Your brilliant judges for this genre: oliviabrunch & _Baby_A_A_ 🌹
- Judges, please note: Be on the look out for which author to name 'Rising Star' and which book to nominate as 'Heart Winning'. Please send this with your scores for the next round. Thank you!
In no particular order here are the entries that have made it into Round Four -
🌹 Romance/ChickLit! 🌹
Judge: oliviabrunch 🌹
🌹 Serendipitous Dreams by SapphirianJ82 (Mature)
🌹 Us Against The World by Romance_Lover16 (ChickLit/Mature)
🌹 A Book Nerd's Guide to Falling in Love by HeideHunt
🌹 Break Me And Remake Me by KaijuYardz (Mature)
Judge: _Baby_A_A_ 🌹
🌹 Heartthrob by PositivumQuestae (Mature)
A special mention to these below users for participating in this year's The Happiness Awards 2024!
Your entries were just as great but this is a contest after all!
Please don't feel discouraged for having not placed this round. It just means your story may need a little more editing but each individual plot was still wonderful.
You may also still place in one of the main 3 special categories or any of the minor ones if you've signed up for them!
There is also always next year! We encourage you guys to return!
🌹 Racing Towards Your Heart by ZenCave (Mature)
Book Title: 9/10
Book Cover: 7/10
Story Blurb: 8/10
Story Plot: 8/10
Story Description: 8/10
Character Development: 7/10
Originality/Creativity: 7/10
Reader Engagement: 7/10
Setting: 9/10
Writing Style: 4/5
Grammar/Punctuation: 3/5
Total: 77/100
Review by _Baby_A_A_: So far, I am finding the story to be interesting and very detailed with how all the scenes are described. I actually love how the title completely matches with the plot, it's so thoughtful!
Though, I did sometimes zone out a bit when there were too much descriptions, but a lot of readers love that. Also, it would look slightly neater if a dialogues are in new paragraphs.
🌹 Pretty Reckless by sulkytae (Mature)
Book Title: 9/10
Book Cover: 10/10
Story Blurb: 9/10
Story Plot: 7/10
Story Description: 9/10
Character Development: 8/10
Originality/Creativity: 7/10
Reader Engagement: 6/10
Setting: 9/10
Writing Style: 5/5
Grammar/Punctuation: 5/5
Total: 84/100
Review by _Baby_A_A_: So far, the story is progressing nicely and the descriptions are immaculate to the point where I can picture all the scenes vividly.
Though I am very familiar with this plot since I have read this type of dynamic before, but it does have its own uniqueness.
I really love the trailer, by the way, so talented! Surprisingly, I really haven't found any grammatical errors! But I think putting the dialogues in new paragraphs will make the writing look neater.
🌹 Stay Mine by lostlovefairy (Mature)
Book Title: 10/10
Book Cover: 10/10 (based on original)
Story Blurb: 3/10
Story Plot: 7/10
Story Description: 6/10
Character Development: 10/10
Originality/Creativity: 10/10
Reader Engagement: 8/10
Setting: 8/10
Writing Style: 4/5
Grammar/Punctuation: 4/5
Total: 80/100
Review by oliviabrunch:
The range of topics covered in this book is very interesting, there's many small societal issues peppered in, it's a great way to bring light to things without having it be the main focus or taking attention from the main plot. Well done author.
There are a few consistency errors that throw the story off. An example of this is a scene in C7 where Alan comforts Aradya.
The Author goes on to describe how their relationship builds over the following days, however, further into the chapter again, we're brought back to the same day when Aradya texts Alan to say thank you.
The bouncing back and forth, even if intentional, made no sense and didn't read well. Worth a revision I'd think.
I really like how the characters are realistic in the way they're written, they don't shift from character at all. I find Alan to be likeable in parts, even though I want to slap him at others.
I also enjoy how descriptive the author can be, especially of the surroundings they describe, it's done beautifully.
Unfortunately, as a reader, I do have a bit of a criticism around the representation of the Covid- 19 pandemic. For me, it fell very flat.
Obviously I'm someone who lived through it, so I felt that its impacts were only touched on at surface level, and it didn't do much to help describe how hellish life was at the time, particularly for those in the health sector.
At one point in India there were makeshift, mass cremation facilities in parking lots adjoining crematoriums. Bodies were piling up in morgues, people were being forced to keep their dead loved ones at home until they were lucky enough to organise some sort of burial.
India was one of the worst hit countries with Covid-19, with a grossly underestimated death toll of over 500k, yet as a reader I didn't feel anything in these chapters that gave an inkling of just how bad it was, so it didn't 'feel' like a pandemic.
There was the scene where Fiza patient died of course, but it felt quite rushed, more fact than feeling. I'd highly recommend the author going back and editing these chapters for impact.
It's unfortunate that the Covid detail is what stood out to me most over these few chapters for judging, because outside of that, I felt the story was running really well.
I HATED Aradya with a passion, and could feel how torn Fiza was over what was happening. I felt Alan's transition from kind to irritated with her was written brilliantly too, it was exactly how I expected him to react.
This story could be absolutely fantastic if it were given a thorough edit and stretched a bit in order for the reader to have time to feel what's happening.
I know I'm very critical of the handling of Covid-19, and that may be hard for the author, but it's only because I know they have the potential to write it better.
🌹 Bound to You by _RulerOfHearts_ (Mature)
Book Title: 8/10
Book Cover: 10/10
Story Blurb: 8/10
Story Plot: 8/10
Story Description: 7/10
Character Development: 7/10
Originality/Creativity: 9/10
Reader Engagement: 8/10
Setting: 8/10
Writing Style: 4/5
Grammar/Punctuation: 3/5
Total: 80/100
Review by _Baby_A_A_: So far, I was not expecting the story to start out like this, it has definitely piqued my interest! It is not like a typical arrange marriage story, which what makes it very unique and I really like that.
Moreover, the story is fast paced, so I didn't get distracted. There were a bit of grammatical errors here and there, but it could be fixed with small editing. I really like the cover, by the way.
🌹 Tamed Hearts by firexmoon (Mature)
Book Title: 9/10
Book Cover: 10/10
Story Blurb: 9/10
Story Plot: 8/10
Story Description: 8/10
Character Development: 7/10
Originality/Creativity: 7/10
Reader Engagement: 8/10
Setting: 7/10
Writing Style: 3/5
Grammar: 2/5
Total: 78/100
Review by _Baby_A_A_: The story has a good flow, the descriptions of the settings are on point. It helped me imagine the scenes clearly. I also like the plot of the story and the cover.
The usage of another language, Hindi, sets a nice touch to the story as well. There were some grammatical errors like capitalization in wrong places and misplacement of punctuation marks.
✨✨✨
Thank you for giving us a chance to read all your stories!
Good luck to all those who have moved onto Round Four.
There will be some delay between next round's results. Please bear with your judges in the mean time.
Have a wonderful day! 💫