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Book: Homosexually Straight
Author: sarcastic-mess
Reviewed by:
Type of Review: Grand Dragon
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Cover: 4/5
To say the least, I absolutely adored your cover! While I think the elements could be made to stand out more by zooming in on the silhouette a little more and writing the author's name in a font that complements the title, I believe your cover fits in the appropriacy of the genre.
The color scheme is unique, and it does not come across as overdecorated or dazzling. However, I'd suggest you shift the saying: "Why is being straight a stereotype?" to the top of the cover to bring it out more, but that may be subjective, since it works just fine above the first word of the title as well. Moreover, the woman stitching a rainbow strip was yet another unique element I have not seen before. The text fits the romance theme as well, and it stands out from other stories over on Wattpad, which is a commendable effort on the designer's end, whoever they may be.
Title: 5/5
A very eye-catching and intriguing title that accurately throws light upon the theme and gist of the story. On seeing the title of the book, I'd be compeled to pick up the book, which is yet another innovative thing the author has managed to do.
While not being extraneously long, the title also reflects upon the LGBTQIA theme of the story. I could not have thought of a better title of the story, so great job!
Blurb: 2/5
By no stretch of imagination is your blurb bad or seems to have been written by an incompetent author, but it could still use work. I'll elaborate below the different areas where you could re-work your blurb.
---Condensation: Right now, the blurb seems to be scattered all over the place without proper tying up, and some pieces of information need not be there. For example: "Her dads are her life, but since the arrival of puberty, the only thing which she had acquired was a jar full of insecurities, making her insecure about her awesome dads." My suggestion would be to re-work into something as: "Her dads are her life, and she had never felt insecure about them. (A line break) Until puberty came crashing down on her." Of course, you should not and need not copy this verbatim, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.
Another instance: "Peter Hemmings and Noah Benedict, realized how their daughter was suffering because of their decision of being together and going against the societal norms. Infuriated, they collectively decide to go make her switch school." This is an example of a clunky sentence that'd fling the reader out of the main conflict the blurb is trying to emphasize. So, I'll suggest something along the lines of: "Peter Hemmings and Noah Benedict, realizing how their being together had affected their daughter, decided to make her switch schools." This flows better and does not read like a stilted summary of events.
Formatting: While not giving out a lot of unnecessary information, your blurb right now seems to not have been formatted properly. To elaborate, it's fragmented into one or two-line paragraphs, which does not make it look like a blurb but rather an outline of events. I'd suggest not having more than three paragraphs (excluding the pitch lines and one-word breaks)
On that note, there are some informal words which are moreso used on the Internet but not in standard literature, so I'll advise against using them within your blurb. I did not find many slangs or informal Internet terms, but there was one, namely, weirdo, that read awkwardly. You can use a substitute for it which fits the context. There is a passive sentence, too: "She was straight, and straights were despised in Pride High." A better way of phrasing this would be: "She was straight, and people like her were despised at Pride High" (Yes, the preposition "at" is used when it comes to schools, unless one is referring to an individual's physical presence in the building of the school(s) )
Last but not least for the blurb part, you may even cut out some pieces of information, like, "A school which was established for homosexuals and similar people who had been discriminated against based on their gender preferences." Since it has been made clear from the paragraphs above, I'd say this is redundant.
Plot: 4/10
---The prologue established the conflict, but I still feel there could have been more to it. Why? Because the interactions between Kaia's fathers and her felt too awkward and not natural. Moreover, I'm not sure why the reason Kaia was crying in her room was kept cryptic. I could not connect with her, nor her struggles; however, I'm sure that with proper spacing out of the chapter and more contextualization, the prologue would feel worthwhile. Moreover, the paragraph where you put in information about Pride School did not flow well with the overall narrative. I'll suggest giving the information more concisely or sprinkling it out. Furthermore, I believe Kaia's past and the information about her dads was very tell-y, and it disconnected me from the chapter. You can consider, again, including more brevity here, and making the information more consumable.
---First chapter: I'll start with the praise. The cliffhanger was great; I liked how the chapter was structured as well. We begin with her dad dropping her off at the school, and then she bumps into students from the said school, and basically, you tried to reflect upon the environment of her new school. Good job. I liked it, albeit did not love it, but it was good.
Now, I'll cover the issues. Firstly, the interactions between different characters need to work out. As for now, I feel disconnected from the story because everything is not satisfactorily networking with one another. The story should be a turn of events that take place cohesively, but with Kaia's lack of depth and required perception of the people around her, it makes it difficult for the story to hold the reader's hand. (More on this in the characters section.) For fixing this, I'll recommend you slow down the pacing a bit more. Kaia is practically jumping from one thing to the next after arriving at her own school. I'm sure she needs to get accustomed to her new surroundings as well as people, so it would be a better option to show that to the reader.
