Living in the Shadows written by heyennbee

i. COVER & TITLE

Your cover was immediately pleasing to me. It's very detailed and intricate, with a really great overall feeling. However, I think the subtitle at the bottom is a little long. I like it, but subtitles are usually one-liner type messages with a snappy feel. A possible subtitle that I think gives the same feel, but is much shorter, is just the first part of your subtitle: No one knows what lurks in the shadows. I'm a fan of the way that looks. And lastly pertaining to your cover, the actual title is pretty small. You have the opportunity to increase that font quite a bit, which I think you should take advantage of. It might look bad, but I'd recommend just seeing how it looks if you haven't already.

I don't have any complaints about your title. It's unique and exciting but still seems to relate to the concept of the book. With that being said, 'shadows' is a word that is used a lot in titles. I could name quite a few published books off the top of my head that contains that word. That doesn't mean your title sucks, it just means it's more common than it could be. I would look out for any titles that would be even more unique.

ii. BLURB

The organization of your blurb is really good! It's short and sweet, and it tells us what we need to know. With that being said, some of the sentences there are a bit clunky. Look at what I've rewritten below:

Moving halfway across the world was supposed to mean the start of a new life for Red. With a bucket overflowing with issues, forgetting all that happened at home was the only option he had.

College was supposed to give him headaches from lectures, muscle cramps from football and hangovers from parties. But instead, people are out for his neck, he's discovering secrets of a past he never lived, and he's indulging in a romance he should've stayed away from.

Creeping back into the shadows has never been so tempting.

At first glance, it appears I've changed nothing about your blurb. But if you look closer, you'll realize I made a bunch of tiny changes to clean it up. First of all, I changed some sentences to make them flow better (at least, I think they flow better now. Perhaps that's just an opinion thing):

#1: Moving halfway across the word meant the start of a new life for Red. --> Moving halfway across the world was supposed to mean the start of a new life for Red.

This is just a tiny little change I thought would make it easier to read.

#2: With an overflowing bucket of issues, forgetting all that had happened back at home was the only option he had. --> With a bucket overflowing with issues, forgetting all that happened at home was the only option he had.

I changed the order a bit here and took out some words to increase the flow.

#3: But instead, people are after his neck, he's discovering secrets of a past he never lived and he indulges in a romance he should've stayed away from. --> But instead, people are out for his neck, he's discovering secrets of a past he never lived, and he's indulging in a romance he should've stayed away from.

Here, I fixed up that minor tense error and I added the oxford comma. Yes, I know, we've bonded over hated the very thing I'm telling you to include. But here's my logic: I don't like using the oxford comma in a list where each clause is dependant, because regular comma rules say you don't use commas to separate dependant clauses. However, in a list like you have here, the last clause is independent. For example, in the sentence above that one, you don't use it, and I haven't corrected it. That's because the last clause, 'hangovers from parties' is completely dependent. Therefore, no comma. However, the last clause in the sentence in question, 'he's indulging in a romance he should've stayed away from' is completely independent. Makes sense? I hope so. Anyway, that's my reasoning. Basically, I treat the oxford comma as a comma occurring before any normal conjunction. Since there are no strict rules on the oxford comma, this is completely allowed. 

As you can see, all those corrections are minuscule. Your blurb is excellent.

1 2 / 1 5

i. COMMAS BEFORE CONJUNCTIONS

Just as a reminder:

An independent clause is the part of a sentence that can stand completely alone and does not require any clarification to make sense.

A dependent clause is the part of a sentence that relies on the independent clause to make sense.

Conjunctions are words that link clauses, such as and, but, as, for, yet, ect.

THE RULE: If you have two independent clauses separated by a conjunction, there is a comma before it. If you have a dependent clause either in front or behind, you don't put the comma before the conjunction.

Example from your book:

#1: 'Painkillers to keep me from screaming in agony and sedatives to help me sleep yet I was forced to stay awake.'

'I was forced to stay awake' is independent. Therefore, there should be a comma before the conjunction, 'yet'. However, I don't think it looks great that way either. I think a dash would be the ultimate fix to that sentence:

'Painkillers to keep me from screaming in agony and sedatives to help me sleep--yet I was wide awake.' 

Dashes fix everything (:

ii. THE SEMICOLON

I'm pretty sure you understand the semicolon. But although you never use the semicolon incorrectly, there are instances where you use a comma where you should use a semicolon. For example:

'I couldn't quite reach the cut, they seal it off with some thick plaster.'

Both clauses are independent; that is the textbook definition of where a semicolon should be. Again, could just be a mistake.

#2: 'My old therapist tried and tried for months to get me to talk to her but I never budged.'

Again, there should be a comma before 'but', since both clauses are independent.

iii. DIALOGUE

You have your dialogue down, but you have one persistent problem, and that's when an action tag is sandwiched between two lines of dialogue. Like this:

'"The reason we can't arrest your suspect," he again ignored what I said, "is because we don't have substantial evidence against him."

