Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

Birth of the Raven Review

Birth of the Raven
By
CrazyMorbidity

Reviewed
By
AmyMarieZ

This review is of only the first 11 chapters of the story Birth of the Raven.

Overview: Birth of the Raven is a fantasy story that includes elements of mystery, magic, romance, and adventure. The story focusses on Alyssa, the heir of the Khaled Regime. After an attack when she is just a young teenager, she is forced to flee her home. Unable to return, Alyssa lives among the Valeen, growing into a strong willed and adventurous young woman. However, plagued by nightmares, she eventually must come to face her heritage and figure out what it is she is meant to be doing.

Structure: The first three chapters focus on the attack that leads to Alyssa fleeing her home as a child and the events directly following. In the fourth chapter, the story jumps ahead five years to the point where Alyssa lives with the Valeen. It is at this point that the main part of the story begins. The time jump is presented clearly and does not cause any confusion. It is apparent that during the five years, the characters have gone through changes and gained experience.

Although the time jump is well done and the backstory leading up to it is interesting, it seems like the events in the first three chapters drag on just a bit too long. A reader may find the setup to be just a bit too much. The story really begins to get interesting once the setup is complete!

Grammar: Overall, the grammar in Birth of the Raven is excellent. The story appears to be in a second draft state, so there are a few typos, but not enough that it disrupts reading in any way.

Throughout the story, there are a number of sentences that are just phrases. While at some times the use of phrases gives a nice effect, at other times the phrases seem unintentional or as though they would work better as complete stand-alone sentences or combined in with nearby related sentences. Additionally, there are times where very long sentences are used that might be more easily read if they were broken up into multiple smaller sentences.

Pace: The pacing of individual scenes in the story is very well done. Events progress at a real-time pace, making it easy for the reader to picture the story in his or her head as though watching a movie.

However, at times it seems like the overall pace of the story is a bit slow. The story seems to reach points where there are large chunks of dialog. Although the dialog is interesting, natural flowing, and drives the plot, it does seem to drag just a bit at times, slowing the pace a little. A reader may become a bit lost or confused while reading these bits.

Character Development: The story contains a handful of main characters, as well as numerous other important characters. Overall, characterization for the main characters, including Alyssa and the love interest/guardian Kurt, are done very well. The characters' personalities and motivations are presented clearly through action and dialog. The characters develop along with the plot, and enough information is given that the reader gets a very clear idea of the main characters' personalities without ever having to be overtly told.

At times, the narration tends to directly describe the personalities of other slightly less important characters. Often times, the personality descriptions are included along with a description of character appearance. It seems as though these descriptions of personality are often unnecessary, as the actions and dialog of even the minor characters in this story still show enough characterization to give the reader an excellent idea of what the characters are like.

Vocabulary/Description: In general, descriptions are well placed and include enough information to make the story easy to visualize, but not too much that the descriptions drag the story or become at all boring. Additionally, the use of creative language throughout the story makes the descriptions interesting and a pleasure to read! The vocabulary is not so simple that it bores the reader, nor is it too complicated that a reader might get confused while reading. The vocabulary used fits perfectly with the intended audience and style of the story.

The only descriptions that are a bit overwhelming at times are the descriptions of character appearance. It seems as though character descriptions are often placed in large chunks, sometimes one after another describing multiple characters in a row. While the descriptions themselves are well written and vivid, so much description in a row may become a bit overwhelming for a reader, making it difficult to absorb and retain everything that is presented.

In general, the narration has a very pleasant and easy to read flow. However, at times the complex sentences seem to combine things that really don't make sense going together, and some of the sentences are just too long in general. The flow of the writing and descriptions might be improved by breaking up some of the longer more complicated sentences. Specifically, sentences frequently seem to use "as" multiple times. When the word "as" is used multiple times in one sentence (with the exception of any similes using "as" twice), the sentence really feels like it should be two sentences.

Plot: The overarching plot of the story seems to still be developing by the eleventh chapter. The first three chapters serve largely as backstory/setup. The following two chapters reintroduce the characters and the new setting after the time-hop. From there, the real plot seems to take off slowly.

Based on the description of the story, one of the main plot points seems to be the strange and seemingly frightening dreams Alyssa is having. However, in the first eleven chapters, the dreams are really only brought up once. The dreams build excellent suspense! However, at least in the first eleven chapters, they seem to take somewhat of a backseat to other plot elements and fall a bit off to the side in the reader's mind.

The plot has excellent elements of adventure to keep the reader at the edge of his or her seat. The suspense is there! By the end of the eleventh chapter, the reader is left really wondering what is going to happen to the characters, as they seem to be in quite a tricky situation!

The relationships between characters are another element that pulls the reader in. During the five years that are skipped, clearly things have gone on between characters as far as romance and relationships are concerned. When the story picks up, there is a significant amount of strain between Alyssa and Gray, her recent ex. However, the tension between these two is nothing compared to that between Alyssa and her guardian Kurt. The romantic tension between these two characters is well written and pulls the reader in, really making him or her want to see what will happen between the two!

Summary: Birth of the Raven is a fantasy story that really is a pleasure to read. It's got it all - excitement, action, romance, and even mystery! While it is hard to see exactly where the story is going in just the first eleven chapters, one thing is for sure – anyone that reads those first eleven chapters won't want to stop there! The story is rated mature (for violence), so it may not be for everyone. However, anyone that likes a good fantasy story with interesting and strong willed female characters will really enjoy Birth of the Raven!

Note: The review book offers several options. To review only grammar and sentence structure. To review only character development and plot. To review only vocabulary and descriptions. Or, the requester can ask for all of this to be reviewed. There are two options when making this request – for it to be sugar-coated or not.

This review is for it all to be touched on (not sugar-coated).