Title: Alex Masker.

Author: angel_0v0_lee 

Genre: Teen Fiction

Rating: PG-13 (Mild swearing, action, maybe make-out?)

# of Chapters: 9 (it's ongoing but I haven't kept writing.)

# of Chapters I've read: 2 (Prologue + Chapter 1)

Summary/Blurb: 

#BadassReads

She could never reveal her identity if she wanted to survive.

Alexandria (a.k.a Alex Masker) has one mission by the deals and order from Mr. Jack. She has to protect Sarah, his only granddaughter whose the richest teenager out there, from being kidnapped by gangsters from around the world for ransom. This means she can't have any distractions.

Life is a slice of bad luck for Alex, but fate suddenly changes after attending a new school at the start of a new year.

Can she hold up the charade? Can she keep up the pace? What identity of hers will she choose?

Review:

Cover:

After reading the blurb, I would've expected the title to be something more attention-grabbing than just the main character's name. Even The Harry Potter series has subtitles that summarise what each book is about—before the eponymous character becomes a household name, it has to be discovered first. It also makes me wonder whether Alexandria's last name just happens to be a pun (because she's some kind of secret bodyguard) or if this was intentional.

I strongly dislike when this is done—unless there is irony to be found in it (like calling someone's who's unlucky, Lucky)—because it doesn't show a lot of creativity. I mean, her first name is Alexandria, which sounds regal, but then Masker just... does not sound right.

There are a lot of things that don't work for me with the cover either—

a) The image seems to be from a fashion show or a photoshoot of some sort. Like one of those artsy ones—it has nothing to do with secret agents or bodyguards, etc. This would be more suited to a story revolving around the 19th century. I also don't understand what the smoke is supposed to symbolise, and whether it's part of the original photo or if it was edited in. Is the girl's dress on fire?

b) Four different fonts have been used (two of which work better for Horror books) and all the text has been squished to one side of the cover, to block as little of the woman's face as possible. The subtitle and author's name are both unreadable, and the entire ensemble is blurry.

c) The sticker, in fact, doesn't even seem to belong on that cover. When I read badass reads, I'm expecting a badass cover, but the two seem completely disconnected.

Overall—You need a better book cover (from a different graphics designer preferably).

Blurb:

This blurb feels like you've taken bits and pieces from different genres and sewed them together to create the Frankenstein monster. The first line seems to be taken out of a Werewolf novel, the first paragraph from an Action book, whilst the second paragraph from a Teenfic. What's going on? Where is the angry mob ready to take down this beast—with torches and pitchforks—before it kills any other innocent children? If that wasn't enough, it ends with three rounds of rhetorical questions, one after the other, to ensure that the potential reader is 100% dead. Maybe you should chop off their legs so they can't haunt you from beyond the grave.

Essentially, everything seems disjointed and unrelated. How does Alexandria having to save Sarah have anything to do with her starting a new school? Who is she trying to hide her identity from? What charade is she holding up?

This sentence was an additional put-off, "[...] his only granddaughter whose the richest teenager out there, from being kidnapped by gangster from around the world for ransom." There are about a million different things I can point out as being wrong about this, but I won't list them. Just go into one of those cliché bashing threads in the Improve Your Writing Club and you'll see what I mean.

My issue with this isn't the fact that a lot of the elements I'm going to encounter in your story have already been done because I'm a sucker for well-written clichés. It's the fact that nothing about this blurb makes me want to read this story, and I can already predict the plot from all the information you've crammed in.

Overall—Yikes.  

First Impression:

The prologue wasn't a prologue, or at least, it didn't serve the purpose of one. That is not to say that it wasn't heart-wrenching, in a way, I mean I can already see that this character has gone through a lot of shit, and the story hasn't even begun. However, the prologue serves two very distinct purposes:

a) Provide as much backstory as possible in order to avoid awkward conversations/blocks of narration halfway through your plot. If you're a fan of the fantasy genre (or not, that's alright) you may have noticed that the authors utilise the prologue to build their worlds. Establish what's good and evil, the rules, the magical powers, etc., all in a super cool way that is guaranteed to fascinate the reader (and avoid Tolkienesque descriptions).

