Reviewed by: mikrokosmostae
Book Title: Day One Love
Author's Name: KarenBrown389
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(This is an opinion of an individual, which may not coincide with the masses. The individual's taste, thinking, and way of perception will definitely be different).
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Cover: 6/10
The cover seems pretty bland in comparison to your explosive plotline. I like the caricature of the woman, signaling a gun, it is a good one, though I feel there could be more in that cover.
Title: 9/10
At first, of course, the title didn't seem to make any sense to me. But I am glad that you did slip in its significance in the very first chapter. Titles that have special meaning to the characters, special meaning to the author, always making the story much more personal.
Blurb/Description: 5/10
Very vague. Doesn't pull in your readers at all. Your blurbs are the first step by which anyone will judge your writing, so I hope you elongate it soon to suit your story.
Creativity and originality: 9/10
Easy and smooth, there is subtle drama, subtle violence, and the situations you push the characters in are creative. Some parts are a bit exaggerated, but you do a good job in tuning it with subtle connotations.
Plot and Flow: 18/20
With how explosive, and full of twist and turns this story is, everything happens at a pretty fast pace, at least for me. Though the characters took their sweet little time, I'd like to see a little more substance to make your plot a little balanced.
There are scenes which I absolutely adored – scenes with Sam (all of them, yes, I love that guy), the scene where Nik almost dies sees her Gran, but she comes back was very spiritual in my opinion, the conflict Nikole had in choosing and fighting between her personas of Lil bit and Nikki, and many more, gave a certain amount of depth in your story. Also, parts where Sam would preach about how a man should be, very good! I love it when authors use their platforms for spreading awareness and talking about stuff like this.
What was a bit off-putting to me was that sometimes, Sam did seem a little controlling? There were a lot of mature scenes, almost in every chapter, but I didn't see a trigger warning. As an author, it is your duty to put up a warning anytime before you go on to describe a full-length sex scene because Wattpad's platform is prone to kids reading stuff they shouldn't. A small warning like 'Mature scenes ahead – Read at your own risk'. You have done your duty, the rest depends on the reader. Another thing that was a little wrong in my opinion was that Sam never consented with Nik before he took off his protection (and as a woman, that violates my freedom of choice).
Your story structuring is pretty organized, and it baffled me how you kept up with all your sub-plots, or the loose ends, and then tying them up in flashbacks. Kudos, again!
I would like to end on a very small suggestion – I just wished that as soon as Nik got out of her abusive relationship, she wouldn't start off anything new with Sam, until she overcomes her trauma, or even Sam being a mature individual, would give her the space she needs. At that time, all she needed was a friend. I think if he gave her that break, and they took the relationship slowly, like baby steps, it would also make a good romance. I am not saying your way of story structure is wrong, yet I felt this would also be a good alternative.
Character Development: 9/10
The characters are all lovable – we see our protagonists grow and nourish their flaws in front of us, we think they are our babies. There is a clear-cut distinction between who is the villain and who is the hero, so sometimes it may be a bit boring, but it pushes the plot forward anyhow.
I have already confessed my love for Sam, now it's time for Nik. Whenever Nikole is babbling, I feel this whirlwind of emotions – she is funny, sarcastic, she is strong, and more so, she is loving. She is 'vertically challenged, but has a heart of a lioness.
One thing I noticed was hurried introductions of too many characters at once. It confused me and I had to constantly backtrack or memorize so many names. Try to limit introductions to only one or two characters every 5 chapters, let them develop and make a mark in the reader's mind and then go ahead and introduce more.
Writing style, Grammar, spellings, etc.: 7/10
(Side note – I really hope it is a glitch in Wattpad because damm the spaces and the constant paragraph changes in between a sentence was frustrating)
What I loved –
- A certain dialect in which your character speaks sometimes gives this authentic feel. The way gangsters usually talk, you were successful in capturing that.
- The vocabulary! Damm, even though your sentence formation falters at times, seeming like plain narration, your vocabulary is really strong.
- I'd like to give the credit to your detailed (but sometimes inconsistent) descriptions. Some of the emotions were really out there, so kudos!
- This sudden switch to writing in different Pov's was a bit confusing at first but I was happy to dive into Sam's mind too.
What can be improved -
- Lot of missing punctuations like full stops after a dialogue ends, commas in a sentence. Missing or wrong punctuations like exclamation marks. These are usually very important punctuations when it comes to expressing how your certain character speaks that certain dialogue, either in shock, excitement, or as an order. Like -
"You're gonna stop disrespecting me, bitch!" When you call a name (not just a curse but a proper noun within a dialogue, it has to appear after a comma. Also, using an exclamation mark at the end emphasizes that he is shouting at her).
- Commas are necessary to give your readers a breather, a break, and digest all the information you are giving. If it's a continuous sentence, the readers may get confused as to what you were describing. Some sentences did lack commas, making me backread that paragraph.
- Pressing the enter key after every sentence is not the correct way to end paragraphs. This way, your story looks more scattered, even though everything is intact. You even press enter key in between the sentence, which again is grammatically wrong and hinders a reader's pace. (I keep thinking it may be Wattpad's glitch too, but I think you should recheck). If a certain idea or an action is continuing, place them in the same paragraph.
- Few typos like your wrote 'geuss' instead of 'guess', and spelling mistakes where you wrote 'protectective', than 'protective'. Sometimes, you started your dialogue in lowercase. It's always advisable to proofread multiple times before posting.
- Wrong conjunctions and a few tense mistakes.
- The way you give the action of the character saying the dialogue is pretty monotonous. 'He replied', 'she said' are very common, and simple words for actions, and quite boring. Sometimes you describe some actions in a quite detailed manner, but sometimes, there are just these boring words. I have seen your vocabulary, I'd also wish to see some of it in the actions.
- Inconsistencies in your descriptions, especially when it came to your flashbacks and when you were back to the present day. In some places, the descriptions were apt, really convincing, but in some places, I was left waiting a bit for more.
Genre relevance: 9/10
Definitely a nail-biting romance.
Reader enjoyment and Communication with the readers: 9/10
Apart from a few hiccups, I couldn't put my eyes off of the story. It pulled me in instantly, especially how you started your book with a banger.
Overall: 81/100
A good rollercoaster of love and danger to binge on!