---Second chapter: The chapter was too slow-paced, and there were some other issues with it as well that I'll address. Firstly, you tossed in too many character names, and I lost track of everyone except for Zeta and Felix. Sure, the other characters would come more into play, hopefully, as the story progresses, but you still need to make each character's introduction memorable. I believe you've established the main conflict of the story, but I still cannot feel Kirlia's nervousness or awkwardness on going to a new school. Maybe it's her character trait, but since she was so apprehensive of going to Pride School, I'm certain she must feel at least some nervousness? I'm still not able to connect with any of the characters, and the scenes are not fleshed out enough or hold any particular importance in the story, so I'm not able to find myself immersed in the story, either. A tip to fix this would be to cut out the scenes that don't serve a purpose as far as plot or character development is concerned and include the ones that do. Otherwise, the story may come off as dragged on.
---Third chapter: I'll start off by saying that this chapter is redundant. I can barely see any plot progression in it, because nothing is really happening. There's too much stuff in it that can be cut down, and honestly speaking, with so many characters being introduced at once, I'm not able to see where the story is headed right now. Felix, Zeta, Sierra, Nick, Lucas and then Addison. If you're sure all these characters have a purpose further down the line, go for it and keep them; otherwise, I'll suggest you do away with 2 or 3 of them during your re-writes because right now, they are not really effective. Other than that, like I have mentioned before, most scenes are not well fleshed-out and other than filling pages, they are not coming across as appealing, intriguing, page-turning or purposeful. To fix this, I'll say you sequence your chapters properly when you re-write and try to give each chapter a set purpose. The dialogue exchange right now seems to be only introduction and small talk. Dialogue should be interesting, so make sure you cut down on the intro and the small talk and focus on important bits of it.
---Fourth chapter: Yet again, I'm not able to figure out the plot of the story, since the main conflict hasn't shone through up until now. Pride High, as it was said, was a school where people hated heterosexual individuals; however, Kaia seems to have adjusted there just fine. I may be wrong, but I don't believe this is addressed after it being said in a line or two maybe once or twice.
For dialogue, I'll highly recommend making character profiles and figuring out their voices. There is no distinguishable voice to them that makes them unique to read.
Having ended the five chapters I was meant to review, I believe the plot needs to pick up a lot more pace, the characters and the scenes need to be fleshed out more (more on this in the characters section), and the dialogue needs to be more natural.
Characters: 3/10
To first put it briefly, I found none of the characters interesting; however, they have a lot of potential you can take advantage of.
Kaia lacks depth and personality, mostly due to the fact that her internal monologue is too clinical, and the overall narration reads like a recitation of events. Her suddenly getting comfortable on her first day at her new high school without anyone doing particularly anything to make it so feels very, very abrupt and unrealistic. There is no shift of emotions, since I cannot see her emotions, which has made her not a very interesting character to read.
To make her realistic, you may consider throwing in occasional snippets from her past, dialogue that depicts her traits, cutting down on the obvious "telling" of her emotions and traits and making her observe her surroundings in her own way. Unfortunately, right now, I can easily substitute any other character for her, and it would work just fine. You should give a reason as to why she's the main character; how her struggles are different; what being straight in a school teeming with queer people makes her feel like. Her nature of overthinking situations was only barely shown in the fourth chapter when she says that she'd think about her interaction with Lucas at night when there were so many other instances where she could've overthought things. You can show her rambling to herself, being choppy and jittery, having a lot of mixed thoughts. Think of how you would react to a situation like this and then make it fit into Kaia's mindset. This would help you flesh her out more.
The side characters were too much without proper characterization or depth to them. The only character I could say had a little bit of depth was Zeta. Because at least her voice was a little distinguishable from others. If possible, like I have suggested before, you can remove 2-3 characters during your re-write.
On a side note, I'm not sure why the first thing Sierra would tell about Addison to Kirlia would be her caffeine addiction in chapter three. This should be shifted to a point where it's relevant, as in, when Addison is introduced. In chapter three, where she does not have any role to play, it feels forced and breaks the flow entirely.
All in all, you've managed to craft characters with a lot of potential, and I'm sure that, with proper characterization, they'll stand out!
