Creative Deco; A Review Shop ↠ (CLOSED) ✔

Katie010203 - Given Time

Title: Given Time
Chapters: 10
Score: 8/10

INTRODUCTION:
Given Time is truly a chick lit to the bone! The story's delightful at most and quite amusing, complete with a set of lovable characters and hot romance, though despite the positives, the story's negative is that it was cliche in some points, barely distinguishable from the other chick lits in it's genre.

What I LIKED about your book:
I really fell in love with your characters, especially with Zara.

I appreciate it that you made Leah a strong character and a direct opposite of Tanner. This manner of characterization for me emphasized them both more and made them more compatible. Leah's kind, innocent, and gentle personality in contradiction to Tanner's immature and violent character makes them a perfect storm, and also a perfect romance.

But let's just talk about how lovable Zara is. I clearly expected Zara to be the snob and dark roommate at first glance given that Leah's impression of her was an emo but she actually turned out be really cool! The way she sacrificed her time with her boyfriend because she promised to spend 1 week with her roommate, how is that not lovable?

When it came to emotions and body language, you've aced it. You clearly had shown how these characters felt through exquisite, balanced details. The emotions felt really authentic and really had an impact to me as I read them, especially when it came to Leah's and Tanner's intense moments.

General details are also decent, though there was a bit of redundancy, the book was simple and easy to read, also enjoyable. You've also invested quite well in scenery and world-building and it just helped so much when it came visualization.

What I DIDN'T LIKE about your book:
Although it was great and enjoyable, I sense that I've read this plotline with hundreds of different books.

Bad boy and good girl that hates each other but ends up hooking up anyways? It's quite a cliche set up. Oh they're in the same college! Cliche set up. They share a passionate moment and hate it afterwards? Cliche set up.

This is, for me, the biggest setback for your story because it is not undistinguishable from other chicklits, there's nothing that's making it original at the moment. The plot itself was like borrowed from a mix of other romance and chicklit books. Though I would like to see how the book pans out in it's later chapters.

Small thing also, the pacing of the story was quite slow at first with lots of unnecessary details and scenes but this was eradicated in the later chapters.

CONCLUSION:
The story was enjoyable but yes, it wasn't really an original.

But rest assured, you have excellent writing skills! Especially when it came to character development.

The book's still early though, you still have the opportunity to turn these cliches into your very own twists.