Quest Reviews (CLOSED FOR CATCH UP)

Kola's review

SUNLESS

jaszthewayyoulikeit

Book cover

I absolutely loved the cover and its relation with the title. The glimmer of sunlight
protruding into the main character's face is intelligent and allows for the tone of mystery, intrigue and impending action/thriller sequence. I have never seen many covers with the 'A Wattpad Novel' title written on it, but you have added it perfectly in place making it seem quite flawless. Great work love!

As always, I suggest using your actual name or nickname, but that is definitely a personal opinion. The placement of your graphic sensibilities astounds me constantly. I love the execution of every element, it is completely wholesome. What your cover says - The main character, Storm, is a dominant male with the confidence, mystery and rich determination. I can tell all of this by the first impression of the cover, and I really love how his characteristic traits that I got a glimpse of, continues into the plot!

Blurb

First off, the main character - Storm Zakharov, is a brilliant name. I absolutely fell in love with the unique name that speaks about their character and personality. In this case, he has such a rich essence to him whilst accommodating the gloomy and mysterious vibe. You have perfectly shown us a part of this hunk!

My concern is that there may be too much focus on Storm rather than Yzavel especially
since the book is written in her perspective. I suggest you add her name to the blurb,
highlighting her connection/ interaction/ first impression with Storm. I also definitely
recommend making Yzavel the first name that the reader comes upon.

I don't want to take away from the flawless nature of the wordings, descriptions and
structure because it took my breath away. The connections between each paragraph easily makes it one of the best blurbs I've written. The concern mentioned before is solely observed once I have started the first chapter, and it causes a bit of backtrack. I'm sure you can improve this easily with your skill set!

Writing Style

There is an actual beauty the way that I was roped in from the first chapter. I fell in love
with Yzavel, and her family instantly through the light humour that I found instantly. Her clumsy and delicate persona made it so attractive for me to want to know more about her. The first sentence is an intelligent way to begin the narration of the first-person perspective. I really felt that the way you narrate the story is brilliantly executed. You really get into the thick of the character, especially with the inner character thoughts displaying consistent elements of her personality. There were some places where I believe you can benefit from using shorter and crisp sentences. There are places where you have pulled off the ability to make a sentence long AND effective, but on rare occasions there are places where the sentence is dragged.

Example on chapter 5, paragraph 5:
"My mother was full-on sobbing at this point and I softly laughed, embracing her and kissing her cheek."
The sentence can be split into two. There is a sudden disconnect in her personality as I read the sentence to mean that: Yzavel is laughing when her mother is crying. Since I read it together, it gives the wrong impression. I usually advise to use fullstops when describing heavy emotional states. It causes a temporary pause for the readers to ache for more description, and further dialogue.

This description caught me off guard. The tone of using "full-on" is colloquial and does not match your formal and professional tone of writing throughout the story. I urge you to continue to look for instances like these that may throw the reader off from your writingstyle. Having said that, I felt like there was a little inconsistency in the descriptive qualities of the book. When she first arrives into Storm's world, I believe I could picture the environment. I urge you to continue this style of immersive description when narration simple scenes like conversations she has with people around her. It will keep the lingering interest for more, and add a little spice to it. With your skills as a writer, I'm sure you can get there!

Dialogue

There were certain cases where the conversations were occurring back and forth between Yzavel and her brothers. At some points when you feel like there's a lot of dialogue that you want to write, I recommend these steps to spice the conversation writing rather than keep it at the same pace:

The dialogue delivery can be altered. Sometimes starting with - she choked out, "(dialogue)" rather than "(dialogue)" she choked out. (example) This way you set the scene first and proceed to the speech. The mix of the two really would add more character to the relationships being developed. It allows for you to play with the timing of speech as well. If you start a new paragraph with a dialogue, it sounds like the conversation is bouncing off the characters at a quicker pace. When you place the descriptive voice/detail first, it causes
an involuntary pause to set the scene/ tone/voice of the speaker.

If you require a great pause in between the speech of one person, it would be beneficial to describe, not only, their actions, but also, add more essence to the scene before continuing their speech. This will leave the audience craving for more character interaction anddevelopment rather than reading through dialogue itself.
I imagine this suggestion to be helpful when Yzavel snaps at her brothers for being
overprotective or when they accuse her of being too clumsy and unable to look out for
herself.

"Stop being overprotective. And where's Ben?"

I noticed this quote in the first chapter where there are two different focal points in the dialogue. I suggest ending the quote after "overprotective" and adding a descriptive quality and stating her head movements to the room. This would lead to:
""Stop being overprotective." My eyes roam over the contents of the room, "Where's Ben?""
These are merely suggestions that I hope take forward into the story whenever you notice instances such as these. I recommend you to use your own voice because I am certain that your tone is bold from the writing that I have read.
Your inner dialogues are brilliant. And each one of them gives us (readers) a closer insight into Yzavel's character, and her true (adorable) nature. Great work, love!

Storyline

Sunless is one of the few romantic books on wattpad where I truly felt connected to the
characters and their families. The pacing of the story is steady and takes us through the
journey of Yzavel's life into her first introduction of Storm. The entire situation made me so intrigued, and I constantly wanted more and more when they started bonding. I fell completely in love with Storm's respectful and dominant character. It's a hard line to balance in many romantic books, but this one did it perfectly. I generally hate the stereotypical dominant male element, and you have perfectly made him respectful of Yzavel. He respects her space, treats her like a lady in a very 3 dimensional way.

These two star characters were fully developed, and I loved all of it!!
Some concerns I had would be the brothers in the beginning. I think because of the need to show all four of their characters, there is a blend of their personalities. I go through this alot with my own books where there's a lot of secondary characters. It's helpful to distinguish the highlight of each brother's personality and treat their dialogue (and description) to completely immerse into 3 dimensional characters. I know that they only appear in the beginning, but I think it would be a great kick-off into the book as they are one of the first people introduced in the first scenes.

I believe that your writing and descriptive qualities developed through the course of the book. Towards the end, I was completely immersed and astounded by the detail, especially the scene where Storm and Yzavel release their wolves. It was such a picturesque scene and I could feel the joy in that. I really hope you continue to write because I'm hooked on their story