Title: This Is What It's Like To Be Lovers
Author: AURA ( _aurawrawr_ )
Genre: Fantasy, WLW Romance (MATURE WARNING)
Chapters Reviewed: 1. Blue Hour - 2. The Bright Side of The Moon
Blurb Below:
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I. Title: This Is What It's Like To Be Lovers
Beautiful title! A bit of a handful of words, but I love the execution. Especially since you told me the genre, I think it really fits the romance element you want to bring forth and also it sort of reminds me of the Disney quote "So this is love." Basically, I am living my Disney fantasy dreams with this title... don't mind me. Nonetheless, it is a good title and well fitting.
II. Cover
The cover is very aesthetically pleasing to look at and it doesn't seem crowded with words or the words getting in the way. Though I will say, the bottom part with your name and the type of story is not that visible. The only way I could see it is if I went to your profile and clicked the image to view the "teaser" of the story, but when I go into the story's own section, I can't see the bottom part. I suggest making your name the focal point in the middle of the bottom of the cover (not the total bottom but close to it) and then have the "WLW Romance" either at the top or smaller like "a WLW romance novel by" and then your name. It allows for clarity in viewing the story type and the author. Also, I will say, the title seems like a weird placement. I like the font and the background, just something about that felt off putting.
III. Blurb
Short, sweet, straight to the point, love this! The blurb is quite lovely and that quote before the blurb is perfect! What I adore is that you not only focused on that fantasy element, but you made sure to allow the audience to understand the WLW romance to come and a found family (loving these)! Also, THANK YOU for those content warnings! Too many times have I seen the most minimal and vague warning and it is not even rated mature, but I am so happy you even listed it out to make sure the audience knows what they are in for. I feel this story will really focus a bit on the fantasy but be heavy on the romance and perhaps societal issues alongside that. Haven't read it yet so my opinion could shift.
IV. First Sentences
Okay so... I-. I am literally lost for words. THAT START!!! It. Was. So. Good. No joke, I seriously loved that beginning. I was instantly intrigued and hooked by the very minimal information we get but at the same time, we get that psychological aspect right away. I will say, there is that really long sentence which would be a bit "choppy" to make it set the mood better with the tension. Usually when you want to evoke quick emotions or tension, I find it best to make short sentences to show those quick thoughts rushing through the MC's mind. Other than that, I loved this!!!
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Shall we begin? SO. You just requested a look at the characters, their arcs, and their history aspect within the writing!
To start off, I absolutely love seeing diverse writing styles, and yours is definitely up there. What I love is not only how it is not just the standard way of sentence structure, but that you still keep it within readability and being able to understand the sentence. I will say, there were very minor errors (not very frequent but I think it was random times that one or two words could be placed better). Grammar-wise, quite minimal in these two chapters. I did see some issues where after the dialogue, you would have your dialogue tag, but it doesn't line up properly. I think it is just me since these specific writing styles have different constructs than what I am used to... but yeah. Other than that, you did a phenomenal job working through the story and playing around with these structures to develop an interesting story. Again, the things I pointed out can be subjective since it is primarily from the writing style, but I digress. Another quick note, I adore the way you put us right into the action. Like not even a ¼ of the way through the first chapter and we already get to see some action with the battling. Love this!
Onto what you requested! I will just say, the only thing bugging me is what happened in the first ¼ of the first chapter. I noted this down for myself, but when you talk about Laz II compared to the family, it seems like we just stepped away from the battle which loses that audience. I feel these are not like information dumping but can come off that way as it halts the present action. It goes on until I would say the end of the first ⅓ of the first chapter. Personally, I forgot where the current action was since this was implemented. I feel a lot of the information could either make a really good prologue, placed in scenes that are "softer" or not at a climax. Like think of a wave, you want to add this background information at the bottom of the wave and as it goes up, you want to allow your buildup to really strike the action. I guess this goes towards your history aspect part. Alongside that, I do feel like I got a lot out of Laz II and Queen Jade. Though the "info-dumping" gave this away, I still feel like I understand them a bit better, and more complexity was given. I will admit, I was confused with Laz II's action to have that "red string of fate" with the princess. It could just be me not being able to pay attention since I get lost so quickly ugh. Also, just a quick note, I got scared when I saw "Jun" at the beginning of the paragraph that goes "Jun was gone before long, they could only speak a little..." in like ⅝ of the first chapter because I thought it was a name and about to blame myself again. See, my reviews are just a train of thoughts, merely me getting confused then trying to figure it out again a couple times. I think you meant "June" like the month, but I digress. Oh wait, never mind it is a name... I will see myself out.
Okay so I took a break to reach it all and now I am back. I-... when I tell you my brain didn't understand what happened, I mean it. Like, here is the thing. I think it is just me and not your story since I could understand the premise and everything you put down; I have just been off recently for some weird reason. The arcs are very much there (though it is a bit too soon to tell since much of the story has yet to unfold in my reviewed chapters) and the background... personally, I don't see a big issue with moving along from it. With my stories, I like to sprinkle in the past within my stories fully, let the audience guess a bit of the past, and explain a bit. How I do it is that I let their actions, behaviors, and interactions sort of dictate what the audience may want to infer about the character, then if a specific scene comes up, I can sprinkle in a bit of the character and how they have come. I usually keep it a paragraph or less, you don't want to cause the readers to fully have to step away from the text and lose that connection to the current storyline.
Oh, one last note before I close this review. I saw this comment in the second chapter and actually felt the same. It is okay to introduce these characters but try to minimize introducing them all at once. The beauty of fantasy stories is that they can appear anywhere, anytime, anyplace. You don't have to have them appear early or late; you have the freedom for that. What I have been doing for my new story, for example, is mentioning that there are these characters appearing, but not giving them a "spotlight" until later on and focusing on the main protagonist and perhaps one or two other characters, at least for a bit. It has helped me keep track of actions and setting of where they are best and what it does is that if you feel a character should be introduced later, you can keep them in the "background."
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Now for my takeaway. I like to keep these short and sweet for you to be able to come back to and just quickly see what you might want to take from this review.
1. Improvements to help:
a. Wording being slightly confusing due to sentence structure and organization (again, just think it is me so no worries)
b. Try to minimize the information dumping since it will cause the readers to have to step away from the action. Try putting it in more relaxed scenes and keeping it less than a paragraph or a paragraph at most. Sprinkling it in, you know.
c. Very minimal grammatical errors. It isn't even an issue, and I barely could see them until I kept re-reading to see like one or perhaps two errors in the two chapters.
d. No need to rush and introduce all your characters at once, you can keep them in the background and introduce them later on to keep the audience from getting confused.
2. My personal opinions of the work:
a. I loved it! Don't mind the way I tried understanding what was going on, it happens when I read fantasy. I will for sure be sticking around to read more and see this story unfold because I love an LGBTQ+ story... and fantasy with it... like a beautiful duo in the making. Makes me want to write a LGBTQ+ fantasy now... I digress.
And that is all I have to say. I really did enjoy my reading. If anything, you can message me through PM or through here (you will have to tag me for me to get the notification) for any additional coverage that you would like me to discuss. That is all from me for now!
Have a great day and hope you enjoy this little review of mine!