Intro:
Mayapuri - The City Of Dreams... was written by KhaliqahAzima (I love your name!). It follows Ajay and Renuka, two people belonging to middle class families and dealing with various struggles because of parental and financial pressure. This story is packed full of love and social commentary as we follow Ajay and Renuka.
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Detailed Feedback
What Worked:
I think one of the strongest parts of this story is the worldbuilding. The world you have is super fleshed out with interesting cultural terms and places. I'm an American so I don't know much about the culture, but I still was able to follow along for the most part because there was a lot of detail and love put into crafting this world. India feels very fleshed out and real in this book, and I really liked how you brought it to life.
For example, I really liked the rounds of vows in chapter 8 and how they were described to us. That entire chapter was really good and might be my favorite in the whole book so far, but I particularly liked that moment since it felt so nice to read. Almost calming to read, if that makes sense? It gave me a sense of calm as I read it, and I was able to transport myself into your story and forget about the real world for a few minutes. It's rare for something like that to happen to me, especially when I'm giving reviews since I tend to be very alert and taking notes while writing, but for a moment, I was able to just kinda chill and read. That was really nice, thank you for that.
This is a small thing but it relates to the worldbuilding. I liked the pictures you included. You didn't use too many to make it overwhelming, but you used great pics that gave me a clear idea of the things you were describing. Again, that's just a small thing, but I still felt it was worth pointing out!
The concept is my second favorite part of the story behind the worldbuilding because the plot and ideas in this are executed pretty well and I enjoyed reading about them. I think you have an interesting overall story idea that has a lot of complexity. It's tough to tackle these types of topics, and I'm glad you took the leap and decided to write about them!
Now, let's talk about the two lead characters.
Ajay was probably my favorite. I liked Renuka too, but Ajay spoke to me a little more and I found myself really loving him. This may sound weird, but I really liked the scenes where we saw him working or got reference to his work, like in chapter 10. I'm a big workaholic, so watching him work and seeing how dedicated to his work he was made me relate to him a lot. It may seem like a small thing, but the small things matter for characterization, and you did a great job giving the characters quiet moments that gave the audience a chance to feel for them. That's why I ended up liking Ajay so much. I enjoyed watching his personality unfold, and I liked the quieter moments he had that I personally relate to (I'm typing this at 12 a.m., so lol Ajay staying up until 1 a.m. on his laptop is just like me right now!).
Renuka was fun to read about too. I liked her gentle smiles and seeing her look happy about her food. Like I said in Ajay's section, she got some nice quality moments that made me relate to her and want to see her succeed. She had cute little quirks and traits that made her stand out, and I ended up enjoying her more and more as the story progressed!
Overall, I think you have good protagonists who do a great job driving the story forward.
The commentary on the middle class is very engaging and up there with the worldbuilding as one of my favorite parts about the story. I don't read a lot of stories that deal with the middle class, so seeing this was very unique and piqued my interest when I read the blurb. In the story itself, it's executed well and you put in little details to make the world of the middle class feel more realistic. I think you're sensing a theme: you do a great job with the little details, which is imperative for keeping readers engaged. A lot of authors don't include the smaller details, so you should be proud of yourself for that!
I also liked the familial issues. Well, I feel like that makes me sound like a psycho lmao no I didn't like them in the sense that I like seeing families fight, but I liked them. Does that make sense? Okay okay, I mean I liked that you covered this topic and I think it was done well. Hopefully that makes me sound less weird, haha.
But in all seriousness, the relationship between all the families and also the romantic relationships were very thought-provoking and meshed well with the characters you chose for this plot. The inclusion of all these back and forth dynamics between parents and children made for an emotional journey.
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What Didn't Work:
There is a lot of exposition, especially in the first two chapters but it happens throughout the rest of the story too. A lot of times there will be several paragraphs in a row explaining the family history and all that kind of stuff, and while I don't think that's inherently a bad thing, I'd recommend being careful about how often you do it. It happens in chapters 1, 2, and 3, so reading three chapters where the story stops to suddenly explain the family tree/character backgrounds can get distracting and hard to follow at times.
For example, whenever a new character is introduced, they typically get one to two long paragraphs explaining their backstory. Sometimes they get even more than two. It's okay if this happens every once in a while, but it happens almost every time a new character is introduced, and oftentimes it happens after there was already a lot of exposition. So I would recommend having more scene rather than summary. Maybe present that exposition in a different way, like breaking it up and only giving the audience what they absolutely need for the chapter they're reading, then saving the rest of the exposition for another time.
You can also give exposition through dialogue, which you do already sometimes. That way instead of getting walls of text, we get to see the exposition through dialogue.
My last recommendation would be to put the exposition in more bite-sized chunks. By that I mean, maybe go back and forth between scene and summary. Maybe give 1-4 sentences of exposition, cut back to what's happening in the present, then go back to giving 1-4 sentences of exposition. By using that method you could move the story along while also giving exposition.
So those are three ways you can break up the exposition and present it in more unique ways. I'm not saying you have to use all three of those ways or anything, but I would suggest considering it and choosing what you think works best for your writing style!
The sentence structure is very similar where it goes from start to finish with no interruptions. By that I mean, your sentences are mostly like this, "It had been three years. Akash was married to another school teacher and had two children." It goes from start to full stop, normally short sentences too. I would recommend playing around with your sentence structure more. Try using sentences that need dashes, semicolons, colons, commas, etc. You use sentences that have commas, but not very frequently.
There are some grammar errors, like with spacing and punctuation. For example, you normally don't include a space between standard text and dialogue. From chapter 3: The young man said to Ajay's father,"We need to stay here for a month." It should be: The young man said to Ajay's father, "We need to stay here for a month."
There are some issues with commas, like here: That is one of the reasons why, he wanted a separate house (chap 3). The comma isn't needed, making it a comma splice.
There are ellipse (...) issues where you will use far more than three dots. Ellipses are supposed to be three dots and in rare cases four, but normally three. So, in chapter 4, there's this: "The reason is...... there are just two rooms in our house." So the six dots should be three. Similarly, there are times you use excess punctuation, like with exclamation marks where you'll include more than one. I would recommend not using excess punctuation simply because it can be hard to read and is telling over showing. So, from chapter 3, there's this: "Enough!!!!!" Only one exclamation mark is needed to get the point across. I hope that makes sense!
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Summary:
- Awesome worldbuilding
- Cool concept
- Interesting commentary on the middle class life
- Ajay and Renuka are engaging characters
- Consider experimenting with different sentence structures
- Grammar errors (punctuation, spacing errors)
- Consider cutting down on exposition and using more scene instead of summary
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Overall:
Mayapuri - The City of Dreams... is an engaging, heartwarming story with a lot of emotion put into it. There's love, drama, a close look at family relationships, and more. If you're someone who enjoys emotional stories, then Mayapuri - The City of Dreams... is the perfect book for you!
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