Prose and Grammar: 4/10
The overall prose felt devoid of emotion and internal monologue by Kaia. Yes, there were thoughts and some emotions as well, but the way they were told did not make it intimate or put me in her shoes, to say the least. For this, I'll recommend assessing your character more. She tells a lot of her emotions by using blatant words. One of such examples would be: "I was confused." While this may work sometimes here and there, other times, it comes across as lazy writing. It's a bad resort to show your characters' emotions. I'm not a proponent of the advice 'show, don't tell', but I do believe there needs to be an equal balance between the two. In this instance, telling your character's emotions sounds stilted and very direct.
It should not happen that way. The prose and the narrative should not unfold like a commentary but a narration, as it is supposed to be. Right now, it seems as if the author is telling the story with the character as an anchor and not the character herself. Remember, your character is the one in the story, and it is her story, so you need to tell it through her lens. She randomly tells snippets from her past out of nowhere in the first chapter—for example, her dads making out was one of them, which is not something I'll suggest you put where it is right now (In chapter 1). It is very out of place and can potentially throw your reader off balance.
Your writing style is simplistic, and while no one should question or argue with it, the lack of descriptions just does not work well. I'm practically imagining Kaia waddling through a white room after reading little to no descriptions. You don't need to add a massive amount of them, but a little base on which your readers can substantiate their imagination of the scene will make do. Other than that, your story is very direct and in the reader's face. Most of the times, it feels as if there is a list of descriptions and a diary entry being read out.
You can add more sensory descriptions by using the five senses—sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. It'll bring your reader closer to your character.
Your sentence structure is also very repetitive throughout the chapters. Most of the sentences are connected by the "as" connector. Many sentences also start with "I". This can bog down the quality of the prose, so I'll suggest restructuring the sentences to give variation so as not to make it seem jarring to the reader. There is also a very awkward usage of the word "constipated" time and again.
Sometimes, Kirlia knows other characters' thoughts. In the first chapter, there's a phrase: "He sighed, concerned." How does she know he's concerned? (I've quoted another example of this below) In first-person POV, the narrator knows as much as the character since they're the same person.
There are some very awkward comparisons as well, like this one: "I barely reached his nose and it made me realize how I was very short heightened as compared to those giant trees like people around my age."
I could also notice some tense inconsistencies here and there. Example: "They stopped knocking at the door, but they still haven't walked away." The word 'haven't' should be replaced by 'hadn't' and Kirlia should not state it matter-of-factly. She cannot be so sure if her dads have walked away or not, for which, like I said, I'd recommend using the words "seemed" or "assumed" or "guessed" because that's what she can do, like a real human being.
Some unnatural-sounding descriptions: 1) "As the glass walls shone with the sun rays falling upon it from above." (Chapter 3) Suggestion: "The glass walls shone with the sun rays beating down on them." 2) "I tried my best to suppress the warm feeling I strongly felt, just like the same feeling I used to have whenever he was around, back in Bridgeton." Suggestion: Try digging more into the character's voice and describe the feeling rather than telling it.
There are recurring comma issues and dialogue tag issues as well. I'll quote, not all but some below:
» "Pa started guilt evident in his strong voice but he was cut short by dad."
Corrected version – Pa started, guilt evident in his strong voice, but he was cut short by dad.
» "Kaia, please. Just talk to use, sweetie," the desperation was evident in his voice, and it was heart-breaking.
Corrected version – "Kaia, please. Just talk to us, sweetie." The desperation was evident in his voice.
On that note, you have used the phrase 'desperation evident in his voice' in Chapter 1 twice in close proximity, so you can go for a substitute where you've used it a second time.
» "Dad butted in as he, too, was completely unsure about the choice which they had provided me with."
Since the POV is first-person, Kaia should not know her dad's intentions. How is she so sure her dad is unsure about the choice they'd provided her with? Yes, she can assume, but for that, words like "seem" or "assume" would come into play.
» "Almost as if he heard what I was thinking, his brown head turned toward me as he scanned me with his gaze."
I'm not sure how a head can be brown. Maybe a brown-haired head or something similar? But since you put in a description of his hair color two lines above, you can simply say "head". Moreover, "scanned me with his gaze" does not make sense here. You can say: "his gaze panned across my body" or "he scanned me from top to bottom".
Reader Interaction and Overall Thoughts: 2/5
I believe Homosexually Straight is a story with a lot of potential, and although I was able to connect neither with the plot nor the characters, it still is very creative with a unique and innovative twist. Being part of the LGBTQIA community has been reflected in this book, and me being a part of the community, I could see the efforts the author may have poured into their work.
Aside from the things I mentioned above, I think it's a light-hearted read that can do wonders if tweaked out more in the further re-writes.
Overall score – 24/50
✦✧✦ Thank you for requesting a review from me, and I hope it was not too harsh! If there's anything you think I can improve, feel free to tell me it below. Hoping my review helps. ✦✧✦