Helpful Reviews by Mumal16

Review By Mumal16: Dare to Dream

Title: Dare to Dream

Author: dontbotherme15595

Genre: Teen fiction

Review by: Mumal16

This is a review for your book as a price for winning the tag fest in my other book, BOOK SHOUT OUTS.

Cover:

The cover seems nice, but it looks too overcrowded, I think it's probably because of the stickers and the colours seem a little sharp. To be honest, I wouldn't have been attracted to the book by this cover. People say, don't judge a book by its cover. BUT cover is the most important thing to attract your readers. That is the first thing which makes the reader look at YOUR book out of the others. So work on the cover, it's colours and font. A simple yet elegant and attractive cover would do.

Blurb:

I love the description but something juicy seems missing from it. Add something attractive in it so people would open your book straight away. Like in the line "not being able to tell her friends, she runs away" add something more to explain this line. Or something a little more about the story that would attract readers.

Chapters:

I like how you start your chapters with quotes. I love the bucket list picture that you made in the first chapter. Great way to connect with your readers.

I don't understand few things in the first paragraph of the first chapter. I think you should give a little pause in the narration with fullstops and start a new sentence. Also, you should tell in which age she got diagnosed with VSD, since you said it wasn't diagnosed in her childhood.

Slangs and short forms are not encouraged in narration writing. Like you should change "uni" to "university". Short forms and slangs give an unprofessional look to the book. I don't know if it was a typo or a mistake, but I corrected it in the inline comment on second paragraph. Be careful of the mistakes as sometimes readers get tired of them and it becomes difficult for them to read, it becomes annoying for people. So you should always proofcheck and edit your chapters before publishing.

In the third paragraph, you should write "a guy and a girl". Also, tell their age, you said "approximately my age" you should tell her age in the story as well. I know you wrote in the character aesthetics but it should be made clear in the story first. It is preferred that each sentence should have twenty words in it and not so long. But your sentences seem very long with a lot of "and" in them. Don't use too much "and" you can use commas. Also, try to give a fullstop and continue in the next sentence.

Use commas a lot, some dashes are very unnecessary, they might get annoying for readers who want good grammar. Also, exclamation mark "!" is not used with a space. For example,  you had written: "You bastard ! Trying to trap another girl in your evil claws !" a gap/space shouldn't be there. It should be like this, "You bastard! Trying to trap another girl in your evil claws!"

Grammar matters a lot for a perfect book. I know we're not perfect and just learning, but we should try to put our best work out there so we can be satisfied with it and so would be our readers. Grammar means a lot to some people, they even stop reading books with bad or not good grammar. So you wouldn't wanna lose your readers that way, love, right? Work on your grammar carefully and a lot.

A person can't speak a whole paragraph at once, unless they're eminem and they're rapping lmao. So you should give a pause in between the dialogues if they are long ones. "I was going to tell you but you didn't listen to me," I say, looking at him as I continue. "You don't trust me anymore, like you did, you're always talking to her bla bla bla bla bla!" I yell, his eyes watching me quietly. "Why are you like this?" I add.

Do you get my point? You should break down the sentences. Don't put it in a whole paragraph.

Describe more feelings with the dialogues. Just don't write simple plain dialogues but add their emotions, facial expressions, feelings to well describe it and make an imagery in the reader's mind. Like we say, SHOW, DON'T TELL.

Their meeting for the first time should be explained more. It felt like it was very rushed how they were yelling at each other about not knowing who they were and then suddenly smiling. It felt really rushed, you should describe a bit more and develop the scene.

But I really loved that part in which she runs away and takes his candid picture, that was really a cute moment and I could imagine it.

I love how she's brave and a happy person. She looks at the brighter side of the things and is not dwelling or shutting herself off because of her disease. Her character is amazing and inspirational, it just needs to be a bit polished in the way of narration.

Her character gives so much motivation and inspiration that despite having a hard life, a disease and parents not focussing on her, she still tries to make herself happy and stay positive. I like how she focusses on the positive side of the things. It's good that she actually acknowledges the fact that she will die so the person who falls in love with her would be broken so she shouldn't make anyone fall for her. It's good yet sad that she has to think like this. Poor her.

In the second chapter when Ron calls to inform Chase about his interview, you should remove the "oh okay" and "yeah". They look unnecessary. Give a feeling of what Chase felt and then say, I agreed and hung up the call.

His pov seemed quite rushed and short. You should give us an insight of his emotions as he tells about his parent's crash. Make us imagine it. It feels like he's just telling like a robot you can say, it seems without emtions or thoughts. Development of the character needs a bit work so we can connect with him.

Your characters, however, seem to give me a lot of inspiration and motivation for not giving up. They are very positive towards life even though they have broken lives. So I love that about your book that it's an eye opening book that shows you, no matter how our life gets difficult, we should not give up on our dreams and keep smiling. So great job, this is an amazing concept.

The chat conversation between chase and hazel shoul have been more interesting. I expected myself to squeal at their dm interaction, but that didn't quite happen because their chat was too short and dry. I think you should make it a little bit interesting, because as a reader, people would have expectations about their interaction, but the chemistry isn't showing in that. It felt like one words sentences only. Also, I feel you should describe chase's emotions and expressions at hazel's texts.

When Asher entered the class in chapter 3, you should describe his physical appearance as well as his expressions so we can imagine it. It felt like there were only dialogues. You should also describe Drew and Mrs. Hamilton's physical appearance and expressions so we can have an imagery in our mind.

Same goes with the other characters that you introduce in the book. Also describe Chase's feelings towards them, his thoughts as well. Because how he met Asher was too quickly written in the book and he suddenly became their friend as well, I still can't understand Drew's personality or how his relationship is with Chase. This means you should develop relations between the characters, their understanding and reactions towards each other should be well explained.

Great books are said to have less dialogues and more descriptions. Because that means you're showing and not telling. But it feels like the chapters have more dialogues in them but no descriptions, which looks like drama writing. Make us connect with the book because as a reader, I couldn't connect with the scene when Hazel and Chase met in school as well. I believe it was very rushed and only dialogues. No feelings or thoughts were explained.

However, your storyline is perfect and amazing. You should just work on your writing style, grammar and story pacing (story flow). I really love the positivity of the book and the characters. Great work, there!

You can use GRAMMARLY for grammar editing or ask editors on wattpad for your editing.

I hope you wouldn't mind my review, I was just being honest to help you make your book better. In this way, you'd be satisfied with your work and so would be your readers.

If you need help with anything else, let me know. If you need marks as well, let me know for that as well.

Thank you for being amazing and sharing your work out there for us. ♥

Please give a shout out to this book so other people can benefit from it too. :)