Reviewer: BloodyTurtle

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Of Claws and Fangs

By @Naive-innocence

Welcome to the 'Dog Fights'. Come in, be sure to find yourself a good seat, the stands fill quickly. Betting is by the entrance if that tickles your fancy. The Stadium is the perfect place for an exciting weekend. So, sit back and enjoy for the show's about to begin. Pitted against each other these poor souls faced either death or surviving with the blood of another on their hands, only to have to fight once again days later. Simply the life of a lab created mutt. Vincens knew this well; kill until killed, his soul lost the minute he first shifted and took the life of another. The pureborn pup watched them, every single massacre as a pet of the notorious stadium owner, Ariana. Luka's already bleak life took a turn for the worst when falling from her good graces, his worst nightmares now a reality. Their paths crossing Vincens and Luka either find a way out to a life of freedom or perish. Though fate has other plans and Ariana isn't one to take being made a fool of. They end up dragged into a situation far bigger than themselves, discovering that the horrors of The Stadium run much deeper than ever imagined.

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Cover/Blurb/Title

Cover • The cover works nicely with the story. It gets the point across, and it shows the blood to expect. However, I recommend that you increase the size of the author name, as it's a little small.

Blurb • It's longer than most, but it's good. I recommend that you add a strong or important quote to it, but that's your choice. It does have the same grammatical errors as the rest of the story, and I'll go into more detail in the grammar section.

Title • It's a good title for a werewolf story. It's basic, yet it's not too bland. Also, it's not the basic "the (single word)" format so many have, so that's a plus.

Descriptions

In the fight scene in the first chapter, I was completely enveloped in the story. It was so strong. The fighting areas are described very well in the first chapter, so that's one positive you have. Personally, I LOVED the gore descriptions. They were great. Some areas of the book don't have as great of scenery, though. After the main description on the first chapter, it started fleeting a bit. The actions were well described, and I could easily picture everything. Overall, good descriptions.

Characters

The character personalities were definitely there, and that's great for stories. Many books struggle to give characters inner voices, but this story does a good job. The scenes where they were fighting clearly showed the wolf forms and made it easy to visualize. But, I found it hard when they weren't fighting. I wasn't quite sure what they looked like,  (were they were still wolf-ey or human-like or a mixture?) nor did I know if they wore clothes or what they wore for clothes. I only know Luka was in a green hoodie after the second chapter when he was the main POV. Also, the non-wolf characters didn't get extremely detailed imagery. I don't know what Rick looks like, though I know his personality. You might want to describe the characters past the wolf forms. But, I certainly liked these characters.

Plot/General Writing

I liked the pacing of this story. It wasn't too fast or slow, and I felt at ease when reading. When I saw you mention POV changes in the author note, I felt a sense of dread cover me, but I was happy to realize you know what you're doing. The POV changes were done nicely in a way that wasn't confusing, and it luckily isn't first person so it's easy to understand. By only having one POV per chapter, it worked well. The storyline itself is interesting. I actually don't read or like the werewolf genre for the most part, but I actually enjoyed this to my surprise. It wasn't the romance and nothing else "chasing after alpha" stuff everyone writes, but it's actually good. The gory side, and I like it. The storyline itself is interesting, and I'm sure it will go along swimmingly.

Grammar

This needs a little work, but it's not terrible at all. The grammar was good, but a few things need work. Especially, from what I noticed, the sentence structure. Sometimes, two sentences should've been one, but a period was mistakenly placed. Most of the time, it was sentencing that should've been cut apart instead of kept as one with many commas. Or you should've added conjunctions after the commas. A few other mistakes were here and there, but nothing major. You might want to hire an editor when you're all finished, but I wouldn't worry too much for now.

Reader Engagement

I was definitely engaged. I enjoyed reading this, and I found myself sucked in due to the characters and lovely fight scene descriptions and common action descriptions (what the characters are doing). It ended each off with me wanting more.

Overall

4.5 stars out of 5

I enjoyed the story, and it's caught the eye of someone who tends to run far away from werewolf. The scenes were beautifully bloody and awesome. Just work a bit on scenery everywhere, and maybe some characters. That, and a bit of grammar. I recommend this for anyone looking for a cool and gory book, and you definitely don't need to be a huge fan of werewolf to like this.

Good luck, lollipop!