J's Reviews [closed to catch up]

#16: Diary [YoonMin]

First Impressions

The Cover: Ok, this cover isn't great. It doesn't say anything about the story at all and just shows a picture of a boy with a book that says diary. It's a picture with words on it, but book covers have to be a lot more than that. I don't mind making a new cover for you like the one you currently have really needed to go.

The Summary, Jimin finds the diary of a certain unknown boy. This is a sentence. Not a summary. Where's the mystery? Where are the questions? If someone doesn't know who Jimin is why should they read this book? This summary doesn't even give a hint as to what the book is about.

Chapter one: Introduction
The first line of chapter one is weak in my opinion. I prefer books to start with a little action or something that really grabs the reader's attention rather than a simple line of dialogue. The sentences through this chapter do not flow very well at all, they stop and start which gives it a bumpy feel. Sentences should be smooth, with a clear start and a clear ending.

We start with a ravenette sitting down on his bed, I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a description of the character but I think there are better, less flowery words you could have used as a lot of your readers may not know what a ravenette is. The dialogue is disjointed. You don't really need to put when a character is shouting, in capital letters as you have used an exclamation mark that shows the reader that your character is shouting.

Although short, there is a dump of information regarding your 'character' Jimin. 23, senior in college studying music, extremely talented and handsome, (in whose eyes?) oh and popular as well. None of this needs to be mentioned so early on in this chapter. No man on Earth is perfect, they all have pretty awful habits, some don't even flush the chain, but I feel what you are trying to do is say this is a perfect man. He's handsome, but who says he's handsome? If he thinks that himself then he is very conceited, for all he knows others could think he's unattractive. You mention he is extremely talented, but who says he is talented? The thing with fan fiction is I'm not sure whether Jimin is in BTS in this book or if he's just a normal boy (they all look younger than 23).

If you are really serious about writing then what you need to do is try and show the scenes by using enough detail to show the reader what is happening through the eyes of your character. Unfortunately, I can see that you haven't done this. Think about what they can see, what they can hear, feel, touch. Use their senses to show the reader their lives.

As I read through this book I can see the tense is switching which is making it rather difficult to read.

Conclusion
I am sorry but this book isn't really my cup of tea. There isn't much of a hook and is a little bit of a muddle to read. I am unable to complete this review and unfortunately, I did stop reading after chapter one. I think a read for read book club would help you with gaining feedback on this story. The spelling and grammar aren't brilliant here either and it needs a complete edit/rewrite to make it readable.

I noticed that when you filled in the form for me to review this book, you said it was a really short story that could be finished within an hour. Although the chapters were short, the whole book was 91 parts long and I'm sorry, but I struggled to finish the first chapter let alone another 90 of them.

I can only apologise if my review came across as too harsh.