Gemstone Reviews [Closed for Catch up]

Review #34-Natalie's Diary

Title: Natalie's Diary

Author:KeriHalfacre

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Rating: PG-13. (There's death, but not extremely detailed or gory scenes.)

# of chapters: 20

# of chapters I read: 3

Summary/Blurb:

 Natalie Driscoll is dead.

Much like how she flung herself out a window, Natalie also flung Jane into the middle of Cullfield's mysteries. Following Natalie's instructions leads Jane to three other high school students and all of them seem to have something to hide, something that might have to be unraveled through the course of following Natalie's diary. 

Review:

Cover:

More Tumblr aesthetics, but I like how neat everything looks. The text is aligned with the edges of the cover and white box in the middle, and the font doesn't take away from the image on the back. I'm assuming that the two girls are Natalie and Jane, and they seem like two very distinct people, even though I can't see their faces.

There is something about the way they stare into the fog, into the unknown, that gives this cover a darker feel to it—usually diaries are seen as silly things, owned by teenage girls with mundane lives, but this diary is a lot more intense than that. It's the key to explaining why Natalie committed suicide, and there's nothing funny about that. I'm really intrigued by the cover, and I think it really matches the genre of the story. So, good job. 

Blurb:

The blurb is short and sweet. You grabbed my attention with "Natalie Driscoll is dead", because I immediately wanted to read on and find out who this person is and why they died. I wasn't disappointed. I'm also given a glimpse into an intricate web of mysteries, and of course—curiosity gets the better of me and I want to read on to find out more. 

One of my concerns for this is the fact that the infamous diary doesn't come in until the end of the blurb. In the sentence, "Following Natalie's instructions leads Jane to three other [...]" it seems like Natalie is still alive, even though she's actually dead and Jane is following the instructions taken from the girl's diary. Also, clarify whether Jane is a friend or a mere acquaintance, because, at this point, they are only connected by this underlying web of mysteries. 

But to get to Natalie's diary, Jane would have to know about it, so maybe just introduce Jane as "her friend Jane". Finally, I don't think Cullfied has to be mentioned unless you can make a connection between the girls' high school and the town itself—because right now the two things seem disconnected from one another. Like Cullfield has its own mysteries, and then a random girl commits suicide. 

Other than that, I'm intrigued already, and I'm ready to be awed. 

First Impression:

Fuck, the opening was very intense and definitely not what I expected. I didn't think I'd actually have to "witness" Natalie being impaled by the fence, I thought the first chapter would be the day after, or maybe the school mourning her loss or something. But not this, never this. The chapter title, "shock" really described the way I felt.

It seems that you have a knack for opening chapters/ pieces with powerful lines—we start with "it began with a scream," and I was like, crap, is someone getting killed out there? I didn't have a setting or context to place it in, so, of course, I had to read on to find out. It's a very clever way of hooking the reader, and it 300% worked for me.