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SHS - Detailed Feedback

Intro:

SHS was written by _Baby_A_A_. SHS follows a small group consisting of characters named Halsa, Shaelynn, and Josephine as they go around seducing, hacking, and stealing from rich men. However, their successful operation threatens to fall apart when love strikes one of the women, and together, the group has to choose between well-being and love, or their beloved organization.

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

For starters, and maybe most importantly, I like the concept behind SHS, what it means, and how it's presented in the story. As you can see on the cover, SHS stands for seducer, hacker, and stealer, and I think that's a clever acronym that also acts as a way to get readers invested in the story. Right from the beginning, before even looking at the cover, I was wondering what SHS could stand for and how it related to the narrative, and the meaning of the SHS made me even more excited to see what the book would entail.

I acknowledge that I'm biased in saying this, but while on the topic of the story idea, I really love this whole concept of the criminal falling in love with the cop. I wrote a story like this before and enjoyed writing it, so I hope this was fun for you to write, too. I know I certainly liked reading it. These types of romances are some of my favorite things to read, so I'm glad you took it in this direction. In general, this premise appeals to a large audience, and I think that's reflected in your extremely high vote to read ratio, which I hope you're proud of since really only around 10% of readers vote, but you have 1k votes for 3k reads, and that goes without saying that that's high above average. Goes to show you're good at engaging your audience.

Another part I thoroughly enjoyed was Shaelynn. Her personality drew me to her character, and I enjoyed her throughout the entire runtime of the book. For example, in chapter 8 when she's acting super nonchalant about being kidnapped and is saying nothing's going to bring her mood down. In general, Shaelynn was a very fun character who had a distinct personality, and if we ever saw her mad, that's how you knew it was serious.

Moving more generally, all the characters in the story are fun to read about and match the story genre well. They all feel different from one another and have their own personalities that show in their actions and dialogue. One of the most difficult parts of character writing is making dialogue feel unique to the characters, and I think you do a good job showing who is who through the speech styles and the way the characters carry themselves.

Even in an ensemble cast, normally there's one character who's more like the protagonist and the main person. In this book, it's Josephine, and I think she works well as the central character and almost like the glue holding the other characters together. Her arc from going from criminal who takes pride in her job to questioning the criminal life was fun to watch unfold, and there were many chapters that highlighted that doubtful side of her well, like chapter thirteen where she has more doubtful thoughts and is a lot more sluggish than she usually would be.

Lastly, I really like the locations and set pieces. This kind of story dealing with the criminal life feels like it needs spicy locations that have a lot of flair/pop, and you deliver on that regard. The opening scene has an interesting environment that encourages the main characters to play around and use the environment to their advantage, like convincing Larry to go to his bedroom so the assignment can continue smoothly, or chapter fifteen's rich environment. Like, the literally rich environment.

You do a great job bringing extravagance into the narrative and showing why these characters would want to take part in that lifestyle by stealing things like jewelry and hacking into their systems to gain advantages. One of the most important parts of storytelling is setting the scene and giving the readers descriptions to imagine. You do a great job bringing us intriguing set pieces to get involved in, and that makes what's going on in the scene far more engaging when we know specifically where the characters are and what they're interacting with. You also do a good job establishing the setting early on in chapters, which is crucial for getting readers interested. Without a setting, the characters are floating in a void in our minds, so that's why it's so important to establish setting early.