Project Athena | Reviews

Slate Gray (Haize)

Author: alpaljames

Genre: Paranormal

Reviewer: adretaRyder

The first thing I will appraise is your writing style to the point that calling it perfect feels like an understatement. I've been on the platform for almost five years and I can safely say it's one of the best I've come across. You do especially well with dialogue and action tags, plus describing what's going on in the minds of your characters.

The first chapter offers an introduction to your character in a way that, although not unique, is quite creative. The talk of her sister's one-time obsession with masks, and how you manage to spin that into a description of who Perrin is as a character, is impressive. Without being on the nose, you manage to provide information through only her voice, which most authors would struggle with on average.

Perrin takes on the role of a reliable narrator, and she offers insightful descriptions of her sister, not to mention the dialogue between her and the other characters, smoothly telling the reader about their traits. Their father asking if Ace likes juice boxes is a sure sign that he still sees her as much younger than she is. You later spell this out directly via narration, which sort of ruins it, since some readers enjoy being able to pick up on details like these embedded in dialogue without having to be spoon-fed what it means. Not to mention, the next section of dialogue builds exactly onto how her father still sees Ace as a child who needs to be protected.

I could spin off here into some theories on him just from this conversation. Perhaps he regrets the way Perrin turned out and would like his younger daughter to retain much of her lighter personality compared to Perrin.

The build-up to our first view of a demon is well done, especially the sensory descriptions, which make the scene a lot more realistic. Most authors who give their characters paranormal abilities tend to forget that particular rules still apply when it comes to interactions with the physical world. Sight, smell, touch, all these are well detailed as Perrin shows what she feels when in proximity with one of these creatures.

The actual meeting does fall a bit short, with the build-up in tension ending in a paragraph that's a lot more dependent on narration rather than action. Basically, there's a lot of focus on what Perrin is feeling rather than what is happening. I expected some flurry of action here, but ultimately it can be ignored.

There's an issue with Ace narrating the demon species classification. This is a common issue, with characters telling each other things they already know in a guise to provide the same information to the reader. This could have been remedied by showing all these details through the demon itself, especially its abilities.

Ace's POV is somehow more brilliant than Perrin's, which I don't expect. You showcase her intelligence and sharpness perfectly through dialogue and her figuring out a mystery before her sister and father, but at the same time, her naivety is not left out. She's a well-balanced character who provides a different (and more interesting) perspective of the story, in my opinion at least.

I'd give your story a clear 5 out of 5 stars. It's definitely one I'll keep reading personally after this, and I can't wait to see how the story progresses with the two sisters. I'm not sure what plans you have for it, or how close it is to completion, but it does look like a story that will achieve so much in the future. 

As per feedback, I think you're better off considering a wider review of the story events as a whole since the individual chapters are well crafted and if someone found fault, they would most likely be nitpicking.