Book Reviews

Ayanda Born Of The Storm

Synopsis:
Ayanda Azukelis life changes when she is attacked by mysterious beasts looking for a taste of her blood. Now she must traverse through the ancient lands of Africa to seek refuge but little does she know her blood is of the gods ...
Grammar:
There were frequent grammar mistakes in this novel. Mostly just capitalization errors and slip-ups where the author accidentally used the wrong word. Or it felt like she had been writing it too fast and forgot to include a word in certain spots. The grammar mistakes got more infrequent as the story continued but in the beginning of the book when she forgot words or they were very misspelled  I had to pause reading and use context clues to figure out what the author meant. This made the story less enjoyable. In addition there were a lot of sentences which could have been written more concisely. Two out of five stars on grammar.
Plot:
Ayanda born of the storm was a very exiting book. The author wrote cliffhangers very well. Five out five stars on plot.
Character Development:
I feel like the author could have done a better job establishing Ayanda's relationship with her father. Because Ayanda born of the storm is told from Ayanda's point of view in the first person I feel like a lot of attachment that the reader is going to feel for her dad is dependent on showing him having a strong relationship with Ayanda. However the interactions the reader is given between Ayanda and her father before he's kidnapped are brief. To establish a stronger relationship between the two characters I think the novel should open on Ayandas mothers funeral and the exciting incident should happen right after at the end of the chapter. I give this story a three out of five on character development.
Theme:
In terms of theme this book didn't leave a lasting impression.  Except that sometimes you have to have faith in someone because of their actions despite not knowing them. Except for that the book was mostly plot. I give this story a two out five on theme.

Additional Notes:
This book was horrible in terms of imagery. For instance I don't think the author described a smell once in the entire novel and there are two chapters where the main character and the villain fight each other with lightening yet she never mentioned thunder. In addition the author relied on adjectives in her dialogue tags way to much. It's better to say a character squeezed her hands together and started sweating than to just say  they were nervous in a dialogue tag. The latter is not as immersive to the reader. Literally in the book there is actually a scene where a character responds to another characters dialogue tag. As a result of these two things it sometimes felt like the author was writing a list not a book. Basically just this happened then this for twenty three chapters.
Conclusion:
Overall I give this book three out of five stars. It has good bones but I would not recommend it to anyone or read it again unless improvements are made.