𝐅𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐍 | Review Shop [CLOSED]

The Saga Of Mafioso [Alba]

Book: The Saga Of Mafioso
Author: JohanLiebert33
Reviewer: oraclesighter
Chapters read: 10

Starting off with the blurb, I think we’ve got a few compelling and certainly original elements in here. However, the first sentence is structured in an awkward and confusing way, it’s not too clear what you’re trying to get across, along with the line that comes afterward.

“The countries where you all live is filled with dirty politics, corruption, sadness but also you all must feel safe in your places. But where we live is different than yours.”

“but also you all must feel safe in your places” doesn’t make sense. I’ve tried interpreting this in different manners, but I still can’t seem to get a grip on the meaning. Do you mean that the citizens are forced to feel safe in their places, despite all the chaos? Or are you, like, pointing out that somehow people feel naturally safe in their places, even though the countries are in danger?

And who is talking right now? How is their place different and who are they specifically talking to? It gets incredibly disorienting because you seem to talk to one specific person, a person who lives in the same world as them (the corrupt world they mentioned beforehand). But then it becomes a contradiction, because the narrator goes on to say “but where we live is different than yours” and continues with explaining how they have to live by the “kill or be killed” mindset. Isn’t that literally the same concept you just mentioned in the paragraph before? About corrupt countries? It’s not so different if you ask me.

But if we can put those doubts aside, I think you really managed to capture my attention with the oncoming sentences about having to destroy/take others’ lives to be able to lead a comfortable life.

I also want to applaud you for giving us a clear introduction to the protagonist in the blurb. He has a clear goal, an interesting backstory as to where he gets his motives (helping his mother), and will pretty obviously be an important factor of the story.

We also get a hint on the mafia son, James Garcia, which leads to even more intrigue. You’ve set a great tone for the blurb when it comes to mafia stories, keep that up.

Although I did catch various spelling mistakes, as in incorrect grammar/incorrect sentence structure. But I will move onto that later.

The cover and title are overall well made. They suit the storyline well.

Moving onto plot and hook, the prologue was outstandingly compelling. You managed to set the right tone and immediately handed us what we came for — a mafia story. Lots of action and drama occur. It’s an interesting introduction to the Garcia family. It gives us a clear idea of who these people are and what we’re getting ourselves into. However, after finishing the 10 chapters, it does make me wonder what happened to this mother and her two children. Cause that’s not Angelo’s family, for sure.

It’s an incredibly irresistible story from Angelo’s perspective, as he struggles to obtain money for his mother in the hospital. But in order to get that money, he has to tackle darker options, involving himself in illegal ways to obtain that fortune. We get to see how Angelo manages his life working for the mafia afterward and how he overcomes his strong morals, as that’s the only way he can survive now.

Things are always happening in this story. It’s full of action and events that make you want to keep turning chapters, without even realizing it. We’ve got such a rich cast of characters with different characteristics and behaviors and that keep the story moving in perfect flow. I especially like how you incorporate insight for us about the Garcia family through flashbacks. It adds a different type of depth into the story that we never knew we needed. Then again, I want to give you kudos for giving our protagonist a main goal, a clear and understandable one, in fact. You’d be surprised how many stories have main characters go through the story without a clear motive or goal. It’s so necessary to make a story feel real!

You've also nailed it in making this story realistic. Eerily realistic. You can definitely tell this is a mafia story at first glance at the pages. There’s lots of brutality and gore, grotesque and brusque actions, actual violence that makes sense for a mafia to give. There’s an actual reason, a believable reason for each action the leader of the mafia does. Whether it be for getting revenge, taking back something another character took from them, etc.

I honestly don’t have any constructive criticism to give you surrounding plot manners, since everything has been planned out so flawlessly.

Moving onto the mechanics, I caught lots of grammatical issues, which is a big reason why the audience may not stick around for long. There are various times where you write the singular noun instead of the plural, when plural is supposed to be used. And when you need plural, you use singular instead. No bueno.

There are also various incorrect and confusing sentence structures. And dialogues need to have a time-tense check on them, as characters usually speak in past tense when they’re supposed to speak in present tense. I always recommend writers to use the editing tools Hemingway Editor and Grammarly, as it edits your writing for you and fixes your grammar without you having to do it yourself.

I also had an incredibly hard time trying to conjure up an image of how each character looked. I’d suggest you describe appearances as soon as a new character gets introduced, as well as more descriptions of places and surroundings in general.

Other than that, I think you’ve got a great story going. The plot is immensely well planned, characters are overall well written, and you’ve got lots of hooks going in each chapter.

─⁠──⁠──⁠──⁠─ ⋄ ☾∘☽ ⋄ ─⁠──⁠──⁠──⁠─

Thank you for requesting a review from us. Do let us know what you think so that we can improve to better provide for authors like you.