Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

Lost - (Chapters 1 - 5) @parnikalal

Lost - Book 1 (The Fallen City Series) - (Chapters 1-5) by parnikalal 

Reviewed by AmyMarieZ 

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Overview: Lost – Book 1 (The Falling City Series) is a science fiction story set in Cannan, a fictional underground dystopian city on the brink of war with outside forces. The story focuses on the journey of Felicity Hudson, a sixteen-year-old girl from Cannan who is training to join in the fight. Traumatized by the unexplained disappearance of her twin sister three years ago, Felicity certainly has an action-packed journey ahead of her—one that may reveal some unexpected truths about the city in which she lives.

Structure: The structure of this story is quite lovely! The author has put a lot of time and thought into laying out the book in a way that looks aesthetically pleasing. The font in chapter titles has been manipulated to give the story a unique look that is pleasing to the eye. The lovely epigraph, playlist, cast list, author's note, and graphics start the story off on a strong, professional note!

Grammar: Unfortunately, the grammar in the story is poor. There are many awkwardly worded sentences. The sentence structure is not varied in a way that creates an even and "nice" flow. Excess words in sentences and unnecessary repetition also hinder the flow. There are many typos throughout the story, as well as mistakes with verb tenses. There are also issues with punctuation, especially around dialog.

Overall, the poor grammar detracts from the reading experience significantly. Unfortunately, it is difficult to understand the story at some points because of a lack of proof reading, and the frequency of mistakes makes it tough to get into the story. Lost would benefit significantly from a thorough proof reading, as well as attention to sentence structure and wording to create a nicer rhythm and flow.

Pace: The pacing of the story as a whole is very slow. The plot takes a long time to get going and build interest. The beginning of the story shows the main character, Felicity, rehashing again and again her feelings of sadness and remorse about the disappearance of her twin sister, Nirvana. While it is a part of Felicity's character that she continues to dwell in this painful memory, the way it is presented to the reader is frustrating and tedious. The narration belabors the same thoughts in different words to the point that the redundancy causes it to lose any value it could have had.

Once the plot gets going, the story does gain interest. The story could benefit if much of the redundancy was cut so the reader could get to the really juicy parts before losing interest or getting frustrated with the characters. Something that might work nicely would be leaving in the stronger scenes that show Felicity's feelings, specifically those that include flashbacks of Felicity's memories with Nirvana. The flashbacks show a strong bond between the twins, and also some great elements of mystery and believable mourning. All in all, a bit more subtlety with Felicity's thoughts could really help elevate the story!

The pace of individual scenes in the story is for the most part well done. The action moves at a "real-time" pace in general. However, there are a few points where descriptions become excessive and slow the action down, or the character's inner monologue goes on for a bit too long, or dialog is rushed. However, in general the way the characters move through the scenes makes sense and happens at a good pace.

Character Development: The character development in Lost is a mix of good and bad. The characters are certainly memorable. I had no trouble keeping track of them as I read. However, the characters have a somewhat one-dimensional feel after five chapters. For example, Felicity seems to have only one trait that overpowers any other aspect of her character—the fact that she is traumatized by the loss of her sister. This is a strong trait, but if more traits and facets of her character were explored, she would really shine and become a varied and dynamic character a reader could get behind! As a reader, I can tell there are other traits behind her character, but as is, they seem to be overpowered

Vocabulary/Description: The descriptions in Lost are one of its strongest points. The scene setting is done through the character Felicity "discovering" and interacting with her world. Creative language and descriptions are used to bring the story to life and add interest to the narration.

One of the best things about this story is the city of Cannan that the author has created. The city has a rich and interesting history. So many details about this city have been included in the story that it really comes to life for the reader. Many of the details are extremely creative and intriguing! For example, in the city of Cannan, none of the citizens are allowed to have clocks. The concept of being able to know the time is so simple and taken for granted. However, this story shows how being denied this simple thing really affects the way the people of Cannan live their lives. Everything has become extremely routine, because it is the only way to not lose track of time.

Another lovely detail is the description of the "sky" in Cannan. Since the city is underground, the sky is a fabricated, dome-like structure.

Although the wording of the descriptions could use some revision and cleaning up, the content is there and has a lot of potential!

Plot/Storyline: After five chapters, the plot of Lost is still largely under developed. However, it does show great promise. There is a lot of mystery that surrounds the disappearance or Felicity's twin Nirvana. The way this ties into the different groups in Cannan—the Nobles and the Prouds—is also highly engaging.

So far, the main plot seems to be that a war is on the verge of breaking out around the city, and children of sixteen and older are training to fight in the war. Felicity has just turned sixteen, so she and her best friend Savy are attending their first day of training. The idea of teenagers going through some sort of training—while not wholly original—is an idea that makes for an exciting and action-packed plot. It is the sort of plot that many readers love and can't put down! While after only five chapters the plot of Lost is not yet strongly developed, it shows a lot of promise to become a truly engaging and worth-while read.

Summary: Lost – Book 1 (The Falling City Series) is a story that takes a bit of time to get going, but the vivid and interesting setting make it worth-while. Although in need of editing, the plot has a lot of potential to develop into something young adult sci-fi readers will love!