Title: Under Ontario Skies
Author: Chiara Malwana (IvashkovLightwood)
Genre: Contemporary teen fiction (mature)
Narrative: First-person, present tense - shifting POVs.
Content: 34 chapter + an array of bonus content
Link: wattpad.com/story/186746974

Summary:
Elvie Presley Jones, who goes by Presley, is a senior at Charles Adams High School. She is teamed up with the new boy in Band, Deon Martinez, who just moved to Canada from Nashville. The two have to work together on a song for the Winter Musical, a big music competition for schools in the Ontario region. As they get to know each other, feelings start growing between them. While Presley's best friend encourages them to be together, a girl from school tries to get between them and sabotage their audition for the Winter Musical. Her attempts fail, and Presley and Deon go on to perform at the competition, but when they return home, a big surprise is waiting in front of Presley's house.

Cover:
I think it's a beautiful cover. I really like how 'Under' has been ripped to follow the landscape in the background. It gives a great effect. But there's a bit of a style confusion happening. The big "clip-art" cloud at the bottom half fits the text very well, but when the top half has a more realistic look, it makes things clash a bit.

Blurb:
The blurb follows a Wattpad classic: one description for each of the main characters. It does work, but personally, I prefer one coherent text. That said, it had some good lines that made me smile.
But after reading the book, I feel like it gives a wrong impression of what the story is. The blurb tells of the characters' past, but in the story, we're much more focused on the present. Their past doesn't play as much into the story as I expected – based on the focus it gets in the blurb.

The good:
I appreciate that the book is made up of shorter chapters. It makes it an easy and quick read. Even with my concentration issues, I had no problem getting through the book with relative speed. That is a big plus for me, and if you're the kind to read on the go, you'll appreciate this.

I also welcome that Chiara isn't afraid to bring up subjects in the book that are usually kept to more hush conversations. We should be able to talk openly about periods and being sexually free. I just wish it had been done in more moderate amounts. I know that's kind of contradictory, but it's about finding the right balance, knowing how much is too much.

The book has some very good descriptions and word choices, which, as a writer, I love seeing. E.g. I enjoyed the description of their kiss in chapter 18. It didn't just focus on the kiss itself, but included their feelings and sensations. It really brought it to life.

Seeing as Chiara isn't a native English speaker, I'm very impressed by her vocabulary.

Quotes I liked:

Chapter 8 - Gramma:
"I wonder who put that goofy smile on your face."

Chapter 20 - Presley:
"The flutter in my stomach is all the encouragement I need to hoist myself up on my elbows and kiss him."

The bad:
First, I want to point out that Chiara acknowledged the book needed to be edited. However, she declined my offer of waiting for her to do so before I read it, and that lack of editing shows and it, unfortunately, hurts the reading experience.

The story has a lot of small scenes/chapters that are just kind of... there. They don't add anything to the storyline and are never brought up again. And I'm confused by what they were doing in the story - what I was supposed to derive from them. It leaves the story without a coherent flow, giving it a staccato rhythm with constant stops/cut-offs.

Something that added to that feeling, was the choice of narrative. I'll be honest and say I don't understand the choice behind a 1st person narrative with shifting perspectives in general. I will always advocate for 3rd ominous as the better choice if you want to tell the story from more than one character while also having access to their thoughts. But, hey, that's just my opinion.

But since this is how I feel, I'll admit to getting exhausted by the constant jumping back and forth in perspective while reading. And a lot of time it was unnecessary for the story. In the beginning, when each of them got their own chapter it was okay, but when it became a constant shift back and forth within a single chapter it was too much. Especially when things mention by one character were repeated by the other when the perspective shifted.

I'm missing an actual storylined plot for the events happening in the book. A lot of events didn't have any effect on the plot beyond the scene in which it occurred, which confused me as to why they were there. What the point of them was for the overall plot?

Lastly, I sadly never felt a connection with the characters in the book. Their dialogues and behavior were too often over the top and unnatural to me.

Throughout the book, there was too much that didn't make sense for my liking.

Conclusion:
This was a weird reading experience. Things that were good were also bad. One moment there's a decent scene with some good descriptions and amazing word choices, but the next moment there's too much description of meaningless details and the scene has seemingly no purpose for the story development. And sadly, there's an overweight of the latter.

If I ask myself what the story is about, all I can come up with is that it's about two people falling in love. But for a story to become an interesting read, it needs more than that. It has to offer a unique (sub)plot or you could just as well pick any of the millions of other books on Wattpad about falling in love. And, sadly, that "something more", which I assume is supposed to be the music contest, is pushed so far to the background that it loses all significance for the plot.
Based on the blurb, I had hoped to see Presley and Deon bond while practicing their music - getting closer through that - but we see next to none of it.

The story could have a subplot about Deon fighting his old demons. It could have a subplot about Presley fighting to get her life back after losing her family. Instead, we have a weird one-sided rivalry for Deon's affection that make no sense to me and has no explanation.
The music competition is only mentioned in brief comments or in talking about rehearsing, but we never get to actually be there with them and see them work on the project. Scenes like that would have so much potential of showing them getting closer. Sitting close together with beating hearts, their thighs touching. Those sweet young love kind of elements. Instead, we get random vulgar comments shot in everywhere, and a scene of Deon going down on Presley not even 24 hours after admitting they have feelings for each other. It kind of had me spinning.

There are good elements to the writing, and I'm sure that with more practice, thorough storyline work, and a focus on character development, there are good things to come from Chiara. Writing is an art form, it takes work. Of course, it depends on one's willingness to take the time and putting in the effort to make the story the best it can be. Some prefer to simply move on with their next idea. She's clearly capable of writing a good scene when she isn't in such a rush and lets it develop at a natural pace.

I hope, as Chiara continues to write, she'll become more aware of avoiding info dumps, but rather weave the information into the story as they occur naturally – and what level of detailed information the story does and does not need for it to come alive.
Keep working on the characters and storytelling because I do see a talent, it just needs to be developed some more. Nothing wrong with that. So keep writing. 👍

For me to give this particular book a higher vote, it needs more work and time investment.

One star
★
(One star = The book needs too much editing and/or rewriting for me to recommend it.)