Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Gnome: Jihad

Title: Jihad

Author: 08_Umm_Waraqah

Reviewer: GnomeMercy

Summary: 3.5/5

An interesting summary! It definitely had a very mysterious air. However, so little was explained, and none of the elements that a summary needs were there. Here's a checklist of things you need for a summary, and try to incorporate this into it: characters, setting, dilemma, and the stakes (something that adds tension). I liked the question at the end, though, that was quite interesting!

Lastly, there was a grammar error:

Jihad is not whom people think she is.
Behind her nervy eyes lies dark and shameful secrets.

It should be:

Jihad is not who people think she is.
Behind her nervy eyes lie dark and shameful secrets.

Overall, there are a few things to work on, but a decent summary!

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, you definitely knew your basics when it came to grammar. However, I did notice multiple typos throughout your story. I highly recommend going back to reread and edit them.

When it came to recurring mistakes, I noticed you had some problems with verbal tags and dashes. Here are examples of properly punctuated dialogue sentences:

"Hello," she said.

Verbal tags are anything like 'she said' or 'they replied'. These are technically part of a dialogue sentence, so putting a period at the end of dialogue but a verbal tag after it is grammatically incorrect.

"Hi!" he yelled.

When it comes to question marks and exclamation marks, there is no need to capitalise the verbal tag as it is still part of the sentence. This applies to dashes, too. When it comes to full stops (periods), you can only use them if what comes after the dialogue is not a verbal tag. An example of that would be:

"Hey." They waved.

On to dashes. There are three types of dashes. A hyphen (-). An en dash (–). And an em dash (⁠—) or (--). Here are the uses:

A hyphen is used when two words are connected. An example would be 'sapphire-blue'.

An en dash, as the name suggests, is the length of the letter 'n'. It is used to show ranges in numbers and dates. An example would be 'from 1800–1900'.

An em dash is the longest dash. It is the length of the letter 'm'. It can be used like a comma or a bracket and has multiple purposes.

Lastly, the difference between 'its' and 'it's'.

'It's' is a contraction, meaning it is short for 'it is'. 'Its' is used when something belongs to an object. An example: the cat played with its ball.

Overall, I recommend doing a reread and clean up, but other than that you knew your basics!

Characters: 3.5/5

I loved Danielle's backstory and her journey to being who she is today. I also loved their friend group, as well as Ameer. Jihad herself was a very interesting character, and I really liked the way you portrayed her addiction. Many addictions (such as drugs and alcohol) are portrayed in fiction, but I've never read about porn addiction, and that was very interesting to read about as I've never seen it before.

My only problem with your characters was that they seemed a lot like caricatures. Ameer didn't have much to him other than the fact that he liked Jihad, and Rasheedah herself didn't have much to her other than being the mean girl. Perhaps her motivation just hasn't been shown yet, but give her a reason to hate Jihad so much. And why does she still hang out with them if no one likes her? And Ameer, what does he have outside of Jihad? I'd love to learn more about these characters! Other than that, a decent job with them! There's still a lot if the story left, so I hope you flesh them out more in the rest of the chapters! 

Writing: 4/5

I really enjoyed your writing style! You knew a good deal of great words, and you showed most things instead of telling them. I only had one big problem with it, and it's similar to the one I had with your summary.

While it's great you showed so much, you should also try and tell a few things. It made it hard to know what was going. For example, when I started chapter one, I had no idea what was going on. Try and remember that you are the author and know much more about your characters and story than we do! A lot of writers make the mistake of explaining to the audience what is going on, so I recommend reading it over as if you have no idea what is going on, or ask a friend to read it. This way, you'll know what you're missing out on explaining.

However, I did enjoy your writing style very much! It transitioned from scene to scene well. I would've liked a few more descriptions.

Plot: 4/5

I definitely think you had a good plot! It was really interesting to read, and since I'm not a Muslim myself (and Jihad lives in Nigeria, right?) it was very interesting to learn about your customs.

I had two main problems. Firstly, you mention it is a thriller. For me, this book seemed to be more of a contemporary than a thriller. Thrillers are supposed to get the reader to feel suspense, fear, surprise, or anxiety. They're supposed to thrill (as the name suggests), but while I did feel emotions reading it, I don't think it quite fits in the thriller category. However, if something happens in the later chapters, then obviously I may be wrong.

Secondly, this is more of a personal thing. I don't know much about the Muslim community in Nigeria, or in Africa in general. As someone whose knowledge is limited, it would've been very helpful to see more explanation in the story. The glossary you provided helped, but I would've loved to see more explanation in the story itself. This is me being very nit-picky, of course. I genuinely liked how original this story was! Your writing was immersive, and it brought a fresh look on addiction. 

OVERALL SCORE: 18/25

Overall, a very interesting story, but try to flesh out the characters a bit more over the story and do some clean-ups and edits for the grammar! Sorry this took such a long time, but I hope it helped!