A bit about the author:

Aria is a graphics artist and writer with special interests in dystopian and high fantasy. She also enjoys travelling, singing, learning languages, and coffee.

Title:

I honestly have to say, I love the title. It's a very poetic one that excites me to at least give your book a look-over to see what it's about. 

Cover:

I love green. And I love your cover. It's a very beautiful one and the colors and images and font all compliment each other perfectly. 

Blurb:

The first line feels like it should be in quotes or something, like it's supposed to be from your book. And then, the second to last line, I feel like the he should be a she, unless you're talking about Death. Either way, I was confused. Other than that, it was very exciting and made me want to read your story. Good job!

The Good:

I have never been able to write first person, present tense. It's something I struggle with, to write in present tense--let alone as well as in first person. So kudos to you for even attempting that! 

You also have a beautiful prose in your story, and especially in the last few chapters it really made the tears come to my eyes. 

You did a fantastic job with descriptions and actions scenes. Those were very well done and I was easily able to picture it all in my mind. The dialogue and interaction with your characters also was spot on. Good job! 

The Bad:

Your grammar, overall, was pretty good, minus the typos sprinkled here and there. Nothing that a brief proof-reading wouldn't fix. 

Your characterization was rather hard for me to follow--but that may just be me. In any case, I found it hard to keep different people apart in your narrative until the very end (when mostly everybody was dead anyways) and so it was hard for me to really get into your story because of that. 

Your plot was good for the most part, but there were places here and there where I was confused as to what was going on and things didn't quite make sense because I couldn't see where the story was going. On the one hand, that's good because it's not predictable, but on the other hand, I wasn't able to enjoy your story as much as I wanted to. 

What the Reader Thought: 

Overall, I liked this story. Not exactly my favorite genre or anything, but it was pretty good. I didn't care for the cursing and while it might be good in some places, I personally feel that it could be lessened. I don't know, just my personal opinion. However, despite the pick things I said earlier, I enjoyed reading this, and the last several chapters really got me, especially the epilogue. T_T You did a good job writing this and I wish you all the best in the Open Novella Contest! 

Score: 8/10