Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

Fright School Book 1 (Chapters 2-3) - @kacquah

Fright School Book 1 (Chapters 2-3) by kacquah

Reviewed by AmyMarieZ 

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Overview: Frights School Book 1 is an adventure story about a group of teens who are brought together at a school for magical monsters. Chapters two and three focus on two main characters: a mummy names Allen, and a vampire named Vincent. Both come from wealthy and influential families, but both teens are rebellious in nature. There will certainly be some exciting adventure and challenges awaiting them once they arrive at Fright School!

Structure: The two chapters of this story that I read for this review were written in the 1st person POV for two different characters. Because I read the chapters leading up as well for context, I am aware that the Prologue is in the 3rd omniscient POV, while the first chapter is in the 3rd person limited POV.

Switching POV between chapters is a great way of showing multiple story lines within the same piece. It works well for Fright School because the story focuses on multiple students that are attending the school, as well as other outside forces, events, and characters. By switching between characters, the reader gets an in-depth look into each of their heads. It allows the story to have multiple leading characters, rather than one main character through which the others are viewed. I think this was a good choice for the narration.

However, something I would be cautious of, especially with the switched 1st person POV, is to make sure the voices of each character are distinguished from each other. As is, it seems like both Allan and Vincent have similar styles of narration. To develop a more varied cast, it might help to develop a distinct style in each of their voices to set them apart. As is, both seem to rely on a style of narration where they break the fourth wall to explain parts of their life to the reader, and then return back to the main story with a statement like "now back to the main story." While this makes for an interesting and fun bit of narration, the fact that both characters do it takes away from the unique personality it develops. I think that varying the styles of narration could help set these two characters apart and bring them to life just a bit more.

Grammar: In general, the grammar in Fright School is decent. There are a few typos, comma splices, oddly worded sentences, and tense changes throughout the chapters. However, the grammar errors do not make it difficult to follow the story.

The one grammar error that stood out as a reoccurring error rather than simply a typo/mistake was punctuation around dialog. Frequently, dialog was written within quotes followed by a dialog tag, but without a comma at the end of the dialog to separate it. For example, in the first part of chapter 2:

"Just what I needed" I said as I stretched my arm and the bird flapped to me.

This sentence requires a comma after "needed" because it is followed by a dialog tag:

"Just what I needed," I said as I stretched my arm, and the bird flapped to me.

Additionally, when there is a bit of dialog but it is followed by an action rather than a dialog tag, the dialog should end with a period (or exclamation point/question mark.) For example, in the first part of chapter two:

"No, no, no" I shook my head as I left the horror scene... this was too much.

Should be punctuated:

"No, no, no." I shook my head as I left the horror scene... this was too much.

When a bit of dialog follows an action, the action should end with a period and the beginning of the dialog should be capitalized. I also noticed that occasionally paragraphs were not broken when there was a change in speaker. To make it easy for the reader to follow dialog, there should be a paragraph break every time the speaker changes. For example, in chapter 3 pt. 2: