Book: Marionette: Fabric of Reality
Author: cjstabilla
Reviewer: Sumaia_Islam

[Based on the first 4 chapters~10,000 words]Title: 5/5

The title and its wording are catchy. It's very unique and gives off a mysterious vibe, which fits with the story. The wording resembles the story deeply.

Cover: 2.5/5

The picture on the cover is okay; the person is probably the main character. The colours seemed to fit with the theme of the story as well.

However, there is no title or author's name on it. It's really important to have at least your book title on the cover.

Blurb: 8/10

The opening line of the blurb is very creative. I love how you mentioned the "single flap of a butterfly"; it adds to the beauty of the blurb. Though "one single flap of a butterfly's wings" is more appropriate, because butterflies flap their wings, not themselves.

I couldn't really get what was going on in the line where Camila was mentioned.

The remaining of the blurb was exciting. And I believe the last line reads better as "What time had done molded the kings and dukes and counts into nothing but an absolute peace, only to be remedied by a simple mistake."

Overall, the blurb has a good amount of information regarding the plot and is exciting enough to hook the reader. Just a little polishing is required.

Creativity/Originality: 10/10

Your writing is immensely creative. I love your wording and metaphors.

The prologue was short and to the point and very beautifully written. The first chapter honestly made me think that it would be a typical slave story, but the following events proved me wrong. The description of cruelty towards slaves was very realistic. By all that has been happening in the story so far, I can say it's original.

Plot/Flow: 6/10

So far the story seems to have a unique plot centered around slavery. It's hard to predict what's going to happen next, which makes it interesting.

The flow of scenes, however, makes it pretty hard to follow. Some scenes are paced too fast, like when the strange "anomaly" appeared in chapter 1. Before I knew it, Valt was in a different place from before. At times like these, I had to re-read a few times to make sure if I missed something, and doing so wouldn't help that much.

I'm not really sure about Valt's identity or what exactly I'm supposed to expect from this story. I was confused when in chapter 4, Seth said, "... and the brilliant commander, second in line as the reincarnation of King Soid..." That one came out of the blue, to be honest.

Characters: 8/10

So far we have this main character Valt, who seems to lose connection with reality very often. His character and personality seem well-developed, though I can't say the same for the others. There's Jen, who has an amazing amount of hope. She's bold and optimistic. I really liked her character. Both are in a miserable condition as slaves, and their behavior is understandable. Great job on that.

But since this review is based on a small number of chapters, I see a good possibility that the side characters get better in the rest of the chapters.

Writing Style/Grammar: 7/10

The writing style is nice, I like your vocabulary, metaphors, and choice of words. However, there were many places where the grammar was incorrect. I can't point out all the individual errors here, but here's a list of some of the things you need to improve:

Sentence structures: A good number of sentences were structurally incorrect.

Tense: There's a constant shifting between present and past tense; you should stick to one only.

Punctuation: Use of the apostrophe (') when mentioning things that someone possesses, like "Jen's back" instead of "Jen back".

Commas: There were places where commas are used unnecessarily, and also places where there are none despite the necessity.

Besides, some dialogue tags were like this: "... replied by the man..." or "ordered by the man..." etc. The "by" here is unnecessary, so be sure to remove it.

Some of these errors seemed to lessen as the story progressed, but there's still a long way to go.

Genre Relevance: 5/5

The story is relevant to the genres high fantasy and mystery. Set in a medieval period, with a world of its own, it feels very much in place. The story seems relevant to the high fantasy genre, and it's mysterious as well.

Reading Enjoyment: 2.5/5

As I said earlier, you have a beautiful writing style. The story is fun as well. But it's pretty hard to read because of the grammatical errors. Especially the longer paragraphs, the shifting away from reality and some sentences here and there. Some scenes were also hard to follow.

Overall: 54/70

I can see you have a solid plot and well-developed characters. Overall I'd say you have good bones for the story, but it isn't executed well enough. There's a lack of accuracy in the grammar, flow and the little details, but don't be discouraged by it. You have what you need for a good story, and there's much room for improvement.