Off The Grid by calmingfire.

Let's take a look at your blurb:

Transnational organized crimes run amuck in Ghosciety. It resides within, beside, and underneath, The Grid--a place where indifference and uniformity rules the lives of the everyday citizen.

When a reawakened cult comes to flip the table of power around, two rival agencies have to team up in a merger to defend their deep-rooted systems that keep both The Grid and the Ghosciety inline.

Off the Grid is an exploration of obsessions, human nature, and the socio-political constructs that bind us to our beliefs, ourselves, and society.

Oh heck. Well it looks like this is a pretty drama heavy novel. Just thinking about politics hurts my head, but I have no issues reading about it outside the context of the real world. This blurb does what a proper blurb should do—and it does so in three paragraphs. The first paragraph sets the scene. Check. The second introduces the overarching conflict at hand . . . subtly. Check. The third closes by telling us what different themes to expect in the novel—and really, the main takeaway. Check.

As soon as I placed the blurb in this chapter my Grammarly (it tries) picked up that the 'rules' in your first paragraph should be plural since you have a compound subject (indifference and uniformity). That's the only correction I have. The blurb is well done. 

Oof. As it pertains to the extended blurb, I'll just add the paragraph that is a continuation of the second paragraph in the one above.

During the merger sophomore thief, Dido Alleyne, finds herself skin-close with an artifact holding a mystic pull and pseudo-truths. After being deemed a liability, Dido is assigned a bodyguard, Jon Morgan—a sea terrorist four years her senior facing "parole". Though both perceive each other as an immoral roadblock, compromising their crumbling world views appears more enticing with each fleeting second once they realize that untangling Dido from her mistakes is more of a conundrum than they presumed.

I'll say it from now, and this isn't meant to be offensive. These are reviews, so the views I express are subjective, and this might be a reoccurring theme as the review continues. There's a very subtle difference between something that is well-done from a scholarly perspective, and something that is well-done from a consumer-oriented perspective, if that made sense. Something that is academically pristine isn't necessarily likely to be liked by someone who has no technical knowledge. If I were to critique this blurb in a strictly academic manner, it has few faults. It tells me clearly what I am supposed to expect, and nothing was poorly executed. That's as an academic.

On the other hand, from a consumer's perspective, which is mine, not some random John on the street, I wasn't enticed enough to read your novel. Why was this? 

Well, for one, I think what may have turned me off was the way that the plot already seemed overcomplicated from the start. I can't quite put my finger on it and I won't attribute it to only my personal preference, because there's something about this blurb and similarly structured ones on Wattpad that I've seen that have turned me off. 

EDIT: I ran the blurb through my friend too and she said just maybe lack of attention span would keep her from picking it up. I guess that must be it. Whoops. Yeah, my attention span is just too crap—I already felt kinda tired just reading the blurb. 

I think you've made this blurb too much on the heavy side. You're telling us a lot of things that are happening leading up to the main conflict from the blurb alone. You've told us what to expect and the thought-provoking themes explored. You've also loaded a bit more exposition than I would like, and the very last sentence (which I bolded) ran on a little too long, that I had to look back to the beginning and re-read it. It felt like you were cramming a lot of information into the blurb, and quite frankly, I prefer the original summary to the extended.

This is personal preference, but after reading this well-written and clearly well thought out blurb, I still wouldn't want to pick up the book because I felt . . . tired. Oof. I hope I made a little sense. If not, womp?

On to the review!

Grammar/Syntax/Punctuation: 3.75/5

This is your very first paragraph and it starts off strong. I have zero issues with this opening paragraph. Already I can tell that you're an author who knows what they're doing. Phew. I did find a tiny error here though:

This is the first sentence of your second paragraph. I actually had to double check if there was an alternate expression to "it dawned on me", which is the phrase you mean to use here in the place of "a realization donned ". "To don" means to put on clothing. It has a similar meaning to "clad", except that "don" is a verb and "clad" is usually used kind of like an adjective—erm—or whatever part of speech it is. I'm kinda fuzzy there. When something "dawns" on you, in the figurative sense, it's to come to a realisation or an epiphany of sorts. Simply replace "donned" with "dawned". The error is easy to understand since both "dawn" and "don" have slightly similar pronunciations.

There's nothing technically incorrect with the comparison you've used above. I also get where you were going with it—bubbles representing their expectations, the preordained hand popping them, and preordained also hinting that the discovery was inevitable and only a matter of time. 

What did hamper the execution of this comparison, however, was the 'as' right after that em-dash you used to close the Agains's realisation. The sentence could function fine without the minor edit I'm about to propose, but I'm a serial nitpicker. If you remove the 'as' and the closing em-dash and replaced it with a full stop instead, then simply begin the next sentence with 'Their', those two ideas would flow a lot better. They'd seem less like you were trying to cram two different ideas in the same sentence. I won't do this for each case I find because you didn't request an editor but a reviewer. In the event that you find any similar opportunity for an edit though, I'd recommend you make it. 

A habit of mine is that whenever I read a novel I always play it out as a movie in my head—shaky cinematography and everything. A scene like the one I've underlined, or a moment like that, definitely deserves more than one sentence, and you can't miss it. These first few paragraphs set the scene. 

If anyone here has watched the movie 'Get Out' by Jordan Peele, there was a specific scene where the main character Chris Washington is at a party of sort, and he enters the living room. Around him the party guests of his girlfriend's house are chatting, business as usual. When he swerves left to go up the stairs, everyone is talking as if they haven't seen a thing. Only until he's disappeared from the view of the camera does the entire room go quiet. Everyone turns their heads upwards, as if they're all a part of a single being, then their eyes fall back downwards as if nothing happened. (See the comments section if you would like to watch it play out. This scene is spoiler free). 

Now the first time I saw this scene I was pretty creeped out, but it seriously set the tone for the following scenes. When you described the Agains as a single being, and then them going quiet, that kind of opportunity to go into more detail shouldn't be missed. It deserves more than a single sentence—unless that's me reading in too much and you didn't plan to devote that much time to set the scene to begin with. 

Use that 'Get Out' scene as an example of how to create a tiny scene like that. It adds nuance, especially when the whole idea of creatures acting as a single being is definitely a fun concept to play with and exaggerate—at least to me it is. 

I found this description particularly confusing. Oxymorons are always fun to play with, and these descriptions kind of border on that principle: using contrasting elements. However, I don't think that kind of description should be made—especially about a person—unless you follow it up with an actual description showing us how someone could be "marked yet pristine". Details. You've given us a what, but that what is a little incomprehensible—follow it up with a how. Outside of any sort of description to affirm that it's a little confusing, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away since I have no idea what "weighty yet hollow" looks (or feels) like.

These are the rules Master (the leader of the Agains) outlined. The wording for the first two was a tiny bit awkward though. "Do not get caught" can simply be remedied by using a contraction: "Don't get caught." Even then, for a high and mighty master like this, "don't get caught" kinda borders on colloquial—commoner language. I thought he'd find a more . . . tawdry way of saying everything? 

The second rule: "know how to handle a gun" could be shortened to "know thy weapon" or, I'm not sure, any other wording you see fit. I can't really come up with one on the spot but I can tell you what does and doesn't sound well. This entire nitpick becomes null and void though if all of this speech is supposed to be attributed to his "Bostonian Accent". Maybe. Actually, no. In which case, I still think it could use improvement. Regardless of if it's being attributed to an accent or not I still think you should edit the wording—wording can still sound awkward regardless of which accent it's spoken in. Maybe. Oof. I'm spending way too much time in this section.

Aren't eyes already opaque? Any adjective that means dark or conveys a similar meaning to would be a great substitute. 

After reading the end of your prelude I didn't feel too enlightened—this was obviously intentional. But I don't mean enlightened in the 'AH!' sense, I mean I haven't even reached the stage of not being enlightened, as if the whole theme of not being enlightened has missed me. I'm even more confused than I'm supposed to be—if that made any sense. 

Don't worry if it didn't. I won't understand what I've just said a week from now. The entire intrigue or mystery of the prelude was lost on me. I'm not sure what purpose it serves. I was a little confused at the beginning, and it did clear up nearing the end, but by the end, I just wasn't sure what to make of it. Maybe because I'm not supposed to?

 All I've gotten from it is a rally for the Agains, hosted by Master, and Master was a little late. Master then tells us the rules of being an artefact dealer and any other occupation in a similar line of business. Then they chant their pledge of an uprising and end with the master telling them "Now, let's do it again." This ending line especially was lost on me. 

I was confused when I made it to the next chapter and it said 'Chapter Two'. I paused and was like 'Wait' and had to check if I missed something. You counted your Predule as Chapter One? Usually, I count that as a chapter 0. Or am I missing something? 

The number, '71', printed in white on her breastplate, shifted as she reached for an appetizer.

The comma before '71' isn't needed. 

In a way, "besides from" is kind of redundant. 

Syntax issues aside, there were no huge errors in GPS, and my eyes aren't that sharp so I didn't find tons of grammatical or spelling errors. Except for that dawn-don mix-up. In this section it wasn't quite a 4, but still up there. Phew. That was longer than I had hoped it would be. Was there a glitch with the editor? Your em-dashes in chapter two were all messed up and just regular dashes. They kind of detracted from the flow, but I didn't deduct any marks for that.

Chapter Two was great. I liked it and despite not liking the blurb, if I had just been flung into chapter two with no context, and having not read your blurb, I'd want to give Off The Grid an extra read. More below.

Story Concept: 4/5

I haven't gotten too much sense of a story concept except for what I've gotten from the blurb, but this rating is going based completely off what you've promised I should expect, and not necessarily what I have read myself. I stopped at chapter two since I had already been sitting down for nearing 3 hours and I didn't want to sit down any longer (sitting kills). From what I'm supposed to expect, Off The Grid seems like the kind of story already professional in nature—and the concept seems original for the most part. This is a review though, and from the blurb and the hopes one's expected to have of Off The Grid, I've deducted one mark because it wasn't really my cup o tea.

