Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Elysia: From the Perspective of a Player

Title: From the Perspective of a Player

Author: plainly_leemah

Reviewer: ScarredHeroes

Description + Book Cover: 3/5

The book covers seems to match with the story and its genre, so I have nothing much to say about that. But, I suggest you to change your book cover, once the story delves more deeper into the plot.

Your description was formidable, providing a concise introduction to your story and what readers should expect when they begin to read your book. Although your description is enough, it would be more effective if you ramped up the drama by rephrasing your sentences.

Two love stories, his past and present.

When the sun starts shining in the darkroom his past kept her secrets, the present merges with the past and he's forced to pick one love story.

Rephrased: 

Two stories of love. Two different timelines- the past and the present.

Which one will he choose?

When the sun begins to shine on Alexandre's gloomy life, doomsday returns as the past catches up with the present, forcing him to do something he never thought he could do.

Choose the girl he really loves.

Writing Style: 2/5

I struggled to comprehend the timelines you constantly switch between the duos- Rachel and Alex to Alex and the present, consisting of Jade.

Often, I found myself re-reading paragraphs, that voiced copious amount of doubts and questions regarding the main essence of the story itself- true love.

You've not yet established your unique sense of story writing, it seems like you are trying to write something that has already been written.

This is a certain face every author goes through considering writing is more of a process. Every budding author, especially in YA tend to cross through these lines and fail to incorporate ingenuity.

In your book, there are many aspects that hindered me from truly interpreting Alexandre's pain and turmoil of getting over his first heartbreak.

But the most prominent happens to be the way you write.

I feel like you haven't really thought about how you want your book to weave into, too many things, very little description. What is your story really about- A player's past thats shaped them to become like this? Or a love story of a boy who already has his heart broken?

You are missing the first most important thing when you're writing a book- A skeletal description of every chapter and your idea of your book as a whole.

This outline will allow you to go in-depth of how your story will play out to be. The question 'when' must be answered according to the chapters and how each one of them will play out.

For example, the questions- When will Alex learn the truth, When will Jade get to know the whole story, When will Rachel and Alex patch things up?

Apart from the whens, there are a multitude of questions, that are equally as important.

Every story must have a solid reason, whether it is the transformation of personality or heartbreak, remember this: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So everything your character does, make sure they have something else that happens in their life: either good or bad.

You've separated your chapters, the past indicated by roman numerals and present by numbers.  This is good, but I still felt like the present gets derailed, losing the importance we must provide on the present. True, we do want to know what happens in the past that separated them, but I feel like you don't need to bring it up immediately after the third chapter.

Grammar + Punctuation: 2/5

Your utilisation of grammar is formidable; it is enough to convey the meaning of the character's intentions and thoughts appropriately.

But apart from that I feel like your story can widen in the aspect of vocabulary.

On the lines of punctuation, apart from the general lags of missing commas, spacing and minute errors, everything else was perfect.

Characterisation: 2.5/5

I've already articulated the most important lags of your story under the 'Writing Style' section. But let me highlight how it affects your characters too.

Since your story is on a rocky base, I was forced to remain neutral as what your characters are.

I was not able to specify and categorise any of them. Especially, Alex.

I comprehend how writing a bad boy would make a story more interesting, but this should not be the only intriguing aspect as people can easy write your story off as just another 'cliche'.

The reason why I'm not able to point our specifics is that 1)- There's too many to point out regarding character evolution.

2) Your frontline idea is ambiguous.

One of the big pros is that all the characters are unique and different- even if they do settle in the quintessential 'cliche' tag clan, your characters stand out-Let it be Jade, Alex, Tori and Carter.

While crafting a character, you have to go in-depth in all aspect of them- appearance, personality, likes/dislikes. Precision and detailing minute aspects like pet peeves, habits they do when they experience various emotions make your character more memorable.

Plot + Originality: 2.5/5

With the current plot and storyline, to me, I've read a lot of books very similar to this. As I've said earlier, the YA genre( teenfiction) is bound to have similarities. What makes every book different is the characters and the storyline that they are put into, which is able to be relatable to so many as well as evoke emotions from the readers.

I think your book has potential, if you can put some more thought and action into it.

OVERALL SCORE: 12/25