Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Lina: Smoke and Mirrors

Title: Smoke and Mirrors

Author: SNNair

Reviewer: linalagosya

Summary: 2/5

The summary does introduce the main character as a she-wolf, and hints at the antagonist, Damian. But other than that, it says nothing really of who the character is or what's going on in the story. The most interesting parts (that she's a warrior breaking boundaries for she-wolves, that there are gods and reincarnation involved) are all left out of the summary. You don't want to give away the story, but you definitely want to let readers know what they're getting into, and hook them with more than a generic storyline. The story has a lot of unique things, so I say go ahead and hint towards those things!

Grammar: 3.5/5

Overall, the grammar was fine, and the mistakes weren't too distracting. But there were lots of consistent mistakes that made the read a little more troublesome than it needed to be. There are often slips into present tense. Like in chapter one "The child begs..." "This phrase is repeated..."

There are also a lot of run-on sentences, using commas instead of periods, to the point where the meaning of the sentence is lost entirely. These are fairly easy fixes, and with some proofing would be corrected. 

Character Building: 3.5/5

I think what the story does best is create a lot of strong characters that are all really different from each other. The best thing about Sapphire is how strong and badass she is. She is a fierce warrior, and all the suffering she's been through to make her who she is has only made her stronger, and she doesn't let anything destroy her. That is a character we want to root for. When her full wolf comes out and she fights with all she has, it's something to behold and a lot of fun to read. What I wanted from Sapphire was that I wished I knew what she wanted, what the desires of her heart were. Yes, she wants revenge, but everything that she wants or does is in reaction or response to what others have done to her. I want to know, apart from all that, what is her north star? Doing the right thing, maybe? If so, how does that come into conflict and how does that change when Damian gets his hands on her? Her external arc (she was captive, then she's free) is fine and very straightforward, but what's her internal arc?

Damian also is a strong character in terms of having a backstory that describes why he is the way he is. However, he's so one-note, that he falls a bit flat on the page. We always know he's going to do the most evil thing he can do, which leaves little room for suspense or surprise. He has no nuances. This isn't a terrible thing, but as a character who we have to follow the POV of, it does make things a bit more static, as opposed to the dynamic nature of reading Sapphire's POV. It's easy to become a bit bored with Damian.

Chloe seems like she has the potential to be a very dynamic character, and one the readers could like a lot. But she only gets a couple of chapters and she's completely defined by her feelings towards her brother. It isn't until much later in the story that we even get any sense of what she wants or who she is apart from Damian and Sapphire. She cries over Sapphire but we don't really understand why. We get no glimpse of her life apart from her responding to the two of them. I'd love to see Chloe as a more fully fleshed out character, especially if she's going to be having her own chapters. The fact that she immediately cares for Sapphire shows that she's kind and caring, although how much she cares for her is a bit confusing. I thought maybe she knew her from before.