Final Total: 3 (reshelved)

Reader 1:

Cover: 1/4

Um. Is... is this... Shrooms? Special Brownies? LSD...? The colors make it look cute. And I'm talking in the way Trolls™ are cute. The punkish cutout font only makes it look even worse, like a Disney TV show aimed at 8thgraders. Unless... it is actually aimed at 8th graders. Then great, it's spot on for age group. Not for the blurb, though. The relationship there is shaky at best. The blurb sounds dark, not cute. 

Title: 0/2

What in the actual HECK does being delusional have to do with being blind? Is her blindness the delusion? Is her delusion that the government is controlling everything, even her blindness? There isn't a clear enough connection between the title and the blurb, and what little there is smacks of dismissing a serious mental illness and/or physical handicap as something made up by a corrupt government. That alone would make my medically-blind self chuck this out the window after stomping on it a few times.

Blurb: 0/4

Lose the opening quote. One, it gives too much away. Two, it's trite, and betrays a gross misunderstanding of what being delusional actually means.

You break the 4thwall and address the reader directly in the very first sentence, and then keep doing it. Not kosher. It's a form of 'head hopping,' from the reader to the MC, and it's annoying as all heck. I would rephrase that whole first paragraph, personally. The last line is clumsy and suffers from vague references to things that aren't backed up in the setting or description.

Second paragraph has incorrect comma usage going on: 'I will decide who I am, for(,) I am Brenna Lawson.'

Third paragraph: 'I have been blind my entire life*.*' Since the day she was born is implied, no need to resurrect a dead horse. You could move from that first thought into something along the lines of, 'I thought I would be blind till the day I die, until scientists discovered a cure for 'blindness.'' The quotations only make it seem like her blindness is questionable, which throws a lot of doubt on everything else. (And don't give me some weird gripe about that being the effect you're after, it's misleading, which is NOT the purpose of a blurb.) 'But I'm not convinced they're *being* completely truthful*.* Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.' End there.

General Note on Plot: First we have what could actually qualify as a delusional hallucination – everyone is being controlled. So Brenna is the delusional one here. Then we jump into the MC's first-person declaration that she is herself. So, she's the only one who isn't delusional? Then she's blind, which may or may not be a delusion, and then she's not convinced that they cured her? Which makes her delusional again... or maybe she's just woke now that she's cured? Which would mean the government is the one who cut its own strings... And what does not being able to make her own choices, then deciding she is who she is, have to do with being cured of "blindness"? Didn't she have a choice in being cured? Which would mean she's not delusional after all... so she's still... blind... *eyes glaze over* *brain drips slowly out of ears*

This entire blurb is missing too many things. There's nothing that pushes the MC into action. There isn't any action at all. I'm not even sure she gets the 'cure.' There isn't anything that drives her except maybe a desire to be a Real Girl without the puppet strings, but that's something I had to infer. What is this story even about? Backstory, setting, MC introduction, buildup to inciting incident, inciting incident, stakes and obstacles, hint at resolution phase, question resolution. So far I know a blind girl named Brenna Lawson thinks everyone else is brain dead and doubts the claims of a few scientists. If this is a psychological thriller about a blind delusional girl, going deep 1stperson wouldn't be a problem. Don't even mention government corruption, just focus on the thing she has to struggle with, and what she decides to do about it. If it's a The Truman Show style political/psychological/conspiracy thriller, you need to present your MC as the only sane voice. Either way, the threat needs to be clear. And her reaction to it needs to be clear too. She needs to be driven to act, otherwise there's not going to be anything to read.

Total: 1 (I've put the book back on the shelf)

Reader 2:

Cover: 1/4 I'm going to be honest and say I could not work out that this was a picture of a person until I asked someone else what was on the cover. That could just be me - note other readers comments - but even knowing what it is I'm looking at doesn't really improve it. It's psychedelic, I'll give you that - I'm guessing that is what you were going for, with a title like "Delusional"? It feels a bit forced. Nothing is placed quite right. The authors name is too small, the colour of it blends into the background and makes it hard to read. It's also just a fraction to the right, not centred, and I am presuming that was on purpose, but it makes my blood boil just a little. If you want to keep the font, I'd use the same blue colour you have for the title and the tagline, they stand out better, maybe make it bigger. And please, please centre it.

