Project Athena | Reviews

The Awakening (Emily)

Author: kazeleeknow

Reviewer: OutOfMyImagination

Genre: Fantasy

Hello, and thank you for requesting a review from me. I focused on the points you mentioned, descriptions, characters, readability, etc, and the overall impression of the story. 

The Awakening: Unleashing The Magic Within introduces us to Matilda Milee, a seemingly ordinary girl with a passion for magic, and studies. Her interests grow as she meets a mysterious boy named Arthur. As the teens bond, they soon find a common goal of studying at a prestigious institute of Stellaris.

I usually start from the first impression readers get when they find the story and how the book would look for them. The story cover is good and fits with the theme and genre of the book, however, the writing at the top of the cover and below the main title is not visible. I would suggest either removing that writing or making it more visible, not necessarily bigger in font size but that it would blend less with the rest of the cover.

The book description needs a bit more work. Readers see two or three first sentences before clicking on the “more” option and with the current setting, there is a random scene from the book which suggests nothing about the story. Later we have another scene with characters we don't know yet and just at the very bottom, we can find the “real” description. I would suggest putting the last part of the current description at the top, making the first two sentences more appealing to grab readers attention.

This part might be my personal preference, but I personally don't like it when as a reader I need to look at a lot of not written parts when I don't know if I like the story yet. In this case, there are 5 chapters before the story truly starts, I would suggest lowering that number, leaving two first parts, and adding the “00.2• Welcome to Lemus” part when it's more relevant to the story, “0.03• Arthur's part is more like a backstory which could be included in the story when it's more relevant. 

The story feels rushed, which a common mistake newer writers make since we want to get to the main plot and bring the readers up to speed, but at the cost of rushing to that point. The story could use more descriptions when setting scenes, although the characters are described well enough. You should also work on developing a smoother writing flow. Some scenes don't have smooth transitions when switching between points of view, and it causes confusion.

The world-building is weak so far, as it's very hard to tell anything about the world, and the timing of the story. We have fictional places, royalty, magic, and currency in it, but also cars, phones, and computers. You need to firmly decide on the setting because it can be confusing. I am not saying that fantasy books can't have modern, real-world things in them but you just need to explain them better. In the fourth chapter, it was said that the school wrapped the 1990-91 class, so it seemed the story is set in the ‘90 but then in the sixth chapter Matilda went online to see her results; her dad watched the video online on his phone. In a real-world setting, it wouldn't be possible to do in the ‘90 so is this possible in this world? Details like that contradict each other and it's harder to understand the story and the world in it.

When setting the plot you need to explain the details more, as it's very unclear what happened to Lily with her memory issues. That section of the book is confusing in general. Lily has a poor memory but crowned Arthur, and I still don't understand their entire family dynamic because it's not explained well. As I mentioned this is due to rushing the story, the plot is not slow at the moment, but it's a bit too fast and needs more explanation.

Your grammar and vocabulary are good, but look into punctuation, especially when it comes to dialogue. If you use question marks or exclamation points you don't need to use commas or dots, and some parts don't have proper punctuation.  The dialogue overall doesn't flow well, it's like the characters are not talking to each other, reading the dialogue at loud could help, to read and see if the conversation connects well to make it more realistic.

I would rate this story three out of five stars, I think this story has potential, and as your first story, I would say it's going well. My main suggestions would be to explain the world building more, try to describe the scenes, look into dialogue punctuation, and try slowing down the story.

I would recommend this story to teens who like books similar to the Harry Potter franchise. The magical school setting, with a hint of young love and royals.