*This review was done by Chlora and vetted by myself. If you've any dissatisfaction with the quality or outcome of the review, PM either of us.

The Last Philosopher by NickfEast.

OVERVIEW OF STORY

SIMPLY PUT: Has a very interesting concept except it was drawn out and hard to pay attention to. 

I found myself straining to keep my head in the book, and reading it without my thoughts straying to something else. It didn't pull me in or grasp my attention long enough during the time that I read it.

MORE IN DEPTH: The concept is attractive and thought-provoking, however, the way it plays out is lengthy and prolonged. Like the prologue, for example, the way you introduced this new planet was great. The descriptions and comparisons played a mAJOr role in setting the scene, but I felt as if I were in Geography class because of how dragging the chapter appeared to be. It was heavy on its exposition. 

I go into full details during the review below:

The review criteria are:

COVER:

ORIGINALITY/STORY CONCEPT:

GRAMMAR:

CHARACTERS AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:

WRITING STYLE:

PACING/ORGANISATION

ENJOYABILITY:

The final score, as usual, is out of 35.
After it will be multiplied by 100 and given an overall rating.

COVER: 2.5/5

The cover is bland. If I were doing my usual story binge on Wattpad and I saw this story, based on first glance on the cover, I would honestly ignore it.

I can see where you were trying to go with the important looking silhouette on a hill with the quote under it, but the colour scheme and lettering just didn't flow well and look professional. It looked as if it were made in the cover app for Wattpad, which I've used before and it doesn't produce the best covers. 

For me, I'm no Photoshop  expert, but as I'm sure you've heard a thousand times before, Canva is love, Canva is life, go use it. 

And then there are tonnes of talented cover makers/graphic designers here on Wattpad that you can ask to help make your cover have that BANG factor.

Edit: EchoSagal  went around and found some examples of fantasy covers to help.

ORIGINALITY/STORY CONCEPT:3.5/5

Your story concept is not completely original. It's something I have read before. But not something I have read on many occasions. 

The idea of the elder wizard/sorcerer/magical being dealing with some kind of mental issue is not a new, fresh idea. But you did try your best to add what you could to make it your own, to which I applaud you.

GRAMMAR: 4/5

There were almost no errors that I could spot in your spelling,(except in the description), BUT there were many instances where you kept on using the same adverbs to describe different things. 

Remember Thesaurus.com is your best friend in these situations. 

CHARACTERS AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 2/5

My main issue with the character development is that you did more telling than showing. There were moments where you'd spend a whole paragraph or two describing looks or traits instead of just dropping subtle hints in your story about these things. I also didn't really feel any connection with these characters, they didn't feel real to me.

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

It is unique in some ways and well developed, toBut there is such a thing as going into too much detail. And you do that very often in this story.

I still give you brownie points for the way you structured your chapters though.

Again, a writing style is a distinct tone of one's writing, and it didn't have any WOW factor that had me taking great notice of it. 

EchoSagal's Input: 

Then there were parts that were also heavy on exposition.

And while it's certainly good to have exposition, too much is also really heavy on the eyes, and less patient readers (i.e. Chlora) may have a hard time paying attention.

Sometimes it's necessary to break your exposition in half, or summarise it, so it's not too demanding. 

You can also break the paragraphs into pieces. 

While its the same amount of words, the way its presented makes it appears as if you don't have a lot of reading to do. 

And hey, sometimes its necessary to trick your readers for them to read your details. 

Take "The Towered City" for example, (#shamelesspromotion) there are some heavy details there too, but I used some lovely psychology  to make it seem less cumbersome read.

I also did the same thing with this paragraph. (evil laugh)

ORIGINAL PARAGRAPH ⇣⇣⇣

EVILISED PARAGRAPH ⇣⇣⇣

PACING/ORGANIZATION:2.5/5

There were a lot of moments in this story where I felt as if I was going to doze off because it was too lengthy and you went too in depth on elements that didn't really matter in the end.

ENJOYABILITY: 2.4/5

The story felt like I was studying for an exam. As I mentioned before, it is too drawn out. It was like doing homework writing this review. Try to work on keeping minor details short or out of the story completely.

I hope you take these points I rose in the critique into consideration while editing your book, as at the current state it is in I wouldn't necessarily recommend these to any of my close friends who are consumers of the fantasy genre. 

Thanks for your time and submitting your work. 

Here are your final results: 

TOTAL SCORE: 20.4

OVERALL RATING 5.9

UP NEXT: 

Dying Embers by anupamarc.
Reviewer: Echo

side note: You're cover is looking stunning so far,
let's hope inside is just as such 😅👌.