Quest Reviews (CLOSED FOR CATCH UP)

Nazeefa's review

Book Title: ‘Love’ or ‘Spy’

Author: preshivipes

Genre: Action/Teen Fiction

Chapters Reviewed: All chapters so far (Prologue + 10)

Reviewer: @MidnightKoala

Note: I will try and be as constructive and as polite as possible regarding areas that I think can be improved but still remain honest. It is not my intention to be harsh or rude but if any of my comments come across that way, I do apologise sincerely. I am not always right and sometimes my opinions may be different to yours so please do tell me if you don’t agree with something I’ve said or want to discuss further - I am more than happy to. I hope the review is helpful! ❤️

TITLE:

Your title is amazing! The contrast between the two ideas is really interesting and I like how you link to the concept of a choice between loved ones and life as a spy in your blurb too. It’s a very fitting title to the themes in your story. I think it’s also a good length - not too short to lose its effect but not too long either which would sound clumsy to read. I would only suggest you remove the apostrophes from the words for a more professional look. But overall, a very nice and unique title! 

COVER:

Your cover is absolutely stunning! I am so in love with how you wrote your title in two different fonts, the rigid block letters representing the spy side and the delicate cursive representing the love side. Such an ingenious idea! The overlapping of the fonts also isn’t messy as one may expect - in fact, it’s done very skilfully and has a powerful and professional look to it. The choice of colour is also very meaningful - red could represent blood and violence which is the spy side but could also represent romance and familial love. The background is a very fitting choice; the heels and the gun are, again, another example of contrasting ideas and it’s a very strong image that masterfully reflects the concepts in your story. I can’t say anything against your cover - seriously, it’s one of the best covers I’ve ever seen and if I saw that in a library or bookstore, I would definitely pick it up! It’s absolutely perfect! ❤️👏

BLURB:

Now coming to your blurb, firstly I’d like to mention a minor technical thing with the first line. It should really say ‘in The Undiscovered Awards’ (the word ‘in’ instead of ‘on’ and the words ‘The’ and ‘Awards’ should have the first letters capitalised). Also, congratulations on coming 2nd in these awards! 😊 

Note: whenever I mention a quote from your work, I will highlight it between these symbols <> like so: <quote> to make it clearer where the quotes are.

Now your first line is: <Julie was a teenage girl with a completely ordinary life.> I believe this is quite cliché. I have read so many blurbs with exactly this kind of opening so it doesn’t necessarily hook me in to make me want to read more. The next part is much better because you begin to introduce the basis of your plotline. A minor nitpick is that I think a semicolon would work better in this instance: <...her recruitment into the organisation; she joined them because…> 

There are a few things I’d like to suggest about your next part: <Obstacles come her way, but she overcomes them all and found the one person she never thought she was never going to.> Firstly, there is a tense shift in this sentence as previously, the blurb had begun in past tense whereas this sentence changes to present and then back to past again. In fact, the tense does fluctuate quite a bit in the blurb so I’d suggest choosing either past or present and trying to maintain it consistently - present tense is usually a formality for blurbs.