The title. I'd say it needs to be either smaller or bigger. Because of what you are trying to achieve, having it go over the edges of the cover would be fine, but having it just touching the edges is not aesthetically pleasing. Think of the old DVD screen saver logo bouncing into the edges of the screen, but never quite into the corner. That's what this title reminds me of. I do actually quite like the idea of the cut-out letters, but the colour of the title could be fitted better. If you have trouble choosing the right colour, use a website like or, if you use photoshop, the Adobe color theme extension, to pick the colours you already have within the picture, and see what goes well with them and is contrasting enough to show up well.

Title: 1/2 If the book is titled "Delusional" because the main characters has illusions of grandeur, then this supports the blurb. Otherwise - is everyone else delusional? If we're taking Brenna's words on face value, then I suppose that would have to be it. Impossible to say without reading more. Saying that, the title is my favourite part of what I have seen so far.

Blurb: 1/4 I'm not certain what this book is about. The main character is blind, but we only find this out at the end, just as we discover she isn't anymore? If you say "till the day I die" and then change it to mean "till right now, because there is a cure" in the next sentence, why even bother with the first part? "Some scientists in a lab" feels very teenage angsty, and even if she doesn't care to be "cured" she should still be able to say more about them. This would be a good place to introduce us to this horrible world Brenna lives in, beyond empty, tired statements of puppets and corruption. Also, why is she not convinced? Why is the cure worse than the disease? Would it make you ill in some other way? Very vague here, and I don't really see what the stakes are.

Actually, this entire blurb makes me feel tired just reading it. It is very angry. There is obviously nothing wrong in rebelling against a bad world, but you need to be able to say more about it than that its a world of "chaos and corruption". Why does she not have a say in her decisions? What is this social judgement she is facing? Is this just because she's a teenager and her parents have given her a curfew? Because that's how it reads. And who is corrupted? The government? Is this some sort of a Hunger Games situation? I've no idea what I'd be getting myself into if I were to open this book.

"I am more than that and I will not let them decide who I am." Who is trying to decide? What are you more than? "I will decide who I am, for, I am Brenna Lawson." firstly, I think the sentence would flow better without the comma after *for*. Secondly, should I care that you are Brenna Lawson? Why? Are you special in some way? Rich parents? Superpowers? Overly self-entitled? Seems like the last one. Sorry.

My suggestion to you would be to check for blurbs of other fatalistic books like yours (1984, for example) and see what their blurbs are like. See how you don't need to over sell the fact that you live in a bad, ugly world to put your point across. Instead it works better if you focus on the small things to accentuate the large. 

Total: 3 (I've put the book back on the shelf)

Reader 3:

Cover: 3/4 I looked at the tags to see if this book is teen or YA fic, but I couldn't find any references. If this is for that group, it's great. If it's not, then it's a little too young looking -- unless you are going for a 1980s look. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is for readers 16-years old or under. The only problem is that the author name gets lost at the bottom. You have to really search to find it.

Title: 2/2 Fits the story and will certainly attract a teen audience.

Blurb: 0/4

Aside from the occasional English error and some awkward phrasing, I find this blurb simply confusing.

I can't put together what the first two paragraphs have to do with the last one -- or about blindness. On top of that, this Brenna Lawson sounds like a highly-unlikeable, egotistical bitch. Sorry, but that's how she comes across to me and I really don't have any interest in reading about her life and opinions based on this blurb, even though I am friends with a few blind people myself and would -- in general -- be interested in reading a story with a blind protagonist!

I have the notion you are talking about "handicapped attitude" in the first section, which really does turn a lot of handicapped people into victim-mentality asshats. That is often due to the fact that they don't accept their own handicap, but see it from the 'able-bodied' perspective. Those handicapped who do accept how they are and live with it as if it's normal, don't rage on like Brenna is doing. That's an able-bodied perspective.

But, possibly what the main problem with this blurb is, is that it hardly contains any story. What actually happens? What am I going to get for my money? Most of the time is spent on vague "how would you like it" antagonism and throwing hate at the reader while Brenna peacocks about what she's going to do to get even with the world.

All I can see is that a supposed cure for blindness is discovered, but Brenna doesn't believe it's really a cure. Okay. What makes her think that, or is she just paranoid? Does she undergo this treatment? What happens? Where is this story going to take me?

Total: 5 (I've put the book back on the shelf)