Reverie Reviews

review #48.S3: Statuelike

Title: Statuelike

Author: incurablesimp
Reviewer: LadyInLostYearn

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SYNOPSIS

The Earth has always been a pleasant place for many creatures to live on. The old race of norets definitely thought so. Naturally, when humans started taking over, wanting to keep the planet selfishly to themselves, the war couldn't have been avoided. As surprising as it may sound, humans won their battle and norets too weak to continue fighting and having been too few of them left had to hide and swallow their bitterness.

So they created a concealed weapon. They channeled most of their remaining magic power into it and destined it to its only purpose. Once the right time comes, the weapon is going to help them destroy humanity. However something went wrong during the ritual. Not only was a deadly weapon created, little bits of the power would also be granted to chosen humans as means of defense.

In the 21st century when it's already difficult to distinguish a noret from a human, a highschool teacher Nekt and a city newcomer Lou meet each other. None of them expects what is about to come.

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Disclaimer: While I was reading your book with my best effort to stay unbiased, I might not have caught your intended style for your characters, storyline, or purposes. By the end of the day, you control its narrative. I was just passing through, exploring around, and giving a deduction.

Overall review:

I loved the cover, so you chose a good designer. I did not see how the title was connected to the blurb, but after reading what Norets are, it worked. Now, the blurb is clear regardless of flaws—I'll explain those issues later. But the blurb is giving away too much info. I would've liked it if the second paragraph was omitted and explained through the chapters instead, creating an anticipation of why norets and chosen humans are a threat to each other.

The missing commas were often found. Understandably, Oxford commas weren't used since you might not practice it, like my native language doesn't either. But it helps to pause the reader and make them rest for a moment before continuing to read the sentence. However, some must have commas to avoid confusion. 'After a moment that felt longer than it really was her screaming stopped...' should have a comma after 'was'. In the blurb, one should be put after 'however'. It would've been better to understand when 'It was a creature just as they were with white eyes and skin resembling stone, a woman' is improvised like 'It was a creature just as they were, with white eyes and skin resembling stone. A woman.'

Some sentences were in unsuitable order as well. For example, '...most humans already were in their comfortable homes sleeping tight' could be '...most humans were in their comfortable homes already, sleeping tight.' Another is '...a nagging tone could clearly be distinguished in his voice' could be '...a nagging tone in his voice could be clearly distinguished.' Additionally, a few didn't make sense, such as 'Her body having been made out of stone not meat was able to survive the heat...' Is 'not meat' can withstand heat? It should be 'Her body was made out of stone and not meat, as it was able to survive the heat.' Notice how certain words were missing. Like in the blurb '...and norets too weak to continue fighting and having been too few of them...' 'Were' is supposed to be after norets and yet, 'having been' is unnecessary.

This brings us to another point: the unnecessary words, mostly with 'started', 'as', and 'just'. There were too many, and they dragged out the sentences and slowed down the pace, especially during an action scene. For example, '...said the younger man and also started walking to catch up' could be shortened into '...said the younger man, walking to catch up.' Cut off the 'quite some' in '...they both hit each other with quite some force.' Replace 'quickly picked up' with 'snatched up' and omit 'to use it' in 'He squatted down and quickly picked up the knife to use it for his defense.' Cut off 'very' in '...crowd very intensively' and 'really' in 'really scared.' Because too often the adjective -ly words were used. Make the sentences succinct and trust the readers to fill in the blanks between detail gaps.

Which brings us to the next point: give room for subtext. '...men looked as human as possible for creatures with eyes as white as snow and skin so closely resembling stone', 'They had all of the human features yet something felt off', and 'If one looked at them more carefully, they would've started doubting their own eyes.' These three separate sentences altogether shoehorned on how off-putting norets were, while the first and third sentences were just enough. Another example, '...that gave him the tight feeling in his chest. That kind of a feeling which suggested something bad was going to happen.' No need to tell the readers that second sentence because they already know what the tight feeling suggests, because the context of the whole situation was shown already.

I enjoyed the worldbuilding and its unique concept, the description of norets being killed was visceral, the characters weren't boring—I liked Nekt, and the events happening in different eras without order had worked well, but it's a shame that the flaws mentioned previously had ruined my immersion. I hope you will fix them since this story is unique and has great potential.

Watch out for clarifying which speaker in dialogues and the action beats used as dialogue tags. Use Grammarly or ProWritingAid (don't fully rely on them) for grammar. Text-to-speech site is for detecting awkward sentences. Read more books outside Wattpad too.