Lost in Love (Prologue - Chapter 2) by -Lieutenantfriendly

Reviewed by ESHurricane

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Overview

Lost in Love is a Teen Wolf fanfiction that centers around Sophia McCal and her life living amongst werewolves and the men that hunt them. One wolf is her twin brother, another her boyfriend, and the rest her friends. It is the sequel to Lost in Blue.

Full disclosure, I'm not familiar with Teen Wolf (the 2011 series), but the author asked me to focus on the relationship between the protagonist and main love interest, and the work is standalone enough that I was able to tell what was going on.

Cover/Title

I definitely dig the title, it's very dreamy and sets the feel very well. The insinuation that the characters are so deeply in love that they're lost in it is a powerful sentiment.

There are multiple covers inside of the Extras chapter, and I mentioned inline which one was my favourite.

The current one showcases the protagonist looking sultry in a white dress and black leather jacket. I like the font of the title, it definitely works with the feel of the book, and the tagline "Love is being happy in moments of struggle and misery" is powerful and foreboding. It shows me that there are going to be hurdles and trials for our protagonists and hopefully that love will conquer that. The only thing missing I think is the author's name, I'd like to see that on there.

The reason why my favourite cover is one of the ones in Extras is because it showcases both of the protagonists and a few other pictures insinuating love. I like the collage effect, but my favourite part of it is that it shows Sophia and Derek. I feel like a story so centered around a loving relationship should feature both parties, or if this is going to end up a love triangle situation, maybe even all three parties.

Summary/Description

The summary hooked me well, and gave me enough of a backstory that I didn't feel lost coming into this story without having read the prequel. I also really like how it ends with a question, because it drives the point home that there is conflict and a reason to get into the book.

Hook

There's a lot at the beginning of this book, with four separate chapters before the actual Prologue. There are lots of graphics and inspirational quotes that set up the story, but I'm going by the actual first line of the story as a hook. And while it's not the strongest sentence, the action definitely catches me.

The story opens with the god Artemis in a hurry, setting down her bow and arrow. I like this because it raises questions right off the bat. Why is she in a hurry? Why does she have her weapon, is it because she was in battle? Who is she fighting? I find all of these things intensely interesting and it makes me want to read on.

The Prologue was in third person POV, setting up the backstory of Sophia's heritage as a descendent of Artemis herself, and I really enjoyed it. I found the whole thing a great hook because it set up a really fantastical history. It also threw me for a bit of a loop because this is a werewolf book, and here I am reading about gods and their descendants. Definitely kept me on my toes, which I love in a novel!

Grammar/Structure

I addressed a few grammar issues inline, but I will summarize them here because I didn't want to snipe them all in the story comments. Here are a few things to keep an eye out for when editing:

Dialogue structure - When a dialogue tag indicates speaking (said, complained, exclaimed, cried, etc) then the dialogue should end with a comma (or if the tag is first, the dialogue should begin with a lower case and the tag will end with a comma). If the tag doesn't indicate speaking, then the dialogue can be closed with a period.

For example:

"I don't know," she said, "what do you think?" - indicates speaking

"I don't know." She crossed her arms. "What do you think?" - doesn't indicate speaking

Use of your/you're - If at any point 'your' in a sentence can be swapped out for 'you are', then it should be a contraction, 'you're'.

For example:

Your eyes are blue, but you're staring at me funny.

Use of an/a - 'A' in a sentence is used before consonants, and 'an' is used before words that start with a vowel sound.

For example:
A chuckle escaped his lips.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Characters

I'm definitely enjoying the characters so far, especially Sophia. I like how she's flawed, as it makes her real. She comes off a bit self-centered, which is good because it will give her something to grow on. And her unwillingness to be honest with her brother and boyfriend about her problems because she's afraid of burdening them shows immaturity that is definitely a good kicking off point for a character arc.

I found some of the dialogue to be a bit stilted, and I think that could be rectified with some punctuation. There were a few instances where I thought that a comma would help the words flow a bit more naturally. What I like to do when writing dialogue is to read it out loud to myself, and really pay attention to the natural cadence of the speech. Where I take breaths, I put a comma, or a period if it's the natural pause for a sentence. Use of punctuation in key points is important for connecting the characters with the reader.

Sophia has a strong voice, especially in the narrative. There were a few times she made me laugh out loud with her inner monologue, and her sass came off well. I found Derek to be a little robotic, but that could be his character from the first book and I'm just not familiar. I honestly found Sophia and Stiles had a bit better chemistry, but more on that later.

I think a little bit more diversity could be injected into these characters to really set them apart from each other. Scott had good tone as the worried big brother (and hater of Derek lol), but even then I think he could have a little bit more personality.