This prologue doesn't provide any sort of information about the character—it's like an overdramatic diary entry. It also ends with "Who am I? My name is Alex Masker, and this is my story" something which I've seen overdone. It only works in Action movies, where the main character is some sort of cold-blooded killer with a dark past.

b) Hook the reader + hit us with the story question straight up. This is often done by including a scene from halfway through the book, or the ending, so that when you reach that actual scene you have gathered enough information to really appreciate it in all its glory.

Usually, the prologues I see on here serve no purpose other than trying to add some excitement—the chapter  often starts off hella boring and mundane.

Anyways, moving along, there are some things that didn't quite make sense:

"I'm like a puppet who has no freedom."—> Well, duh, that's what a puppet is. Its sole purpose is to be controlled by someone else, it doesn't have a life of its own.

There are awkward shifts between the POVs and tenses and again, I feel like the sentences are disjointed and unrelated. Additionally, the lone sentences aren't working for me—paragraphs usually have 5+ sentences, and distancing them like you have done is to put emphasis on a certain idea or event. Like this, it just seems to me that you're trying to make the prologue appear longer.

Finally, try not to have such a long A/N—it's practically the same length as the prologue.

Overall—Let's get on with the story already!

Writing Style:

There are a lot of grammatical and punctuational errors, but I'll just list three of them: 

1. Tenses—You fluctuate a lot between the past and present tense, stick to one. I've noticed that a lot WP books that use the first person POV write in the present tense, so that might be something you could consider doing if you're finding it hard to write in the past tense. 

2. Diction—Your vocabulary is simplistic and easy to read, but there are often these surges of more advanced words, which often sound awkward, out of place, or are simply misused in the context in which they are placed.  

E.g.1 "I stripped my clothes off and dwelled at the mirror." The word 'dwelled' is used incorrectly in this sentence. 

E.g.2 "[...] for underneath this facade lives an impotent girl who lives in misery and carried misfortunes along with her." I'm sorry when I thought of the word "impotent", the first thing that came to mind wasn't "weak", but something R-rated. 

3. Punctuation—You used several exclamation to indicate hysteria and often misplaced commas that create awkward pauses within a sentence.

Overall—I would suggest getting someone to read over this. 

Characters:

Alex Masker—She (or he?) sounded so grown in the prologue, like a woman who's lived a thousand lives. Instead—quite dissapointingly—I'm given a sixteen-year-old who considers herself "different" and without the tendency to "to gather lots of friends, go to parties, follow trends, and make out with hot boys." She sounded so condescending that it actually made me want to slap her across the face. Also, there was no way that I would've thought that she was disguised as a boy, or took up this new "identity". Through the narration, she sounded every bit as annoying as a teenage girl written for the genre; all she did was complain.

Mr. Jack—Is that his first name or his last name? Anyway, I haven't met him in the book yet, but he doesn't sound like a very bright individual. I mean, this guy has a granddaughter that is "the richest teenager out there" yet he can't afford to pay for a swarm of bodyguards, instead hiring a sixteen-year-old girl no older than his own granddaughter. It doesn't make sense. I think he just wants his granddaughter dead tbh (especially since she got swiped from right under his bodyguard's eyes).

Sarah— Don't know anything about her either, except that she's a very loud screamer. 

 Kurt Mason— Is practically a modern version of Fagin from Charles Dickens' novelOliver Twist. 

Diamond rating ♢ (1—10): 5

Honestly, there is a lot of work that needs to be done, but don't let it discourage you! It is only a first draft after all, and there is always room for improvement. So take the bull by the horns in the editing stage, and everything will be alright. 

Good luck!