So 'he again ignored what I said' is NOT a dialogue tag. It's an action tag, since it describes an action and does not describe how something was said. This is the right way to format that:

'"The reason we can't arrest your suspect"--he again ignored what I said--"is because we don't have substantial evidence against him."

That's the only issue I saw with dialogue!

1 1 / 1 5

i. AWKWARD SENTENCES

You have some sentences I would consider awkward. Like this one:

'I was about to ask who let the pea-brained twelve-year-old preach but before I could and get into a lot of trouble, Jay replied...'

That's...a lot. But it's hard to fix. Here's what I came up with:

'I was about to ask who let the pea-brained twelve-year-old preach but before I could--and therefore get in a lot of trouble--Jay replied...'

Again, the dash is our saviour. If you have an awkward sentence that you don't know how to fix, throw in the dash. It is a creative writer's best trick.

Another awkward sentence that doesn't require the dash (to throw off suspicion that I was contracted out to review by the person who created the dash) :

'Jay stood in a corner and smirked, pretty sure admiring his handiwork.'

I would just fix that one of two ways:

'Jay stood in a corner and smirked; I was pretty sure he was admiring his handiwork.'

Or for a shorter feel:

'Jay stood in a corner and smirked, surely admiring his handiwork.'

So that's just a little thing you could do to help your story flow a bit. 

ii. PACING

Pacing good. Was very intrigued.

0 8 / 1 0

i. CHARACTERS

You don't really do much physical description. But I still had this picture of V in my head that was really intricate, you know? Even though I'm not sure you ever described him in all that much detail. I mean, you gave us some info like the colour of his eyes and his jawline but it wasn't super descriptive. But I like that vibe. You do such a good job of creating unique characters that you almost don't need that description to be too heavy. For example, I have a main character that I've never described--like, not at all. No eye colour, face shape or hair colour. It's been 200k words later and very few of my readers have noticed. That's because if you make your character vivid enough, you'll never need to tell the reader what they look like--the reader will come to their own conclusion.

However, that means your readers will make up their own descriptions. For characters such as Red and Jay that didn't get any physical descriptions, readers will start to view them in their own way--perhaps not the way you intended. So if you want your readers to envision Red and Jay the way you envision them, you have to get those descriptions out in the first few chapters to solidify that description. But if you don't mind your readers envisioning someone else, then keep your descriptions the way they are. Going back to my MC--I asked my readers what they pictured him as, and they all said something completely different from how I pictured him. So that'll happen to you, too. But you have to be careful to make your characters are so vivid the readers never realize that they weren't given a description. I've had readers swear to me that I had an extensive description of my MC. I've literally argued over it. And the same thing happened to me with Jay in your story--I could've sworn you had a description of him in the first chapter but when I went back and searched for it, I couldn't find it. 

So to wrap up, You don't have a lot of description, but I think you make up for it in the way you create characters. You could add more description, but it's up to you. I think you're good without too much.

ii. SCENES

You definitely could add more scene description, but it's by no means horrible. I find your writing vivid enough without it. But there are always ways to improve. More smell, more sounds, you know the drill.

0 9 / 1 0

i. PLOT

Your plot isn't all that unique, at least compared to the other story I reviewed for you. However, that prologue in the beginning was pretty wack. I'm interested to know how that comes into the story. That, and I think the plot will develop into something more unique as it goes on, which is the vibe I get from your blurb. I enjoy the inner conflict coming into play with Red, as well. I'm interested in how he ends up viewing himself.

ii. CHARACTER INTERACTIONS

My only big issue was that I found the relationship between V and Red pretty hurried. The first chapter Red hated him, and the second chapter he's already questioning if that's truly the way he feels--but I'm one of those people that hates all romance that isn't the slowest slow of slow-burn. You could try to slow it down a little to accommodate people that like slower things, but you wouldn't have to.

 The thing is, the slower the build-up, the better the finale. I'm the opposite of the route you're going--my romance doesn't happen until chapter 20, which is at the 60k word mark. I've had people annoyed that those characters weren't getting together and even had people stop reading because of it. But once readers get to chapter 20, they get SO excited. It's up to you to decide which would be more effective and to try and find the sweet spot in between. Another advantage to slow-burn--readers won't exactly be able to pinpoint when the characters started to like each other, which would feel more natural. Something to keep in mind.

ii. TONE

Now the tone of your book is super unique. You have a definitive sarcastic-college POV, but you don't do it in the way everyone else does. I was impressed with how entertaining Red's narration was.

0 8 / 1 0

You've got a few things that could be cleared up in this story, but overall, it was quite exciting to read. It's not only fun to be in Red's head, but it's also pretty interesting to follow along in his thoughts and the way he goes about his life. I've also got a feeling the plot is going to develop well, considered the prologue and the dream/vision thing in chapter 3. This was an exciting book to review.

4 8 / 6 0