Name of the book: Becoming Oblivion

Author: DauntlessShadowIce1

Number of chapters: 7

Reviewer: Terra

Plot known till now:

The story revolves around Carmen Dewitt-Dexter, daughter of two ex-superheros. Living in a family with two superhero parents the story portrays her utter repulsion from this job mostly due to her parents. Throughout the story the author highlights the weak relation Carmen with her parents and them not being able to give Carmen enough attention or raising.

Things change when Carmen finally gets acceptance in Fairview Academy for villians in training. Exposed to a new world of villains through the Umber app, an app for villains, she navigates her way by making a new friend phantom who helps her to get Fairview Academy without any hitch.

Just after a few online interactions with Phantom Carmen decides to forward all her problems to her for which she gets solutions, strengthening her bond. Maybe due to phantom being the daughter of her parent's nemesis Carmen still didn't reveal her identity even when they met face to face.

On arriving at the academy for a trip Carmen meets other villain aspiring kids who are familiar with Phantom and a rather intimidating girl named Kaylin who threatens her during the trip. With a new set of friends we now have to see what the future has in store for our protagonist.

Positive aspects:

The plot of the story is extremely engaging with a perfect portrayal of a teenage girl. What I liked the most was the author not trying to make the protagonist perfect which is an uncommon thing. Her musings are perfectly relatable with a teenage girl who is going through her rebellious phase and seeking attention. She is making mistakes and being snobby at times, disregarding her parent's point of view and things that almost every teenager does at this point of time.

Initially I thought this story would be a villainized version of the movie "Sky High" with a teenager concealing things from her parents or trying to fit in their standards but this notion turned out to be so wrong. Not only does this book tries to fit in modernized aspects of society like an app for communication and extensive number of schools sprouting in our society but also beautifully captures some social stigma of the lack of communication happening between the parents and their child which leads to rift between them and how teenagers tend to lean towards their equally inexperienced friends for advice rather than some real support.

I liked how the protagonist got the depth in her character with regular portrayal of introspection though at times it eclipsed the presence of other characters which we would talk about in another segment.

The character Kaylin is a gem because the prospect she opens up for the story is unlimited. Her hostility to Carmen without plausible reason adds on to the mystery part for the readers which is a nice element for the story.

Another point I liked was the author kept the novel light hearted and easily readable making it apt for the targeted audience (early teenage girls). The pace of the story was just right and nowhere did I find the plot lacking in entertainment. Lines like 'To be a villain, or not to be a villain.' brought a smile on my face while lines like 'Well, villains aren't transphobic.
Who knew?' made me question the morality of society.

The length of the chapter was perfect which again helped me to keep my attention in the book intact without feeling overwhelmed with events happening. Altogether these points grasped my attention and inspired me to read further.

Negative Aspects:

Coming to this aspect one of the most common negative aspects are grammatical errors which this book too donned. While reading the book I found a few of them scattered here and there, not much but yes they existed like in the first chapter instead of 'scene upon me.' I would suggest 'scene before me'.

Another one of them were punctuation errors like excessive usage of ',' with conjunction following the word like 'and' and 'because commas are generally not required so the author could edit those.

Next point is: lack of descriptions of things around her or the event happening somewhat superficial. Though this point was one of the key features to keep the novel light but at times the chapter looked like a mere dialogue exchange. This could be edited, not much but few descriptions would be appreciated like how characters look like or some facial expressions while they are talking. Anything that could fuel imagination of readers.

I don't know whether this was to highlight the self centered nature of protagonist or not but at times the story looked like Carmen was the only person with thoughts and details of expressions of other characters missed out, if this was not in plan then work need to be done on this part.

Some plot holes were also noticed by me like how was Carmen able to escape her room through the window? I mean there ought to be some cameras or security as this a superhero house, if a teenager could just stroll in and out then let us not talk about trained villains. Apart from this the park incident where phantom out of blue asks regarding her presence in the park was kind of off as a city won't have just one park and even if there was it doesn't mean the person who saw you would be the same person you are talking on social media.

The readily available help from Phantom was again fishy because this girl is aiming to be a villain and helping strangers is not a villain's quality no matter what reason is.

The letter she would recognize Grayson Hyde but in the chapter Fairview he is merely described as a nerdy guy and phantom had to introduce him to her but in the very next chapter he is called a bad boy kind of person which leaves the readers confused.

The shy sweet nature of Mekkenna suddenly turns hostile in the beginning of chapter 'The Tour' and Grayson's out of the blue power exhibition was another part that leaves the readers confused. Why did he even do that to a stranger?

There is also an error, in chapter Umber and Phantom her user id is darkestofthedark but in later chapters it turns into thelongestoblivion.

Overall Analysis:

Regardless of all these plot holes and negative parts, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would love to read an edited and improved version if the author someday publishes it. This story sure could work on these aspects but these are minor issues that could be ignored if the book is to be classified as light reading. Wishing the author best of luck for her book and future projects.

(Another tip: Please write the achievements of book below the blurb as blurb is what readers want to see more than achievements.)