Author: zendaya_jr14
Reviewer: __Carrots__
Chapters Reviewed: Fifteen
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o FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Blurb wise:
Your blurb is the typical example of a hooker blurb among Wattpad books.
Although I wanted to mention that there are a few points that you have constantly repeated in your blurb. While you might not have considered it a big deal, it does make your blurb very wordy.
And blurbs should always be short. You know why? Because Wattpaders as well as traditional readers looking for a book to buy or read in a library, scan loads of book blurbs in a short span of time.
That's why you should always go for a precise layout for your blurb.
In the opening sentence you mention how Veronica is the meanest girl in school. And again you mention the same thing after a few sentences with just a different choice of words, "most bitchiest".
Also do I need to mention
the superlative rule here? I think you know that one.
And in the last part, where you introduce Xander Huxley, it's just a very cliché way to get through with a blurb. The classic bad boy shows up for good or for bad.
If I were to suggest, I'd suggest you to omit everything else in your blurb except the middle paragraph that suffices the whole purpose of a blurb.
"When things take an unexpected turn and Hailey is being hated mightly just because of her face, she has to get every single teen in the town to stop hating Veronica. . ."
Everything else just makes it overly cliche.
And while cliché is great, the contents of your book are not cliché. They are anything but cliché.
So your blurb might come off as misleading in the first glance. I suggest you only keep the middle part, the one I quoted before.
Title wise:
"I'm Not Veronica Gates."
Yes! That's what I'm talking about, that's the sort of book title that entices me.
It's a really interesting name, it's creative and also factual. I love it.
Cover wise:
Wow.
That was my reaction when I first saw the book cover.
It has such an appealing aesthetic and the font and the colour scheme, everything comes together so perfectly balanced, I love it.
The tagline you used too is so enticing, but it's very hard to read, the font I'd say is very small.
First impressions: ✅
o PLOT/ STORYLINE:
You have chosen a very unique and interesting idea to go with. And I have never read a book with such a plot before on Wattpadd. It's really good! It's so creative and promising and I'm so totally hooked with your storyline that I'm definitely reading it further.
GRAMMATICAL ERRORS AND TYPOS:
zendaya_jr14 there were many tense switches in your first chapter, and I was so put off about that. I was all "Waoh amature ALERT!" I'm sorry if that was offensive, but that's just how your hold on English Grammar came across through the first chapter.
And first chapters are always The big deal, do all the necessary editing required. I have mentioned all the typos that were significantly visible and of course I told you about the tense switches.
There were tense switches in the same sentence. I know you said that how somebody else had done the editing for you and all, but still you should have re-edited all the errors, especially when you knew they were present.
Gradually the prevailing chapters had less and lesser tense switches that by the time I reached chapter fifteen, I couldn't find one significantly visible tense switch. So that's good.
There were typos here and there, and I have mentioned them so be sure to rectify them. 😉
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
The character development is good. I like Hailey, she's confident and communicative.
While reading the first two chapters, my thoughts were that your characters were not well moulded.
They were biased, merging into the personality of the other one. It proved difficult for me to distinguish between Ivan and Lexi's personality.
For a time being, it seemed to me that they both harboured the same roots.
But by the time I reached Chapter five, I could see the significant development and effort you had put into developing your characters distinctly, so yes while my first thoughts on your character development skills were that you needed more practice, with further reading you had proven to me that you had done enough practice.
After all, what better practice is there other than writing?
In Chapter Ten, Levi mentions how Hailey has been gloomy and absent minded since the last two months ever since her parents died.
He mentions how at the moment she seems zealous and happy and humming while baking, that she looks like the two months ago Hailey.
While this might be true. I haven't seen a gloomy and absent minded Hailey in the past nine chapters, it looks like a new revelation for readers but it shouldn't be so.
Readers should be well aware of the protagonist's mental state especially because this book is a first person point of view.
The past nine chapters, Hailey was such a person who liked butting in others business, she was curious. Now that is a sign of zealousness I'd say, contradictory to what Levi said.
So yes, I'd suggest that you put more content in your past nine chapters that hint us about Hailey's mental state more insightfully.
o WRITING STYLE:
Every writer has their own unique and customized writing style. So it's not for me to judge this part. It's only for you to know what writing style suits you best and grow further with it.
I'd like to mention here, that in the initial chapters of your book, the writing was alright.
I mean you were probably a beginner at that point of time, so I felt like your writing style had been majorly influenced by other writers who wrote high school drama on Wattpadd.
Now I'm not saying you have plagiarized or something.
Just that your writing was inclined towards the similar writing style noticed among many other Wattpadd cliche writers and hence didn't feel original and appealing.
While this was true for the first five chapters, from the sixth chapter onwards, there was a considerable change in your writing. It seemed that you had found your own unique and customized voice finally.
Writers have to start somewhere too, right?
I found myself completely marveled by your writing, your ideas, your characters, your dialogue writing skills, every single thing that makes a book commendable are present in your story. And I want to see this book going so much further and gaining so much more recognition.
All the best! ♡
My final words are, that I totally loved your book and I'm so totally going to finish reading it.
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I hope you take all my highlighted suggestions and typos and grammar corrections into consideration, because if you don't, well there won't be any point to all of this, would there?
If there are any further questions and suggestions please comment.
Zainab.
♡