This is my first reviews book. Inside, you'll find out 10 books reviews, all of them with my honest opinion and some advices to the books authors.
If you're reading it searching for a review then I am sorry but this book is finished. BUT I'll probab...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Title: The Blind Girl Author:SilverEmbers Genre: Teen Fiction Read: 42 chapters
The story title is something that grabs attention. If for nothing else, because people will get curious about how you'll write about a blind girl. Anyways, it doesn't starts to make sense and fitting the story since chapter 11.
About your story idea... To be honest, I didn't understand what the story idea was until the chapter 11. Until there I thought it was just a clichê story with nothing different from many others clichês stories. But, when your story idea finally becomes clear, it proves to be a very original idea with a big potential.
About the story itself... Your beginning is interesting because Claire addresses the reader directly, grabbing the reader's attention.
Other thing that I liked were the nightmares. I loved how you wrote them, with many details and in a way that allows the reader to understand what Claire is feeling.
Unfortunately, you're story needs a lot of work and you need to improve many things. Those improvements will lead to an improvement of the story on the general, making it more appealing and easy to read.
>> You need to improve both your vocabulary and your grammar. Your vocabulary is poor with many words and expressions being repeated (I read the expression 'silly me' dozens of times). You should try to use synonyms which will avoid repetitions and make the reading easier. The same for your grammar. There are many mistakes - I pointed out all the ones I found - and you switch many times between the past and the present with no reason. You should choose one and use it during the entire story - I suggest the past because it's easier and because of the way your prologue was wrote.
>> There are also errors in the sentence structure. Problems like that, responsible for making the reading too difficult and confused without necessity, should obviously be avoided. I tried to help you with some of those sentences, leaving comments with my opinion about how you can make them more simple. Of course there are other options that you can use but, anyways, you should change those sentences because it would improve your story.
>> Try to avoid writing about things you'll not explain. It includes things like 'The smell of brownies welcomed me as I entered the school' (chapter 1) and the nightmares - because even if I liked them there's no plausible explanation for their existence.
>> There are many things that seems forced and therefore should be avoided or modified to become less forced. It's the case of the red carpet in the chapter 1 - really, who would do it? - and many reactions along the story, as Claire's reaction in the chapter 4 when Miguel threw water at her - I mean it's not a nice thing to do and obviously she becomes wet but was all the drama necessary?.
>> The most part of your main characters (and I'm including Miguel, Claire, Vanessa, Ashlynn, Lani and Justine) are not credible which is not good because it's an obstacle to the connection between the characters and the reader. Claire is too perfect to be real before she becomes blind and too 'it's the end of the world' girl type after that - I mean it's horrible and all but her refuse to accept the amnesia is ridiculous -, with Miguel you forced too much the stereotypical idea of the bad boy, Ashlynn has not enough development and Vanessa's development starts too late. Only Justine and Laini have a good development which results in credible characters with whom it's possible to make a connection - I personally love Laini and her exuberant personality.
>> The pace is not good. too fast sometimes, too slow others. You shouldn't skip time as you do. Instead of it, you should try to connect the moments. And this topic leads to a suggestion: as I said, I just understood the story idea in the chapter 11 and it's also in that chapter that we finally have something different from all the other Teen Fiction stories. If it is your idea since the beginning, in my opinion, you should try to make it happen faster and not just in chapter 11 because if you take too long to give to your readers something different, they will loose their interest and give up from your story which is not, of course, what you want.
>> There are many things that just don't add up. For example, if Claire hates Miguel so much why does she relate with him? And who is Lolita's sister? You refer many times that her entire family died so how can she has a sister alive?
>> And finally, I wanted to give you a suggestion: you wrote that this book would be the first of a trilogy so you still need two more books. In my opinion you are writing a too long first book, risking to don't have a plot for the second one. In this first book we read about Claire became blind and the huge risk to her life represented by Lolita. In the chapter 34, a new menace appears, this time against the cousins' lives. My suggestion is... Why don't you end your first book in the chapter 34 and start writing the second centred on this menace to the cousins' lives?
Since the chapter 11, when your idea becomes clear and it proves to be an original one, the potential of your book strongly increases and your story becomes one that I would love to know more about about.
Unfortunately, your many errors - specifically the ones related with the sentences structure - makes the reading truly difficult and slows down the rhythm, making the story a little too much boring.
