. The slow decent of a young woman's mind as she continues to present herself to this situation. Even the themes of family and justice.
The premise is honestly promises a gold mine of opportunities. However, how you executed it was very poor. Now that has to do with plot.
PLOT: 1/20
Plot is how you execute your premise in a well constructed and thought out story structure. This is one of the places where your story fucked itself up the ass! I mean it was so fucking ridiculous I had to stop severally, put my phone down and just meditate. I mean fucking hell! What a hot mess, let me unpack it for you.
Breakdown -So some girl named Meery is living in a picturesque town that has a haunted house in the neighborhood. Hmmm, I wonder if that's important. Anyway one morning while enjoying a nice breakfast, her dad tells her brother and her that he can no longer afford college tuition. Huh... okay, go on...
So he tells them that they have to get jobs in order to help out. Her brother already has a job and leaves for it. Meery however, sees an ad on the newspaper. It reads as so: Candidate required
A candidate is required as soon as possible for the research of the Haunted house Sadïoneré. Job requires a person who is willing to risk his/her life. Highly risky but reward is exceptionally high.
"a person who is willing to risk their life" That doesn't sound shady at all! Also, what the fuck? Risky but rewards are high. Good luck enjoying that money when you're dead, Meery.
So our hapless damsel goes off to the shiny company with no name and is directed to Mr. Shady Business man. What does his company do? Something to do with ghost research and child sacrifice.
Anyway when Shady Businessman discovers she's a teenager, he automatically refuces. Because God knows the lawsuits that will insue. Mary however, gives him a bright idea, she suggests they just send her in under wraps and if she dies, she'll just be another traveller who died in the "most haunted house".
Shady business man readily accepts.
Red flags anyone?
So Meert Mc Dumbass goes home to tell her dad the fabulous news that she has a job. Of course she doesn't say she's going to the house which you described as no one who has entered ever left, anyway, she gives the most vague explanation.
Some bullshit about some restaurant and having to stay with her friend. The dad, like every other character in this book and most other paranormal books, is basically brainless so he agrees. Her brother, however, manages to somehow use both of his brain cells at the same time enough to suspect.
Meery McDumbass heads to the manor and lets herself in. Seeing all doors downstairs are locked, and she doesn't want to disturb the ghost, goes upstairs and sleeps in a messed up room. Some boring as hell shit happens that's supposed to be scary. Someone breathes in a mirror blood flows blah blah blah. She sleeps there anyway because, cash?
Anyway next day she somehow has survived and goes downstairs to find a bunch of fancy food which she's actually tempted to eat. How fucking dumb is this bitch? She actually wonders if someone brought the food in from outside and even wonders if she ordered food.
Mwery, Ma'am, I know you're too dumb to remember what you did two minutes before but Uber fucking Eats doesn't sprawl the fucking food on the table in perfect placement.
So she somehow leaves the house despite you saying that nobody who entered the manor left alive. That's a fucking plot hole if I've ever seen one. Don't set rules that you can't follow.
Speaking of following, Meery follows a bunch of bullshit crap "clues" in the backyard and "sees" someone in her room and is surprised that there actually was someone in her room. Bitch what the fuck? Of course there's someone in your room, they breathed on you and you felt them in bed and random ceiling blood dripped. We were there.
Anyway, this dumb bitch leaves the house to go buy some froyo or some shit. I mean, what! The! Actual.....'
This plot was so ridiculous, what a hot mess?
1. The number one rule in horror and paranormal is this, SLOW! Slow the fuck down. Everything happened so fast that it was so jarring. In chapter two we already had the fist paranormal encounter and jump scare. That shit should come in act two. Otherwise shit gets repetitive and redundant. Stories in this genre need to start off slow and the scares need to escalate from very minute and even misplaced fears
2. Mystery. This is why I both liked and hated your prologue. It kinda gave away the mystery aspect. Even when lady Dumbass fuck is digging around the backyard like some retarded Sherlock Holmes, I didn't find any intrigue. You already so strongly established the place and it's lore.
