Title: Voice of Oblivion

Author: tasawrites

Genre/s: Romance, Fantasy(?)

Number of Chapters: 12

Mature?: No

POV: First person

Status: Ongoing

VOICE OF OBLIVION

[in the author's own words]

Brielle has lost all her faith in men and swore to never fall into one of their traps again. She's determined to focus on her career and make her dad proud, but is she strong enough to resist the temptation?

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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 first 5 chapters only.]

AND

TITLE: This story's title is short (readable on every device) - which is a good thing. Voice of Oblivion instantly made me wonder as to what this story could be about. In my opinion, this title is pretty unique. Not sure how it relates to the story yet (from first impression i.e. before I start reading the story) but I'm curious to find out.

Update: Back here after reading the first 5 chapters and I still don't get why "voice of oblivion" but I'm hoping / assuming it will show up ahead. (Or if it did and I missed it somehow, please let me know).

COVER: I personally really like this story's cover. It immediately gives you an element of romance as well as mystery somehow. A very unique colour palette. I love the subtle colour hues / gradation and the subtitle will instantly make you intrigued as well. The title, author's name and subtitle are distinguished enough and clearly visible as well.

[more on the blurb below]

♡♡♡♡♡

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 sweet. In spite of being just 2 sentences, it creates a perfect and complete introduction / backstory as well as a conflict and hook.

 Personally, I like short blurbs but this one left me wanting a little but more. To elaborate, I would have liked a little longer blurb purely for the purpose of building the intrigue. Who is the temptation or how does he enter her life? Why is he unavoidable? Somehow, it's a good thing that this is left to our imagination - because for some, that would directly amount to reading ahead to find out - but for some others, this might sound a little bit vague.

Though it makes perfect sense and is complete in itself, just a slight dramatic addition would instantly make this blurb way more impactful in my opinion. However, if you wish to keep it like it is as of now, I don't think there's a problem with that as well.

P.S. You don't have to change anything but if you wish to, you can always experiment with new styles of blurbs to see what kind attract readers & your target audience most.

♡♡♡♡.5

AND

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.

Bree's story instantly starts with a sad scene where she's longing for her family and trying to mask away her pain. Maybe it's just me, but I had to read the first scene twice to understand who was crying and who was wondering if "she" still loved "him" (like- was it the mother or Bree or Harley, though I understand the flow once I proceed ahead). Maybe it's because of the whole long paragraph thing [as explained below] or maybe a slight addition could be required there to make things simpler.

Bree is such an understandable character who somehow deems she is not worthy of Alec's love. What happens to her later once she finds out gives her character so much depth (and humour too tbh because the emoji that is now his name [no spoilers] had me wheezing! I loved that xD). Overall, a very instantly relatable and fun character. I would love to see her journey ahead.

♡♡♡♡.5

Judging from the 5 chapters I have read...

PACE & PLOT - In my opinion, the pace of this story is just perfect. Though we get to the action and conflicts quick, you aren't skipping on important descriptions to get there. Keeps the story very drama-packed yet enjoyable since you get to live through the emotional parts as well. We don't jump between scenes randomly and the transition is smooth. Bree's grieving process is very realistic too and I like the way she revisits her emotions when she's alone - very realistic.

DESCRIPTIONS - I felt like this story had the apt amount of descriptions. Neither too much to make it boring and irrelevant nor too less to make us feel like the scenes were just floating by as we numbly watch. The physical descriptions (people, surroundings) as well as emotional descriptions (Bree's state of mind etc.) were perfectly adequate and matched with the pace of this story as well. I also liked how you've broken the dialogue-centric scenes with small descriptions here and there. Keeps it perfectly balanced.

GRAMMAR & WRITING - I am not here to edit and pinpoint small mistakes (a simple run though MS Word or Grammarly can do that) so I'll be saying this from a reader's perspective - the kind that don't intentionally try to hunt for mistakes. Overall, I felt like could have been a few grammar / punctuation errors but all you need is a quick run through MS Word / Grammarly / Google Docs or any similar software to solve them. I really like the way you've expressed Bree's state of mind once she "finds out". I found a perfect balance of show v/s tell there since you've used both very well.

READIBILITY & AESTHETICS - The paragraphs are not uniformly sized and they don't have to be. But some paragraphs are either way too short or way too long, working in extremes which can slightly downgrade the reading experience. Especially with longer paragraphs (when reading on the app, it takes me twice a screen scroll to finish certain paragraphs which is way too long), it becomes very easy for readers to lose their mark plus they're less likely to leave an inline comment when the paragraph is so long. Think of it this way - if you're reading this out loud, just like you need pauses in between, the eyes need a small breather too and paragraphs / spacing help achieve that. No matter how well you write or explain a scene, it can easily feel like we're being info-dumped when there's so much to remember in a single para. That breather is somehow essential so the current scenes can register in your readers' head before they move to the next para / scene. Hope I was able to put the point across (with this long para to give an approx idea).

OTHER POINTS - The review form says this story's genre is Fantasy too and I'm not sure how? The story tags don't say Fantasy either so please let me know if this was just an error and I'll change it here in the story details part.

♡♡♡♡.5

I really enjoyed reading it so far! Wishing you good luck for this story ahead *_*

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