This book is for the reviews of the stories submitted to via the now-obsolete Pink Alpaca Reads. Beware: honest opinions ahead.
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What I loved: The whole premise of this story is so good. I loved the worldbuilding, the lore, and the time the authors took in developing the history as well as the differences in culture. It's just so thoughtful in all the little details and it makes the story so much richer.
I also really love how clean this is in terms of prose, grammar, and punctuation. Not a line is written that doesn't move the plot along. There were no distractions due to errors. Everything's just so orderly and well-edited. Well done!
Overall, this story lets you experience its fullness in terms of characterization, plot, intrigue, and emotion. Basically, I love this story! uwu.
What didn't work: I guess the way it cut off like that was a bit of a turn-off. Or perhaps it's just me being used to first books of a series having a complete (but not really complete) feel to them. xD More info on the next subsection, I guess.
Another thing to point out is that the scientific concepts are a bit hard to grasp and I think that might fall into the reader's capability. This is me saying I didn't completely understand all the sciency astrophysics stuff in the book despite having taken introductory physics classes in uni. That's also the reason why I don't dwell too much in sci-fi as a genre. It's not really the author's fault, but yeah. I guess it falls into this section. XD
What to improve: As said before, I think the pacing and plot needed a bit of work in terms of keeping a reader's attention throughout the whole thing. I, myself, was quite bored in the first few chapters and only stayed because the premise and the potential of the story intrigued me. I am glad I stuck to it, though, in the end, so congrats on that!
Still, I feel like it will help you in your future projects to map where everything is on your plot. I also felt like there was really nothing that happened in the first book apart from the building of relationships and stuff. The climax is in chapter 33, which is too long of a wait for a regular reader. The falling action and the eventual resolution are handled poorly and made up for a lackluster ending, which is just a complete cut-off.
One way to improve this is to think of books as complete arcs with a beginning and an ending that may or may not be complete, depending on what arc would follow. My DMs are open if you have more questions/clarifications on how to plot a series without having to rely on complete scene cut-offs to invite the readers into the next book.
Lastly, I think there are a few punctuation errors that escaped the critical eye here and there but nothing to worry about. A good line-edit should fix that up. :))
Final verdict: This is a solid 8/10 on my scale. A really good story with lots and lots of potential. Great adventure, descriptions, and overall entertainment. Keep writing. Keep improving. You're almost there! And really, kudos to you guys for succeeding in keeping a joint account and writing a masterpiece together. Really good friendship. uwu.