3. The scares were so fucking boring. I felt nothing but utter boredom when reading even your "jump scare". It was so fucking ridiculous mostly because your fast pased arse doesn't give shit room to breathe.
The plot was a fucking massacre and it literally melted my brain. Your characters made the most fucking ridiculous things just to advance a plot that was already too fucking fast.I understand needing to go to College buy I would never go on a suicide mission to do that. Fuck college! My ass wants to live.
I understand you were trying to make the story unique by not having a bunch of attractive dumb teenagers with no acne live there but now you just have one dumb unattractive teenager with no acne who has no business being there. Sacrifice myself to get a degree. Bitch when you've been looking for a job for ten years after risking all for that degree, tell me if your time in the Manor of hell was worth it.
Dear author, how I see it, you have four options.
1. Remove that stupid clause that " everyone who went into the mansion died". That way, you can have Meery's volunteering sensible. In this case make her sinicle that paranormal shit exists and delve into her psychology as she is proven wrong.
2. Have Meery not be a teenager. Not every main character has to be a fucking teenager. Maybe she could be an adult with literally nothing to live for.
3. Choose literally any other scenario that fixes those problems that I have highlighted.
4. Continue the same way. It's your life and this reviewer is already on his fourth bottle of red wine.
Now, because your pacing, structure and plot devices were so ridiculous and a let down from the well done prologue, I gave you one pity point for effort.
CHARACTERIZATION: 1/20.
In high stakes stories where literal human lives are at stake, it's often a good idea to make your characters very likeable. I need to connect to them and only want the best for them. I need to hope that they survive whatever horrors you throw at them. I didn't give two rats asses about what happened to Meery. She was so dumb and ridiculous that I just hoped she'd die so the story can end. Now, I usually go into each character and how they are developed, their roles and how they contrast to the main arc character. Clearly I can't do that for your book because these are not characters, they are toilet paper moulds. Instead, I will rate their IQ out of the standard 200.Meery-1/200Honestly her single braincell is furiously overworked. With basic motor skills, there is no room for common sense or spudid shit like logic. Therefore, the plot can easily sway her toilet paper ass to do what is required.
I would do a lot for some sweet cash but this bitch is dumb. Father (I forgot his fucking name) - 3.5/200I'll give him three because he at least realized he needed help with the kids fees and was smart enough not to take a loan. You know what? Let's bump him up to three point five. He however was dumb as fuck in buying Meerie's lame ass explanation. Brother (Whatever his name is) -100/200Acerage braincell count. He's okay. He has a job and suspected Meerie's explanation. He eveb had the power to recall where her furthest friend lived. Oh look! An actual human being in this story, of course except those in the prologue.
Shady Businessman -120/200This dude knew a good deal when he saw one. With how desperate Meerie was acting like a fucking crack whore, I'm sure Businessman paid her peanuts. He can read his human resources and judge if they are worth their pay and I can tell he could see Meerie's worth was that of disposable toilet paper.Also, what the fuck is this company? I am still in awe. How do they profit? Are they non-profit? I don't know maybe I forgot on account of the number of brain cells that died during reading these characters.
Now this is the part where I highlight how to fix your troubles. As I said, characters need to be likeable and characters who make ridiculous leaps of logic are annoying not likeable. Meerie's mum died, how about you establish that trauma better instead of glossing over it in a throw away intro line. Give your characters time, they deserve it.
Secondly, characters need to have motivations. We need to clearly understand how your character's brain works (of they even have one). I need to see a wound they have caused by trauma and how it affects their decision making. Establish this shit very early on by showing us a scenario and then when she makes another decision even if we don't agree with it, we kind of understand why. I will decide to give a hypothetical.EG. Let's say Meerie's mum died while somehow protecting Meerie. Someone in her life, either brother or father has never let that go and is often passive aggressive. Due to this, she becomes reserved and has only one friend.
