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Review#51:@Asna_29saqib

Book: Legends and Mysteries: Mangled Murders by Asna_29saqib

Reviewer: creative_maverick_Mo

Title: 

 Good news: It has a unique effect on your audience 

Bad news: It is way too long 

Although your book title gave me the chills by just reading it, it was more than a little too long. I didn't quite understand why the "Legends& Mysteries" part was there because I checked your published works and I couldn't find any sequels to the book. Usually, when people have two parts in their titles, it's because the book belongs to a series but yours doesn't (except you are working on one. Then I would suggest you take out the "Legends and Mysteries" part until you publish it). 

 Also mangled and murder are funny words to put side by side. It's like saying "Incapacitated Mutations". Both words mean almost the same thing so I don't understand the effect you were trying to create with that part of your title (maybe it was an intentional play on words). For future reference, the shorter the title of a book, the better because you want your readers to be able to remember your book title. 

 Blurb: 

Good news: Your blurb was very interesting 

Bad news: It was way too long and also a tad confusing 

The excerpt from the book was too long. A blurb is a 'short' promotional piece accompanying a piece of creative work. The keyword in this instance is 'short' so you can catch the attention of your audience while it's still early because not that many people read blurbs to the end so when your blurb is lengthy, it just turns readers off. 

Now to the issue of the essence of the blurb. I didn't get it. You start with: "Emma thinks this summer is going to be the most exciting..." insert an excerpt and end it with "How terrible one summer can be...?" it came across to me as disconnected. You didn't show the correlation between the 'summary' and the excerpt. Also, the blurb doesn't really tell us much about the book.

My suggestion: "'How can a town so beautiful harbor such a chaotic summer?' are the exact thoughts that run through Emma's mind as she...if only she knew how dramatic this summer would be, she would not have come to Oceanshell in the first place but Emma knew, she knew that was just the lie she told herself so she could feel normal. She knew full well that this summer had been the best time of her life so far....the more she thought about it, the heavier her eyelids became before she eventually succumbed to a peaceful slumber that welcomed dreams of all that had happened that summer" or something like that. Make sure your blurb carries your audience along. 

 Genre: Your book was truly a mystery. You put it in the perfect genre. Good job! 

Cover: Good news: Your cover is nice 

Bad news: It's a bit ordinary 

Your book cover is not bad and it's relevant to your book. However, it does come across as a poster than a book cover. It looks like you just put words on a picture. I understand why the girl is on the cover because she is the main character but she is the focal point of the cover. You need to keep in mind when making a book cover that you want people to be drawn to the title and not the picture on it. Aside from that, I liked the color theme on the cover. Good job overall on this one. 

Plot/Structure: 

I got the vibe that there was one thing you didn't understand about plot development and that thing is INFO DUMPING. Your plot development was a little all over the place. In some moments you were carrying me along pretty well and then in others, you just lost me because you kept talking about irrelevant things. You need to understand that even though you are writing YOUR own book and working on YOUR own idea, there are technicalities involved in the deliverance of a creative piece.