ꗃ﹕❜ Minerva ❯❯ A review shop [2.0]

×. ❜The Blemish [Rev. Blaze]

Book name: The Blemish

Author: whimsicality03

Reviewer: blazebby06

Cover: 0.5/5

Being a graphic designer myself, i feel like the cover does no justice to the contents inside. Usually, the cover gives the first impression of the book for many readers. In your case, it didn't attract me one bit. Never apply moving blur on the face claims except its a horror book. The fonts used and the face claims don't complement each other. There's no creativity in it. The cover doesn't give an insight of wha t's in the story, rather does it give us the right face claims. I would suggest you to use a proper photoshoot, and change the font to a vibe that would suit your cover.

Title: 05/05
The title is perfect and apt to the story.

Execution: 07/10

The execution of the plot is pretty good. But in some chapters, you tend to overlook the plot. This results in the scene being devoid of any emotions but just empty descriptions. Rearrangement of scenes can be done at some places. Action tags can be added at some (where they're necessary.)

Blurb: 09/10

The blurb is apt to the story, and also is almost perfect. I noticed some grammatical errors, which can be easily corrected by editing them. Other than that, these are some ways how the synopsis can be improved:

•since the story doesn't only focus on jake's mom death, somehow, you'll have to look into inulcating all the characters.

•"everyone in the world possesses," here, either you should written in the past tense, or should use the word possess.

Plot: 17/20

Pros: The plot is pretty creative, to be honest. I can see eloquence and proper construction of scenes. The idea of the embodiment of a mystery behind Jake's mom death and how the story revolves around it, describing the personalities and lives of many is commendable.

Cons: With the change in pov's, the story becomes too confusing at times. I had to go back to read some points and then continue to read the rest because the flow was disrupted. Sometimes, the chapters in one's pov is too fast paced and the emotions are not felt at all.

For example, you described about Jake's life without his mom. You went a little too fast with the details and the immediate getting over his mom with a mixture of anger and guilt. There are tiny plot holes here and there, since we aren't given an intro of how the seven are acquaintances.

I feel like the background of the protagonists should be explained briefly first at every interval before moving on to the dialogues. Also, a proper description of characters are not given which might make the reader to jump into conclusions.

Grammar and vocabulary: 18/20

You didn't choose your birthmark, neither did you choose this profession.

Here, a comma should be replaced with a ";" Comma usually signifies a continuation of the previous sentence. But here, it's not a continuation, but a connection. Both the sentences have something in common. So, a comma should not be used.

"... there's no in between..." I've noticed a tiny blunder here. 'no' should be replaced with 'nothing'.

"it must have fell out of your bag.." here, instead of 'fell', it should be 'fallen'.

there are tiny errors like this in the middle of the chapters but don't exactly affect the story until read carefully. Your choice of words are good. But you'll have to minimise the usage of words which would be difficult for the readers to understand.

For example "jubliantly". Not everyone might know the meaning of this word. This also reduces the impact of emotions on the readers. Instead of using these words almost everywhere, try to inculcate the usage of literary devices.

There are some redundant commas, and semi colons. That's not really an issue once again. My suggestion in this column is for you to enhance your knowledge on literary devices and use them to leave a greater impact on the readers with the emotions.

For example, Sunghoon's fear when his sister went missing can be explained well through literary devices. Descriptive scenes need to dominate the dialogues in these situations. The readers need to feel the panic. You've made the scenes a little fast paced. Though, some scenes are perfectly written, some need polishing.

Writing style: 17/20

Pros: from what I've noticed in your writing style, you have the capability to write in a way that attracts readers. Dialogues and descriptions are balanced most of the times. The way you present the descriptions are also near and easy to read.

Cons: like i had mentioned previously, the use of literary devices is mandatory in a book filled with emotions with an underlying mystery. That's missing. And i would suggest you to inculcate the same to give a greater impact on the readers.

You tend to join many dialogues in a para. This becomes difficult to read, and as well as understand. There isn't much actions depicted along with the dialogues, just empty emotions. Your writing style is good, but you tend to focus more on the vocabulary rather than the entire outcome.

Read your book yourself as a reader, and then you'll get to know where exactly you lag in because you're the best judge of yourself. 

Characters and development: 08/10

Right from the first, i think the characters maintained a consistency with their emotions. Which means, there's not much of a character development. That's not necessarily needed for a story, but to develop someone's emotion from anger to love, and from love to anger, it's crucial. It's in your hands whether to inculcate or not.

About the characters, like I had mentioned before, they seemed relatable, too relatable to be honest. In a fantasy fiction, having characters too relatable will only lower down the interest of the readers. Moreover, in the beginning of the story, you focused too much on what's happening around them, rather than the characters themselves.

Based on your descriptions, it's difficult to come to conclusions about the mind of the character at different intervals of time. Though that's an advantage, some might not like the idea of not being able to predict their characters beforehand. It also gives a sense of frustration to the readers. But these are just suggestions on how you can possibly develop the characters. You can consider them if you want since these minor changes won't have much of an impact on the storyline.

Overall: 81.5/100