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જ Locke and Key જ ☾Cel☽

Book Name: Locke and Key

Author: Seong_Grace
Reviewer: rinaXhazurina

GENERAL QUALITIES: 33/50

Title: 4/5

The title sounds captivating for a fantasy story. It holds a lot of potential to reflect on what could be the main conflict in the story and the hidden symbols, subtexts, or meanings behind it. However, the spelling was putting it off. At first I thought it was a name in the story when I read it but it turns out none of the characters were named Locke. So the word actually refers to the term lock as in a padlock. Do fix it as soon as possible as its the book's title.

Book Cover: 5/5

The cover lives up to the story's magical and mystifying atmosphere with the fog and the dim representation of the house in the background. The font style, size, spacing, and layout blends in perfectly, and the gold color with highlights of white gleam is a chef's kiss with that elongated curve in the first letters of the two big words.

Blurb: 2/5

The blurb is good in presenting the characters and the problem they are faced with. This is the main flaw of the blurb is discernible: there are no specific indications that make the foster house haunted; the lack of particular details that allude to its "mysteries and thrilling nights." Avoid generalizations as much as possible mostly on parts that intrigue the readers to read the story. The blurb is one of the biggest ways to do this. 

Another is the lack of a unique storytelling proposition that makes it stand out among other stories in the same genre with similar plots. The blurb must answer the questions: what trait of the story makes it unique among the other books? Why should readers read it instead of the other stories that have similar plots or elements? 

There is also a grammar mistake in 'Eyden Hath and Anne Garland two adopted siblings...' Either add the linking verb "are" or a comma in between 'Garland' and 'two' to fix this, which I suggest should be done as soon as possible too.

Characters: 6/10

The characters were well-established with their desires and fears laid out subtly and understandably. Eyden wants to live their life like normal children considering that he and his sister were from an orphanage, and he takes this chance of being in foster care to make sure that life goes well and he cares for his sister's welfare. To him, that's enough of a desire and it's very appreciative because he couldn't ask for any more. This responds perfectly to his fear that something will disrupt his desire, and he ignores it and projects the same method to his sister when he keeps insisting they ignore the whispers. It's very coherent with his character as he is the big brother who embraced his responsibility to take care of his sister. He is aware of the disturbance but shuts it out to maintain the security of the normal life he wants for himself and his sister, which is why he insists on Anne to ignore it too. It makes him falsely believe that by ignoring these problems, it will go away.