Title:  James Knight: Teenage Superhuman - Being Super is the New Normal (Book One)

Author: Iskipp_U

Genre/s: Science Fiction

Number of Chapters: 45

Mature?: Yes

POV: First person

Status: Complete

James Knight: Teenage Superhuman - Being Super is the New Normal (Book One)

[in the author's own words]

𝟖𝐗 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃
BOOK ONE - Being Super is the New Normal.

After gaining abilities at six, sixteen-year-old James Everett Knight wants nothing more than a normal life. Still, being a superhuman isn't all it's cracked up to be, and hiding his powers from people around him, especially his father, makes things worse. When mysterious supers emerge in Phoenix, Arizona, James must fight his feelings to defend his family and the city while dwelling life as a teenage superhuman. However, after discovering a treatment that Samual Knight has been researching for years, James' enemies intend to take away his powers for good to carry out a worse plan.

Intend for 14 and older.

∆∆∆𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆⚠️: Strong Profanity 🤬, kissing 😘, badass ass-kicking 👊🏼🤜🏼💪🏼, and Teen Drama 🎭 

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B O O K  R E V I E W

[Before we begin, please keep in mind that everything mentioned below is my personal opinion. My intention isn't to offend anyone; the only reason I am going into such detail is to be able to help my fellow writers out there. I do not claim to be correct; just sharing my opinion from my experience here on Wattpad. The following review is based off of the prologue + first 5 chapters only.]

TITLE: This story's title is not fully visible on a laptop (website) as well as on the phone (app). That makes it a bit difficult to find or check out this story since the title is cropped wherever you open it. (I couldn't fit the book title in the title of this chapter too due to the character-limit). I suggest turning "Being Super is the New Normal (Book One)" into the subtitle instead. It can stay on the cover and can be placed in the blurb instead of the title. Just my personal opinion though.

COVER: Very intriguing. The vibe is perfect for the story and the title + author's name is clearly visible too. The only thing I can possibly suggest here is adding "Book One" somewhere on the cover for easier access (especially for users who are going to start your series for the first time).

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FIRST IMPRESSION: The only thing I can read on the title when I click on your story apart from the character's name is Teenage Superhuman. It sparks interest but your cover is what would definitely make me click.

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BLURB: Apart from the cover and title, the blurb plays a major role in determining whether or not someone clicks on your story to check it out. The blurb is short and simple. Communicates your plot hook very effectively. Super intriguing and perfect for the target audience you have in mind. I honestly don't recommend changing anything here.

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CHARACTERS: While what makes someone click on a story is a cover / title / blurb, what makes them stay is your plot and especially your characters. Their relatability, the whole vibe they give off and how well the characterization is done plays a huge role in a story. After all, it is easy to forget a story's title or maybe even plot but some characters stay with you even after you've finished reading the story.

James is your typical teenager - a little reckless, secretly in love with / crushing on someone and bullied. What I liked most about his character though is that he wasn't portrayed unrealistically at all. It is clear that he doesn't care about his powers in the beginning (which is so natural since he wants to avoid trouble) and cares about his family too much to involve them in this confusion (except Sam and Derek who know). The fact that he loses control and hits his bully is so realistic (and very suggestive of his character too) and I love how he didn't care at first about using his powers to save people until he was suggested the same. He is not your typical goody-goody saviour / hero and really feels like a proper teenager who slowly develops into his character arc. I like that a lot. Gives him much more depth.

(Also ootp but I find Uncle Sam very sus why would he even think of making Derek his lab rat xD. Also, how is Mark not badly hurt after what James did?)

♡♡♡♡.5

Judging from the prologue + 5 chapters I have read...

PACE & PLOT - The pace of this story is very apt - neither too fast or too slow / dragging. There's a major event that plays out in each chapter so there isn't a lot of filler. Scenes and people are introduced slowly and as James learns more about his powers, we do too. This story has it all - family, sidekick (his brother I'm guessing if Sam experiments on him?), a secret crush, a bully and tons of antagonist so it makes for a very dramatic read.

DESCRIPTIONS - There isn't much to mention here to be honest. I liked the descriptions but at times, I felt like the story calls for more. The surroundings are described well but emotional descriptions can be worked on too (the kind that show what the character is feeling in that scene). Also, considering the popular show v/s tell writing technique, there was a lot of 'tell' in the starting chapters but it got better as the story progressed.

GRAMMAR & WRITING - I spotted a few punctuation errors in the first 2 or 3 chapters especially with dialogue tag punctuations. "xyz," he said. and "xyz." he exhaled. Rest all of it looks good. The story is really well-written to be very honest. The sentences are properly structured and it makes for quite an interesting read.

READIBILITY & AESTHETICS - The paragraphs are sized properly - neither too small, nor too big and the overall aesthetic of the story on the screen is perfectly adequate. I personally feel the small chapters work for this story. Feels like a very ideal length.

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Apart from what I've already mentioned above:

- Just because I'm supposed to nitpick, I've noticed that a lot of sentences follow the exact same structure of [subject] [verb / action] [object]. Eg. My phone vibrated in my pocket. Derek's finger pounded on the back of my phone again. Mia laughed to herself. While these are perfectly written and grammatically correct, it may begin to sound a little redundant in case your chapters get longer in length. You may want to switch out those a little bit.

- In the starting chapters, especially chapter 2, a lot of sentences begin with I (and follow the above structure). Since the story is in first person, it is inevitable to have a lot of "I"s in the story but switching the sentence structure a bit can help make it look less repetitive in my opinion.

Overall, a very well-written story. Had fun reading so far!

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