Cover: 3.75/5

Oof. This cover is pretty well done for the most part. The colour scheme is alright, and the graphics are ok. Overall, it's nice, yeah. A solid 3/5 any day. My only qualms are that I have no clue what relevance the vectors in the cover have to do with the title. For one, there's no grid—just a maze. There are two rats/mice as well, and an ominous silhouette of a cat. Of course, I can only get these meanings once I've read the book. Well then, what did you take off marks for? Well, save for those, nothing really. I know, it's not justified. There's obviously a lot of symbolism loaded into the cover, but if I saw it in a bookstore, I wouldn't really pick it up. This is all subjective of course, and I've awarded marks where I think they're due.

Character Originality: 3.5/5

Well, I've already made it clear that I did enjoy Dido's humanism. Also, I'm going to assume her name is pronounced "Die-Doe" as in the singer who sang "Thank You" (the only song I know by her, really) and not a spin-off of the name? I haven't met Jon but I already like his name's san of the 'h', because that reminds me of a particular Jon of Winterfell who may or may not be a Stark. Master's descriptions didn't match his speech, and I'm also going to count the Agains as a single character too—they could have also been developed more. 

This is based on character originality though—and while I've seen characters of master's ilk before, I'm glad to see a character of colour, being a female of colour myself. Whenever I see those poc tags or minority character tags though, I'm always hesitant that they'll be represented in an exaggerated and ignorant way, or in just too much of a try-hard way that screams 'IM BLACK!!!' or 'IM ASIAN!!!' you know? I won't say you portrayed Dido masterfully since I've only read one chapter she's featured in, but I'm glad that you were subtle. I'm also glad that Dido seems like a normal girl, and you humanised her pretty well, I'd say. 

Erm. Master is a whole different conversation though. I have a penchant for exaggerating characters like these since they seem really fun to toy around with, but it felt like the master here was being confined. You were holding him back, and unnecessarily so. A strict character is a little boring to portray isn't it, unless you exaggerate them well. I'd say that rulers who are constantly flowing from one extreme to another—kind to ruthless, totalitarian to laissez-faire, loud to seething quiet—is a much more fun dynamic to play with. This, of course, is an example and not me telling you what to do. What I'd do differently with Master is not necessarily change anything about his existing characteristics, but juxtapose them more and be extremely consistent with that juxtaposition. I'd say the same for the Again. 

One little peeve I did have, and this is completely subjective—are the names you've given a few things. 'Again' doesn't sound that original, and I think if you dwelled longer you could come up with a cooler name. 'Again' just seems normal, and even though its the idea that makes the name and not the other way around, I still couldn't see myself using this in a serious context. Also 'Ghosiety' could be done differently instead of just merging ghost with society. Those are just my two cents though.

Writing Style: 4.15/5

My nitpicks aside, you are genuinely a writer who has had their fair share or research, practice and improvement over time. Your writing style is obviously crafted, and there were few times when elements of the narrative became awkward or a tiny bit stilted (mainly in the prelude. The entire narrative smoothed out by chapter two). You are also a bit heavy on the exposition side, but this dialled down in chapter two. Or maybe it didn't, but just less attention was drawn to it since the narrative had momentum.

I think the difference between the author in the prelude and the author in chapter two is pretty adverse. The prelude seemed to be fumbling around, in my opinion at least. Chapter two was concrete—it had purpose, momentum and I enjoyed that more. Since it tied into the blurb, I understood the direction it was taking. 

Despite the errors above, your writing style is still pretty developed and compared to the other ratings I've given styles different from yours, you obviously have to get a score in the 4s. I did not make it a full 4.5, however, because those simple errors come down to the craft—and for me, that will forever be a work-in-progress for any and every author. Ever.

Now on to!

Pacing/Organisation: 3.85/5

The pacing in the prelude was a little off—it wasn't super fast or super slow, but I felt something was off about it. Telling you what exactly is an entirely different issue though—I have no idea how to explain it. The pacing in chapter two was well-timed. Nearing the end your constant updates on the bids being made for the artefact were a nice tool to build tension. It could have been done in a more creative way, but I can't tell you how, and you employed the device well so I can't deduct any marks for that. 

Was it enjoyable? 3.75/5

I didn't enjoy the prelude, but I did like Chapter Two. Off The Grid definitely has wells of potential to become something more. I did enjoy chapter two. What maybe made me enjoy it more was probably because it came right after the Prelude, which I found hard to understand, but in chapter two I was moving, and I understood where I was going. 

I also enjoyed reading a work where the author took the time to ensure the grammar was presentable, and just generally knew what they were doing. It's not rare on Wattpad, but it is a handful of authors when it comes to the works I've reviewed so far. That gives me more options to critique on technique, rather than having to go over the basics, since the author already knows those basics. 

Overall, Off The Grid is a very developed read, and despite not necessarily being my cup o tea, I can see where some people will favour it.

Thanks for sharing your work and happy writing :)

Total score: 26.75/35
Overall rating: 7.6

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(See 'A Note To All' ^^^)