Empress Critique

Overall Impression

Thank you, theemmpress, for sharing The Believer with us Wattpad heads. I apologize in advance if any of this is overly harsh. I strive to give honest, detailed critiques. If you have any questions or want me to take another look, please DM me.

I've left out the curses here because I don't want the critique book flagged as mature.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. The gritty realism and Mo's Star letter avoidance issues sucked me in and left me with more questions than answers, which is an excellent start for a novel. However, I sometimes found the POV switch between chapters a little jarring. The news chapter, while well written, didn't elicit as strong of an emotional response as Mo avoiding the letter did. That may be the intent. Perhaps, I'm not supposed to see Star through Mo's eyes before I know she killed someone. This distance may keep me from feeling too much sympathy for Star and help me see her as Mo's personal Problem.

The Good

Three best from the above list.

Simone's characterization. The older trans roomie immigrant, who still uses English slang, and harangues Mo about Star's letter then apparently steals them out of the trash and keeps them without reading them…love. Extraordinarily well developed!

Dialogue. The dialogue is unique to each character and, in most instances, suits them.

Setting. The melding of the early punk scene and camel-coated New Yorkers created a vivid backdrop that also illustrated who Mo is.

The Bad

POV. More below.

** Indifferent**

I'm on the fence with this one.

I don't mind the slang "ain't", "musta" etc but I grew up in the deep south where even our professors and attorneys talk like this. That said, it does make this a slower read.

Cover and Blurb

The person in the cover thumbnail doesn't show up well on my tablet, but it looks great on the website. The text is legible on both.

The first two sentences of the blurb are hooky. Well, they hooked me anyhow. Year, character name, drunk cult escapee…It works. Excellent use of the old tweet-sized space Wattpad gives you beside the thumbnail!

Hook/Opening

Since "The Believers" opens the book, that's what I analyzed for the hook.

Although I found "my parents used to say" mildly repetitive and bordering on cliche, I believe that's the point. I also don't think there is a more effective way to handle this. If this were traditional prose, it wouldn't hook me. It's not. It did hook me. It also gave me my favorite line.

"All 40 of 'em" is brilliant and grabby. I want to know who this people are and why the narrator had 40 parents.

Plot

Ignoring the news chapter, the plot flows from one chapter to the next, builds on itself, and I found the pacing pleasant. However, for me the news chapter was a slower read. It dialed the pace down. The pace shouldn't be full throttle all the time so this may be a good thing. It's hard to tell at this point in the story.

Characters and Characterization

Were they believable? What was believable? What wasn't? Why wasn't it?

Simone. Simone is hands down my favorite character. Overall, I found her characterization quirky and wholly believable. I love that she kept sayings from British gay culture after she immigrated. Her constant prodding about Star's letters (and the fact she kept them) provides an excellent foreshadowing of coming events. I particularly enjoyed her role as Mo's personal, live-in/roomie antagonist.

Mo. Overall, Mo is believable and had I no difficulty immersing myself in Mo's headspace. However, sometimes I felt Mo's speech was too formal for the character. For example,

"Picking up English **it." > In this context, I believe english is too formal for the character. Perhaps, Brit might work better here.

Leroy Jacks. This may be unimportant to the overall story. If so, please disregard this comment. The civil rights movement during the Seventies had multiple factions (everything from Dali Lama style pacifism to the Black Panthers). My first thought when I read the news anchor's description was "oh, he's like Muhammad Ali". In my mind, that pushed his character away from the MLK style and towards the Black Power movement. This raised questions in my mind as to whether someone with those beliefs would join a multiracial band. I was born in '82, so this is not my era. I just grew up hearing about race fights at the high school my parents attended.

Mo's father. Although he's not a main character at this point and may never be, I found his characterization as a fire and brimstone type preacher both intriguing as far as it influences Mo and Star and a smidge off.

"Mass entertainment is the opiate of the masses." > Although I like this twist on the old religion quote, in my experience most fire and brimstone preachers wouldn't know subtle if it beat them over the head with a bat. The ones that would…This may be a regional thing, but in the deep south this would sail over half the congregations head. The ones I know (heck, the ones I'm related to…as the lone atheist in the family, I dread Christmas) they'd bluntly call it the "devil's music" and say if you listen to it you're going to hell. Just sayin'. It still may be something he'd say to his girls in private, but I don't believe he'd use it during a sermon.

POV

"I just like being in control of my face…if you know what I'm saying" > In my opinion, "if you know what I'm saying" makes the narrator omniscient. I picture this as a video camera. Up until here, it's parked on top of Mo's head. Here it flies up into treetops. With this POV, the narrator does not need to speak to the reader. I do not believe this is a head hop. To me, going from a fairly deep POV to this bird's eye view is a little jarring though.

News chapter…

As a standalone entity, I liked this chapter. I enjoyed how it pulled me back and showed me what was happening without imposing Mo's emotions. That said, I was so immersed in mo's head that when I reached this chapter it sort of shoved me back. That may be the intent. Part of me wonders if this chapter may be more effective if the readers sees and feels Mo's reaction to the news while Mo's seeing it.

Dialogue

Although I noticed a few said bookism, they all felt natural and kept the story moving. Overall, the dialogue felt natural. I don't have a favorite line because I pretty much loved everything that came out of Simone's mouth. As noted above, sometimes Mo's speech seems too formal for the character, but I may be reading too much into Mo's use of slang.

Line by Line

1: TV

"I've escaped but Simone is shouting" > Is shouting feels off like maybe there's a tense issue. Changing "but" to "when" and "shouting" to "shouts" may help.

"Thank you(,) Mo."

"a squat, an abandoned" ... I believe a -- or "at" may work better here than the comma.

"camel coats (are) people starting…"

2: Iran

"The tears and shouts…" > can't hear tears.

"She ****ing loved music, Star" > To me,  this is talking to Star. Perhaps moving Star to the beginning of the sentence as the subject may work better.

"off my back--.Everybody" > The dash may be something automatically inserted by WattPad. There needs to be a space between the . and Everybody.

Conclusion

Overall, this was enjoyable and it's a promising story. You may want to chart out the plot energy (high and low scenes above and over the line respectively) just to make sure the pace slows in the right spots. Just my two cents!