Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

The Edge of His World (Chapters 1-5) - @Khenrietta

The Edge of His World (Chapters 1 - 5) by Khenrietta 

Reviewed by AmyMarieZ

----------------------

Overview: The Edge of His World is a chicklit romance story with enough edge-of-your-seat mystery to hook even readers who aren't normally fans of the genre. Hilariously awkward Joselyn makes a fantastic and charming narrator, leading the reader through a Valentine's Day love story that's simultaneously heartwarming and hilarious.

Structure: The story is written in the first person present tense from Joselyn's perspective. This structure works well for this story, because the plot rides on the fact that the narrator does not know what is going on as she is telling the story. The reader discovers the mystery of Jamie, the strangest Uber customer ever, right along with her. This works well to build the suspense and surprise of the final reveal!

The author has also formatted the story with graphics and titles throughout the chapters. The lovely designs at the beginning and the end of each chapter add to the mood and feel of the entire story and give it a nice aesthetic element.

Grammar: The grammar is very well done. I did not notice any recurring grammatical issues, and certainly not anything that detracted from the story telling. There were a few tiny typos which I have pointed out inline. I also noticed a few sentences that were worded a bit oddly or in a way that was slightly confusing, which I have offered alternative suggestions for inline. However, all in all, the story has a polished feel.

Pace: I have no complaints about the pacing of this story. Each chapter presented new information that progressed the plot in an interesting way.  Additionally, every chapter worked to build the mystery of what was going on between Jamie and Jo, driving me to want to read on more and more the further I got.

The pacing of individual scenes was also well done. The balance of dialog, description, and internal character thought/narration progressed every scene at a rate that made it easy to visualize in real-time. There were no points throughout the story where I lost the scene. Something that helped was that the transitions between scenes were taken slow, and there really weren't too many scene changes in general. Like a play, the story only a couple of memorable scenes: Jo's house, the car, and the gas station. The characters were constantly moving through the outside world, but the fact that the action remained within the car grounded the story and helped keep the pace constant and even.

Character Development: Character development was a definite strength of this story! I absolutely loved the depth, realism, and humor in the characters. I think Jo was my favorite, but each of the characters so far have had their quirks and characteristics that make them unique and memorable. Additionally, the fact that there are only a few characters introduced in the first five chapters of this story makes them all easy to become attached to by not overwhelming the reader and allowing each character time to fully develop. There are no excess characters, only what is necessary, and that works perfectly.

In this review, I will provide my thoughts on the two main characters, Joselyn and Jamie.

JOSELYN: The main character and narrator of the story, Joselyn, is a well balanced and believable young woman. The humor in her narration makes the story an absolute pleasure to read.

In the first chapter, Jo is shown interacting with her father before she goes off at midnight to drive for Uber and earn money for her studies as a University student. Her interaction with her father, a police officer, is heartwarming and refreshing. It is clear that she has a strong relationship with him, through the small ways they show each other they care. I loved the way Jo was concerned about her father's injury on the job, and also the way her father helps her fix her hair before she goes out because he knows it bothers her. The love between the two of them is shown genuinely and in a way that is touching without being over the top.