Narrative

There is definitely some amazing imagery in this book. I especially liked the scenes in the forest, there was some great description (leaves crunching underfoot) and the action was suspenseful and well written.

I think the Prologue was the strongest piece, and the third person POV worked really well with the author's writing style. It was concise and interesting, and the omniscience worked really well without the head hopping between Artemis and Abbas being disorienting. It had excellent flow and was incredibly emotional and raw.

In chapters one and two, the swap from ethereal gods to Sophia's head was a little jarring. As I said before, I enjoyed her narrative voice but the Prologue really set a tone that Sophia just couldn't keep up with. I don't know if this would be rectified by maybe trying third POV for Sohpia's part of the story, or maybe just making the prose a bit more consistent. I have a few suggestions to help tighten the narrative a touch:

-In first person POV, it's easy to fall into the trap of starting every sentence with 'I', because the character is telling us about their actions all the time. Unfortunately this can be repetitive and lead to stilted sentences. When editing, try to keep an eye out for this and maybe rearrange sentences so that they have a different cadence. This is especially useful in action scenes, where crafting interesting sentences can help build suspense.

For example: 'I simply rolled my eyes at Derek before wrapping my arms around his neck.' could be modified to: 'With my arms wrapped around Derek's neck, I simply rolled my eyes at him.'

-There are a few instances of skewing POV, which is something to watch out for when writing from one character's perspective. For example, at once point Sophia describes her opponent as clenching his fists so hard he stabbed his skin. If she was closely watching his fists and saw white knuckles and blood coming out of his fists, then it's a bit more believable that she would be able to deduce him stabbing himself. But to describe that by itself, Sophia wouldn't be able to know how hard he's clenching his fists, because she's not in his head.

Plot/Pacing

I think the pacing is great here, the Prologue carried me into the story on a tidal wave of interest, and a lot was happening to Sophia throughout the first two chapters. It was a good blend of action and introspection, with character dialogue happening in between suspenseful things, and sometimes during. The transitions were pretty seamless and flowed well.

The plot was pretty straightforward, I liked that the author laid out the main conflict for the story right away with the forest and the hunters.

Now, for the romance part. I got emotional over Artemis' loss, and the flashbacks to a woman cradling her dead child (was that Artemis maybe?). I felt sympathetic for Stiles and his desperation to find Lydia. I wanted to squeeze Scott's shoulder when he was worried for his sister's state of mind after her nightmare. But I don't know if I'm feeling it between Derek and Sophia.

He's introduced to me by showing up in her bedroom after not being around for a week, and though they have a bit of playful teasing, he's a bit wooden. And when Stiles calls, she totally ignores him. Granted, it's important, because her best friend is missing, but she hasn't seen her boyfriend in a week and she's all 'shut up dude, I need to banter adorably with this guy friend of mine'. She takes off in her car, leaving Derek by himself in her house. I feel like if my best friend was missing (from a hospital, no less!) my werewolf boyfriend would be the first person I tell. Regardless of his supernatural advantage to searching for someone, he's my boyfriend, and should want to help me with such a huge issue in my life.

I don't know if this is so that later he can show up to rescue her from the hunter trap, but even then that seemed to fall a little flat. She was very shocked to see him, but I felt it a little predictable that he was going to show up. Again, he should have been there from the beginning. The woman he's in love with is out in the woods searching for her missing injured best friend, he should have went with her as soon as she told him what was going on.

I said I'd talk more about Stiles/Sophia, and I thought it was amusing that I wasn't the only commenter that found chemistry there. As I said, she pretty much ditches her boyfriend after not having seen him for a week just to talk to this guy on the phone. He's out there with her brother combing the woods for Lydia, her best friend, and though she mentions that he's into Lydia (and Lydia is not into him), he's still out there being a good friend. Sophia even mentions how she doesn't like the fact that he's into Lydia after 'years of rejection', and Stiles also hates Derek and the fact that she's with him. The tension is definitely there, even if they're both in denial, I can feel it, and it is glorious.

Of course, if this isn't the intention, then there are ways to fizzle this out before it even starts. But if it was intended or encouraged, then thumbs up, I ship it. Unfortunately I ship it at the expense of really not shipping Sophia and Derek at all, and it seems like they're supposed to be the ones who are 'Lost in Love'. I'd be willing to discuss brainstorming on how to correct this if this is what the author was going for with this story.

Closing Comments

All in all, I enjoyed reading this! There are a lot of characters to keep track of, but it makes for a motley crew of protagonists and I'd be interested to see how they deal with this hunter threat as well as the normal teenage stuff. Also the blending in of myths and gods from the Prologue was a really nice touch, and gives the whole thing extra flavour. Excellent work!