Rose Reviews

Echoes of the Past

Author: @alecco

Title: Echoes of the Past

Genre: sort of a science fiction saga

Mature: Not by my standards. Some violence.

Cover and Title: 1/5
The cover didn't really serve to catch my eye at all. The image is blurry and I couldn't tell what it was. Some sort of island? Definitely doesn't give the impression of adventure within. Excluding the text, which looks nice, the cover definitely screams amateur wattpader, using just the old Wattpad Covers app.

As for the title... can I be blunt? Just boring. It fits and it's fine, but go into the search bar and see how many stories pop up with the title Echoes of the Past or some variation. It's a huge cliché, so there isn't anything eye catching about it.

Blurb: 2.5/5
Put all the stuff that's not the actual synopsis part after. Otherwise the first thing I saw was that this is a sequel, so I'm preparing myself for confusion. Obviously I'm assuming most people reading would have already read the first installment, so I disregard. Next, I see Star Wars And was it Final Fantasy(?). I have zero experience with Final Fantasy and I fell asleep watching my first and only Star Wars movie(I know, blasphemous), so I wasn't expecting to enjoy. I recommend removing the listing of various fandoms, lest you risk setting up an initial feeling or expectation based on whether or not your reader likes Star Wars. Let your work speak for itself.

First Impressions: 2/5
I was overwhelmed by your summary. Yes, in depth is good, but the long blocks of text are very intimidating to some one who has no clue what you're talking about. I also believe that that summary isn't enough. There's no way I could jump in based on that alone and not be confused. Readers hate being confused. I think it's in your best interest to make it clear that this book isn't meant to be a stand alone, and make readers go to the first installment first, because I wouldn't bother trying to piece together an entire novel of back story if I was your reader.

Characters: 3/5
When I first saw Evan's last name, I laughed out loud. Goodheart? I just struck me as funny, and I couldn't tell if that was your intention.

As for the characters themselves, well I liked Sam and Evan, but I couldn't really get that invested in James. But it's pretty typical for the secondary characters to be more interesting than the main character.

Grammar: 5/5
I saw no errors.

Plot: 3.5/5
Not bad, just not my cup of tea. Not to mention I was still confused as to what was going on.

Overall: 2.83/5 or 17/30