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Raindrops

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Raindrops
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Author :: BitterSweetLies666

Reviewer :: Kim_eats

First impression: : 11/20

Cover :: 6/10

The cover is quite pretty. I like the colour scheme you are aiming for and the whole aesthetic appeal. I just wish the title could be a little bigger and more visible. Same goes for the quote and author's name. 

Title :: ⅗

The title is short and simple. It is relevant to the story as you put the setting as the rainy season. Though it's not as unique, it's still a good title and will attract readers.

Blurb :: ⅖

The first line after the poem is confusing. 'This somehow yet unsaying poem,' is really, really confusing and grammatically incorrect. I really can't interpret what you were trying to express and while the rest of the blurb is quite good, that initial line kind of puts a damper on the whole effect the rest of the lines would have created. I'd suggest you rearrange the words in a way that is not so hard to understand. It's not necessary to always go down the difficult road. Keep it sweet and simple, easy to understand. 

Beginning of new start :: 8/10

I liked how you began the first chapter. It was different and told about the nature of the setting you used. Though the whole first day of school, a loud friend wishing to be in the same class as her friend is very common and overused, the first few paragraphs made up for that. Introducing the rest of the characters in the next few chapters was a good idea too. 

I really love how you took your time building up their friendships and the bond. Most of the time good plots are quite rushed but you went slow and that's really great and appealing to those who actually read everything, looking for deeper meaning instead of wanting to jump right into the action part. 

At some places, I thought a little more description would have been better. Especially when the monologue was involved. I saw that your word count is high but it's okay if you describe everything properly and in a good way. 

Concept and plot :: 15 /25

The plot is very nice but it falls more on the cliche side. Highschool AUs are very common and how your main female lead, Hana is kind of the quiet kid is also common.

Overall, I wouldn't say it's an extremely unique plot, nor is it extremely cliche either. With the right execution, the book will surely prove to be an amazing read. Especially since it is a BangChan FF, the plot really suits his personality and the reader can definitely imagine him in the book. 

Character & emotions :: 8/15

There are a lot of different characters in the book and sometimes with so many characters, some get neglected. But I was very glad to see that you tried giving a little spotlight to every character. Though there isn't much character development of other characters in the first few chapters, I still liked how you are slowly showing their charms. 

The characters on their own aren't totally something new or something I haven't seen before. It's the same old living alone, silent, deep thinker female lead and her loud sidekick friend. Though Hana's backstory is different and explains the reason why she's living like that or likes to be silent, the rest of the events following aren't really that new and exciting. I also feel like you could have done a better job at expressing emotions more. If you make it more descriptive, it might help. 

Tone & style :: 3/10

Your writing style is quite confusing. Some sentences are very hard to understand. They are unnecessarily complicated. I don't know if you were trying to be aesthetic or establish your own writing style, but it's not easily understandable. I had to read certain sentences a few times before I understood the meaning and sometimes I let it be because I just couldn't. 

However, the tone and flow was good, I also liked that you chose the third person pov. 

Overall, there is much room for improvement and focusing on that might even reduce the word count by including the correct words.

Grammar :: 5/20

You need to work a lot on grammar and vocabulary. I saw a lot of places with missing commas. In terms of vocabulary, a lot of mistakes were related to homophones. They can be easily rectified with proofreading. 

Like I mentioned in the Tone and Style section, a lot of your sentences are very confusing. The reason for this is wrong sentence structuring and a complicated writing style. 

For example, this sentence, 'This somehow yet unsaying poem,' can be also written as, if I have the context correct, 'This poem couldn't have been more appropriate.' There is no need for the words, 'yet' and 'unsaying'. The 'yet' just doesn't fit anywhere in that whole sentence. You get what I mean, right? I'm not saying there is anything wrong with going for a complicated writing style or using hard words, just make sure that you use it appropriately, where it is needed because half the time it wasn't making sense. 

Next is commas, especially the ones used after the dialogue. You missed both commas and full stops after completing a dialogue. Pay attention to dialogue tags. A dialogue tag is a small phrase either before, after, or in between the actual dialogue itself. 

For example:

"Hello, I'm Hana," she said. 

Here, 'she said' is the dialogue tag. You can also see that I used a comma after 'Hana' even though it's a complete sentence. It's another rule you must follow while writing dialogues. When the phrase, 'She said' comes before the dialogue, you should add a comma after 'said', which is the tag. 

When including a period after a dialogue, there shouldn't be an action verb after that. If the sentence goes like;

"I'm not stupid." He laughed at her sentence. 

Here 'laughed' isn't used to indicate the speaker's action, but one the speaker is talking to. In such sentences, you don't need to include a comma after the completion of the dialogue. 

Extra Note :: I hope this review helps you to understand where you can improve and take this positively. 

Total :: 50/100