Story Reviews For The Reviewless (On Hold)

The Knight's of the Compass: Book 1 Review

The stories author is Jeannike

The Knight's of the Compass was a fairly interesting read and it seems to have quite an interesting plot that will include a multitude of characters as more chapters come out. It is told in a once upon of time story type of deal where Death is reading a story of a grand adventure to his coworker I guess you'd call her. It does have mistakes, but looking past them I can see the story has potential. The author uses plenty of metaphors and similes to describe the situations going on, and there's fair bit of humor to, which always nice to have. My personal favorite is Death and his juice box, I don't know it's just funny to think about just seeing Death and he's sitting there drinking a juice box. I believe the story is worth a read, and as time comes I hope more of the story will be unveiled. So go check it out, maybe you'll enjoy it.

This segment is mainly for the author to read and see what I had to say when reading their story, feel free to look at it if you want, maybe it'll entice you to look into the story further.

Personal Message to the Author: While I had a lot to say while reading this, by no means is the story bad. You just seem to struggle with at establishing when the story takes place, and seem to juggle modern and past. You also seem to have an issue with past tense words and spelling, while I didn't point out every mistake, I did try pointing out as many as I could. I believe a quick reread of the story may help solve some of the issues.

Prologue : There are some minor grammatical issues that can be worked out via a quick reread. The story starts off with an interesting little quote about death that is pretty thought provoking. I like it. I don't believe the word sexist or so really existed back in that time, women really didn't have any rights back then and it was considered normal, so while yes it was literally sexist, that was how it worked. I think if you are going for that the men looked at Penguin differently because she's a woman, lustfully may be something that would work and would be appropriate for the apparent time period. I'm confused how time is working here, you say just ten years or so ago Penguin's place had been a castle to match the middle ages, but then say that Death had been potato dude for most of the Victorian Era, these two era's happened far far apart. Even the late middle ages lasted to only about the 14th century, and the victorian era started almost middle 18th century. I like the idea of her changing her surroundings, but I feel like you need to set up how the rules of time works in wherever she is. Socrates, the greek philosopher? This is another weird thing about how you have time setup, Socrates had died 399 BC, waayyyyyyy before the middle ages even. So it's be more about almost 2000 years, unless he had stayed with Death and Penguin for a great deal of time then had left around late middle ages. The toaster comment is funny though, imagine going for a slice of toast and you're just hit with some ancient greek philosophy. Poor Death, Penguin made him spill his apple juice. ; - ; Well damn, Penguin been around for a long time. So assuming that Penguin was once human, she was a person from the stone ages, maybe even before that depending on Death is stating her true age or not. I thought it was still Victorian Era, how does Penguin know what a Blender is? Actually, the true question is how does Death HAVE a juice box!?! I feel like the family friends line needs to be worked around a bit, if you want to symbolize that Penguin is unsure if they are really a family, then you can say or maybe we're only friends, if you want to symbolize that they're close, saying they are friends, maybe more like family is better. Though if they have more of an unspoken agreement that they are just there, wouldn't they be more as just acquaintances. Not really friends, which could open up a nice little subplot where Penguin questions if Death actually cares if she's there or not. If she's just there to lessen his work load, or if he truly enjoy her company. Keep in mind of what there you're using, they're is they are, their means an item is owned by something, and there is more what you are going for as the line should've been there are millions of penguins. Farther is spelt as father, or maybe this is a language issue. But I figured I should point it out nonetheless. The son, before he had died. What century was he born in? As it sounds like modernish era with taking over his father's business and etc, maybe stating what the father was, such as a merchant or something from the era could help elaborate the son's time. Also the main issue of the chapter is that Penguin is forgetting things correct, but how does she remember these era's of history that some have happened 1000 years apart. For the book, you try describing it but it feels odd. Try putting it had the scratches and faded colors of time, or something like that to describe how the book appears to have been around for awhile. Lend is not the past tense for lean, it's actually leaned. She is talking to death... why does she question the power? Like I get that it's actually stated, but she can literally change her scenery with a thought, would it be to much to assume that the book worked similarly? Death says "The hell hole or my personal favorite." I feel like you should say "Or my personal favorite, the hell hole." Having finished the prologue I think I figured out the main issue with your writing, you appear to struggle with past tense words or sometimes put a word with an entirely different meaning than it should. Despite all I had to say though, you seem to have an interesting concept here and if looked at once again could be a really great story to read. I don't know if it's a language barrier or not, but I think you should go through the story again and try fixing whatever doesn't sound right when you read it aloud.

Ch. 1: The chapter suffers from grammatical issues just as the one before, so a quick reread should be done. The chapter starts off again with a nice little quote, I assume this will be a common thing amongst your future chapters? Though unlike the last quote, you didn't place it italicized like the last one, it's not major or anything but I feel like if you did it for the prologue you should do it for future quotes as well. The line where it says, "it is a feat that even makes me raise an eyebrow" would probably sound better if it was "it is a feat that makes even me raise an eyebrow" small change but it flows much better than before. There should be their when you said there screams are the loudest of souls. Wait why's Alex a stupid fish? Like there seems to be a lot of aggression out of nowhere against them, like I don't know who they are or what they have to do with the story, but it seemed to come out of left field, and the way you make them sound, it sounds like Lila had little importance while Alex had the problem of saving the world, but Death praises Lila for whatever reason and shrugs off Alex. Maybe it's the wording, but with how Death was talking before, it made it seem like he had a respect for those who "saved" the world as he says. Gonna be honest, that Lila poem seemed strangely out of character, like Death so far has been this cold thinking man who is trying to find out the finite of his own existence, hoping to find some salvation in those who have greatly changed the course of the world for the better only to find no answers for his questions, but Lila a person who seemingly has done nothing but I guess shown kindness is praised by Death as if she had been the world's true hero. I just don't get this sudden praise. There's washing machine's in this world?!? When are they!!! Seriously! Well holy shit... that stuff was all sweet and then took a turn so far south I landed in antartica. So he saves the girl, who is already dead, who he apparently loved who had died from starvation. I honestly don't know what to say about it. Did you mean to say, "while this name being completely unimportant to the story, was cow."? Why do you suddenly call Lila Lizzy? So so far, Lila has done nothing, not even what she was originally proclaimed of doing such as being hopeful or something. I don't know if it's too late to change, but if you want o give her that route of her smile being amazing, and her being hopeful. Maybe change her apparent death that she died trying to motivate the people or provide them something, it would work because while not saving the world, she is being selfless and putting her life in danger to provide hope for those around her. Your call, as I don't know what you have planned for her, but so far she just seems like she let herself die and if anything almost had the knight who tried saving her killed for what seems to be no reason. Lastly, you misspelled psychopath. By the way, you seem to really cast shade on most of the men that have been announced, saying the knights who had come had looked at penguin sexistly, calling all knights dumb and while that's more general it still is there, how so far no man in the story has done anything but seemingly mess up, while every woman seems to be cast in a ray of approval by Death, even Lila who got majorly praised for what has been shown to be nothing so far. Also Alex was called a stupid fish despite apparently saving the world according to Death. I don't know what to really make of it, as it seems like Death has praised the wrong person, and seems to hate everyone else. Maybe it'll make more sense in future chapters but as of what's available right now, it's what I'm thinking.