Due to this, people in highschool bully her. Because of this, she can't wait to get tge fuck out of that provincial Neanderthal town and go to college in New York or some shit like that. Then she learns she can't go to college, half because of her poor ass father and half because of his resentment. Suddenly (bot by a fucking newspaper, risky shady business isn't advertised in newspapers) she learns about the haunted house research job. The town's folk aren't sure if it's really haunted but the researchers think so. They however downplay it so she can accept. Since she needs the fucking money to escape her life, she has no other choice. Then through the slow and progressive haunting, she regrets having not only let others downgrade her but having down graded herself. Now she has to fight to protect the life her mum died to protect.
See what I did there? I literally farted a story out of my arse in two minutes that is astronomically better than yours. Why? Because I understand how people work and can therefore write realistic characters who make realistic choices and those realistic choices have realistic effects on the plot. Feel free to use this shit or not, honestly, I don't care. The take away here is to think about your characters more than just stupid brainless meat puppets. They are human and they need to somehow connect to your human readers. If you were writing for motherfucking Pinocchio, this shit you did would be acceptable. What is insane to me is that the characters in your prologue were so well done and so realistic and captivating I actually started wondering if it was all written by the same author. For that, you scored one pity point but gained a wealth of advice, look at the bright side.
LITERATURE: 6/10
This category focuses on your mastery of the language and how you used artistic choices in your grasp to elevate your story. In the stylistic department here was nothing to go by. The least that I expected and through would really boost any paranormal story was symbolism. I kind of got foreshadowing in the prologue and for that you were saved here. Again, why prologues help. Now, your narrative voice in the prolonge was fascinating. It really fell in line with the time period and I thought it was poetic. However, when I got to chapter one, I began to cringe so much my face nearly froze over. The narrative voice took a turn for the dumb. It read like short journal entries. Everything was just stated in a matter of fact way and the sudden shift from the prologue made me think I was tripping on acid. Fuck! It felt as if the narrative became just as dumb and brain dead as the main character it was following. Then another mind bending feat happened. Chapter two came in and the narrative voice went back to normal so I have to ask. Was this book a group project? How many people worked on this shit? The changes and inconsistencies had me dizzy. I honestly didn't even know how to score this one. Go back and rewrite chapter one. Even the tense in chapter one, for some reason became very time travellery.
GRAMMAR: 15/20
Because this fucking shit is already too long, I'll keep this consise. Misspellings -effected - affected (repeatedly)Other than that, I can't see any others in my notes so let's move. Sentence construction -° "It is not wise to not have innocent blood on our hands." Dounly negatives in this sentence from the prologue end up meaning the opposite of what you intended. Remove the second "not".° "I know ye are lame for hiding games but not this worse." Replace "worse" with "sparce" the lyrical nature remains but this time it is correct. There is more but I only have few brain cells left from the haunting of this book. Tense - Like I said, for some reason chapter one feels like it was written by a fucking time traveled. The tense in chapter one jumped so much and so repeatedly. Here's an example:°Derek WAS a stay at home dad and IS suffering. Was is past tense Is is present. This didn't happen in the other chapters or maybe my mind was numb. Just edit this shit. Pick one tense and stick to it. Punctuation -For dialogue, use double inverted commas (" ... ") not this (' ... ') It just reads better for such a story and is generally grammatically acceptable. You also forget to open the dialogue in chapter one when the brother speaks .Speaking of dialogue, do not have two pieces of dialogue from two people appear in the same paragraph. This happened in the scene with Businessman. New speaker, new paragraph. That's a rule of thumb.
SCORE:{45%}I honestly have nothing to say much about this.
Honorable mentions -The girl killing herself in the prologue is still the highlight scene.
After reading this, I gotta go cleanse with some fucking sage. Good job earthling!
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