Intro:

My Villain Husband's was written by Elxy_234. It follows the main character, Jingyi, after being in a car accident. She's suddenly transformed into a rich girl named Han Yunxi, who is a female lead in a novel. The catch: Han Yunxi dies in the book, and Jingyi has to find a way to prevent her death while also basking in the glory of being a rich woman; however, the plot isn't as simple as it seems since one day, while shopping, Jingyi is kidnapped by the villain...

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

First and foremost, I love this concept. This is such a fun, whacky concept that hooked me right from the blurb. I absolutely love these types of stories where the main character is sucked into a book's world and has to navigate life through the eyes of a book character. If that plot doesn't hook you right in, I don't know what will.

Along with that, the execution of the plot is engaging and fun too. I loved how Jingyi was transformed into Han and introduced to the Han couple. She was naturally confused, and the doctor even diagnosed her with a personality disorder, adding another layer to the plot. It makes the reader question if any of this is real or if Jingyi is an unreliable narrator where we're reading a novel within a novel, and Jingyi is literally Han pretending she was Jingyi as a way to cope with her upcoming death.

I'm not saying that's for sure what's happening, especially since it's too early in the story to make any theories like that, but it's interesting to think about, and it's always a good thing when a book can make me think by chapter 2. I was already making theories and wondering what would come next, which is rare. I normally take a while to get invested in what's going on, but here, I got hooked right off the bat and wanted to see more. Heck, I finished reading an hour ago and I still want to see more since I'm so entertained by this plot idea.

The next thing I like is our main character, Jingyi. She's fun and says what we're all thinking when it comes to things like money and the villain. Her admitting he's hot and admiring him was really funny, and it made me smile since, well, it's what we're all thinking: he's hot. She's super unhinged and chaotic, and I absolutely love that about her. She's unapologetically herself, and I think that's what makes her so likeable for me. I'm excited to see more of her journey, and I hope you continue writing this story soon.

I'd also like to talk about the world you've presented us with so far. While it's a little too early in the story for me to comment on things like the overall plot or the themes, I think it's fair to talk about how the world feels very interesting and engaging. The concept is the main character interacting with a female lead in a novel she was reading, and the world of the novel feels fun and intriguing, and I love the mall scene where they go shopping and she gets abducted in the middle of it.

Okay, that kinda makes me sound like a psychopath for enjoying the main character getting kidnapped, but I mean the scene was fun and executed well. I hope I didn't sound too insane by saying I enjoyed that scene, haha.

To get back on topic, I mean to say the world is cool so far and I'm glad you decided to go with this concept and match it with an intriguing world.

The last main thing I want to talk about is the character relationships. Like I said, it's early in the story, so it's hard to comment on the overall trajectory of these characters as I haven't seen much of them yet, but so far, the story has strong potential. You're doing a good job making your characters stand out and making them unique from one another. At the same time, the character relationships so far are also fun to read about. For example, I liked how the Han couple interacted with Jingyi.

That's a common theme in this story: it's super fun. I wasn't bored for a single second of the runtime. In fact, I was having a blast and even cracked a few chuckles. It's very, very rare for me to laugh while reading, so that's saying a lot when even I'm cracking a chuckle at what's going on in the text.

To summarize all my above points, I think you have a very solid start to your story, and I'm super stoked to see what you do next with it. Everything about the creative side of the story (plot, world, characters) is really good so far, and I especially like Jingyi. Somehow, this story made me laugh at some of the comedic moments, so you did a great job executing this. I hope you keep writing it!

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What Didn't Work:

I would suggest more consistency with the writing style. The prologue is in a completely different writing style than the following two chapters of the story. The prologue is more simplistic and has plainer language while the next two episodes (episode 1 in particular) are the complete opposite in terms of the language and sentence structure. It's a short story at the moment with only three published chapters, so when one of the three is written completely differently, it's very noticeable, hence why I'm suggesting editing it to maybe match the writing style of the following two episodes. You don't need to add much, but consider tweaking it so the style matches at least a little more.

While on the topic, this may seem contradictory to what I just said, but I'd suggest downsizing on your language. Sometimes your writing (in episode 1, the part with the villain) is purple prose. In case you are not aware of what purple prose is, it's a term in literary criticism that means language that is overly flowery to the point where it calls negative attention to itself. It originates from the 19th century since authors back then got paid by the word, so they overstuffed their descriptions with unnecessary pretty words to make more money.

That's what's happening here where, in that villain intro scene, you used way too many words to describe what's going on, and most of the words are complex and hard to understand. When you're using too many complex words back-to-back, it makes it so the reader has to have Google open in another tab just to understand the story. When the reader has to stop just to understand your sentences, that severely hurts engagement and can draw a reader out of the story.

For example: "Deep, captivating doe-like eyes framed by luscious, ebony curls cascaded elegantly upon his forehead. His obsidian gaze held a mysterious allure, drawing one in with an irresistible enchantment."

The language here is very flowery, and you could benefit from downsizing. You don't need to make it simple, but notice how much telling over showing you're doing there and how many uncommon words are present. I'd suggest tweaking it to downsize on some of the more uncommon words.

A common side effect of purple prose is telling over showing. The golden rule of creative writing is to show, not tell. Readers read to be engaged and imagine a new world, so the more telling over showing you're doing, the more you're taking away the reason the readers read: imagination.

There is another common side effect of purple prose: word choice. Be careful with repetitive word choice and making sure you're keeping your word choice fresh. The more you repeat words, the more the text can feel repetitive. For example, you use the word "dark," or some form of it (like "darkly"), many times in just three short chapters, so I'd suggest using synonyms when possible and tweaking it so you aren't using any form of "dark" as often as you are.

You also want to be careful because this will lead to several people accusing you of using AI. AI writes in purple prose, and after running a good chunk of your text through AI detectors, many of them came back as detecting AI. Four out of five of the detectors I ran your text through said your content was AI-written.

Just for reference so you know I'm telling the truth:

I want to clarify that I'm not accusing you of using AI. I have worked in the AI field for over a year, so I am very familiar with AI and how AI detectors are really only 60% accurate at best. I personally don't think you're using AI, but I'm bringing this up to say to be careful because purple prose could lead to many AI accusations, which is why I'm strongly suggesting not using it. As I said, I've worked with AI and trained the models for over a year now, and I can tell you based on my experience that AI only writes in purple prose. That's why AI detectors will almost always flag it as AI-written. Like I said, I'm absolutely not accusing you of using AI or anything of the sort, I'm just bringing it to your attention for your safety and awareness. The last thing I want is for any writer to get their work taken down due to AI allegations.

I hope all that makes sense, but I am happy to explain further if needed.

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Summary:

- Fun concept

- Engaging main character

- Interesting world

- Interesting character dynamics so far

- Consider having more consistency in the writing style

- Be careful with purple prose

- Be careful with word choice

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Overall:

My Villain Husband's has only just begun with a prologue and two core episodes, but it's already a fun story with an entertaining protagonist that says what we're all thinking about topics like money, hot male leads, books, etc. If you're someone who enjoys engaging concepts and a crap ton of fun, then this is the perfect book for you!

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Thank you for submitting your book. If you have any questions or would like any additional reviews when the shop reopens, please let me know.

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I'm going to start leaving this new note at the end of all reviews since Wattpad removed pms.

If you would like to keep in contact with me and ask me for more feedback on your work, I have a Discord server for all readers, writers, and friends. I'll leave a link in the inline comment here for anyone who would like to join.