Book Title: This is me!

Author: mindisequaltoblown 

Review:

1. Cover- The cover contained a lot of elements and covered almost all the themes. The various photos depicting 'Day 1'/'Day 2' and so on displayed some sort of journey which the character takes to learn to love her self. The only problem I felt was that there were a lot of things but haphazardly. The font style chosen was quite suitable to the overall cover. So, kudos you passed the 1st test. Also, I related the title with the song 'This is me!' from the movie The Greatest Showman, so that was a good aspect.

2. Description- So, from what I gather, there is a girl named Jade who went through something traumatic which triggered her to change everything about her personality. Now, she is moving back to or going to California and will be forced to face the reality of her situation. The first thing I'd like to point out is that its a tad bit confusing as to whether she was in California when that incident occurred, if this is the case then the oncoming effects she would face makes sense. So, I'd like for you to properly clarify some points:

(a) Where did that incident occur, is she going back to that place? Or is she shifting to a completely new place that might make her alienated with everything around her?

(b) Some insight on the incident, as to which category it belongs to- accident/ abuse/ witnessing something horrifying/ death of a close person, etc. Here, I'd prefer if you provide just some type of hint, I get that you want to sustain the mysterious aura around Jade, but this kind of creates a feeling of jumping into an abyss with our eyes closed, so look into that please

(c) The brothers you mentioned, are they older than Jade or younger? Do they play a major role in the story? If yes, then it's fine. But if they are only some sort of supporting role then mentioning them in the description isn't necessary.

(d) The main male character? You haven't provided any clue as to who he is, what is his relation with Jade or how does he fit into this world. So, I'd suggest adding a little para about him as well.

(e) So, according to the timeline, she was probably around 6-7 years old when that incident occurred, considering that the immediate behavioral changes are a bit bizarre. She was a little kid and went through something traumatic if we look closely then change in hair color isn't suitable to the timeline. I'd suggest that you refer to some other behavioral changes, like she became quiet, or extremely loud, or closeted, etc.

Finally, I wanted you to check the word choice in the sentence:

"will she finally become who she truly is, or will her fears still influence her personality?"

Here, instead of using 'still', I suggest using 'continue to' as a replacement.

Also, in the following sentence,

'And that is how, Audrey Black was born.' there is no need to put a comma after the subordinating conjunction 'how'.

3. Character Building- Fucking amazing. That's it, I've got nothing more to say.

Okay, I was kidding I will still talk cuz I'm a blabbermouth. So, the characters were interesting. I found their emotions, personality, actions were accentuated properly with the things they had gone through. I envied the brother-sister bond which according to me was also a major theme here and was well-made, I could almost feel their love bleeding through the words. I loved all the characters equally. I have a suggestion I believe that you could modify the characters such that they have complex motives and be imbued with conflicting attitudes about life, ethics, politics, and so on. The emotional aspect was covered well, and I did not see any redundancy in the emotional beats.

4. Grammar- So, the 1st thing I'd like to talk about is unnecessary words. There were a lot of them in your chapters. Like, actually, really, literally, etc. These words don't add meaning to the sentence, so I'd suggest you limit their usage. Next, there were some phrases like 'considering the fact that' or 'a number of' now these are quite wordy and can easily be replaced by words like because or many, respectively (in this case). These help in making your sentence crisp and neat. Also, the usage of "..." or ellipsis, in various instances you used "......" which is grammatically incorrect. So, please look into that.

I felt that the delivery was slightly off and that there were various cases of inappropriate colloquialisms or incorrect punctuation in complex sentences. I'd suggest going through the whole text bit by bit and working out with the help of an editor.

5. Plot- I just... I ... it was undeniably beautiful. Even though I felt that some dialogues were cringing, there were no plot holes at all. Everything fits perfectly with everything else. The only thing I'd like to talk about is conversations. When you wrote the dialogues, you missed out on some aspects of a conversation, take humor, for example, it's is a vast subject and must be dealt with seriously, you need to make sure that the joke you write is funny to the audience, now what may seem funny to you might not be funny to others, so please do work upon that. Also, I felt that the setting description was a bit lacking. I couldn't find many explanations of the world or place the character was at, so do look into that. That's pretty much it, good work!

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~theloner