FatedAtraxia's Book Reviews

The Stains Beneath Our Skin

**Disclaimer** This is an ongoing novel so I cannot give it a thorough review. Please take this with a grain of salt due to this reason. It will need to be re-evaluated in 6 months. **

Title : The Stains Beneath Our Skin
Genre : Dark Psychological Romance
Author : sxxaint

REVIEW

Title :

In all fairness, this is still an ongoing novel! That being said, I am not entirely certain what the Title has to do with the story quiet yet. I am sure, as the novel continues it may be brought to light. 

Cover :

The book is still ongoing. So, I am not entirely sure what significance the skeleton like figure has. I am also not sure about the waterfalls(?) significance either. In color theory, it does match the feel of the Novel.

Summary (Blurb) :

I don't quiet understand the blurb and feel like switching some sentences around could be complimentary. In all honesty, if this were a true book, I would have set it down and never picked it up again just from the summary itself. It already felt like the writing style wasn't very organized. But that's okay because it can definitely be fixed.

What I liked about this book :

Well, lets start with it's not like all the other romance novels, it's got a gritty feel to it and it's lgbtq+. The main character isn't a Gary Stu and in fact the complete and total opposite. It's got a Dark, Grungy feeling, much like the movie Sin City. There are good descriptions and vocabulary used. The potential is there but it is currently lacking due to a few things like lack of character development, lack of dialogue between main character, supporting characters, and or antagonist type characters, description use, and further organization. I really think it could be more than what it is right now.

What I DIDN'T like :

Firstly, there is so much description that I don't think are necessary in the spots they are used. Also there are things that I feel just weren't necessary or talked about for far to long. I was confused just about the whole time due to this. And it was painful to read because of the confusion.

I don't think it should have taken so long to introduce the main character. He could have been at least included in the first three paragraphs. It seemed like they were just filler paragraphs to make the chapter longer. Was he the one making the comparison? Was it comparing where he lived formerly to where he is now?

And it took forever just to get a description of what he looked like. However, it wasn't even really a description...just a mention of his scar. Then much later, the description of him wasn't really a flawless one.
I would like to include; that there wasn't enough character building in the first chapter. I didn't feel connected to the main character at all. There wasn't enough character building for any other characters nor were relationships really... cemented or truly established.

There wasn't enough dialogue between the supporting characters and main character for me, until the date. I believe one chapter would have sufficed for it, in complete honesty.

Overall :

There is potential here. Just descriptions, grammar, and character building need to be reevaluated. Try to take out the unnecessary parts or add significance to them. (ie; he can think those things to himself or explain that he was comparing things, or make them significant to the character and let the readers know why it's significant.)

Also, dialogue. Dialogue between minor or supporting characters are important. Characters like Nona or Jess because it adds to the main character's development.

Ratings :

Overall : 4/10

Grammar : 3/5

Vocabulary : 5/5

Character Development : 2/5

Plot : 4/5

Descriptions : 5/5

- Placement/Use : 1/5

Re-evaluation in 6-months