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"You always keep hurting me. You think one sorry can fix everything?" - FANTAESYSTIC

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⍋Primium impressionem (15.5/20): I absolutely adore the cover since it's so well made! The colour scheme and the faded background at the train station suit the melancholic feeling of the title and I can't help but feel giddy at how good Kookie looks! What would make this cover even better is if the font of the title was slightly different so it could be read with more ease and girl, I can barely recognise your username since it's so tiny! A nice quote from one of the chapters would serve well to set the general mood of the story as well.

As for the description, I like what you have there but it's quite short. My advice is that instead of writing Contract Marriage AU JJKxReader I find that out from the description. This blurb is your perfect chance to pique my interest as your reader, tease me with a couple of facts about Kang Y/n and Jeon Jeongguk and make me want to know even more! Tell me she is a bit on the chubby side but loves her body even though she was bullied, tell me Kookie is not as innocent as he might seem at first - tickle me with it and make me want to dive in headfirst!

⍋Et compages grammatica damnationem (13.5/20): While reading through your book, I stumbled upon some basic grammar mistakes that did get less prominent as the chapters went by which is a sign to me that you've been improving through writing and that's amazing! Please watch out for it, some people may love your work but won't read it because of grammar and that's such a shame! No worries though, I know conquering English grammar is a challenge since I struggle with it myself so I highly recommend you something that helped me improve immensely - Grammarly. It's free and it's an awesome tool for Chrome.

When it comes to your sentence structure, even though it might not seem like it at a first glance, it's so damn versatile! Although there are some moments where it can be a bit repetitive, it didn't bother me much because you'd move on from it with such ease I'd forget it was even there. All in all, you did a good job and I must say I'm extremely happy for you!

⍋Scripto artes (17.5/20): I love your writing style - it's simple, straight to the point and with no hesitation at all. There's a sprinkle of description here and there which keeps it away from being bland, it's minimalistic and I must say I'm a fan. My only advice is when you write some scenes which are filled with emotion, whether if it's a plot twist, a moment where one of the characters finds out something important or just a scene filled with action, don't be afraid to describe them more.

Delve into the feelings of your characters, describe the scenery and give me a hint of what their surroundings look like, if the atmosphere is so tense it's almost tangible or if it's filled with joy. That way, you'll immerse me into the scene, grip my attention on your words and keep me reading until I'm at the end. I'll scream for more, trust me. One scene that sticks to me is the one where Kookie gets inside his father's cabin. By describing how it looks like, you can show me a lot about the way his father is (I'll give you an example that just popped into my head):

Walking to my father's office, I take a deep breath once I'm greeted with the heavy oak doors separating his kingdom from the rest of the world. When they close behind me, I'm left on my own to deal with the sterile surfaces and sharp edges of the furniture inside as the clicking of my shoes echoes off of the walls. Not a single decoration he owns is misplaced or having no purpose in his space.

Through this scene, we get to know that the father is an authoritative presence that loves to be in control without keeping in mind that the control he has hurts the people around him. All of that just from describing his office and the way Kookie feels. Of course, I wrote this in my style but you can incorporate some elements if you like any that is.

⍋Influunt (5.5/10): The length of your chapters is topnotch and it does suit your writing style, seeing that you like short, impactful sentences and descriptions. What I'm not a fan of is the frequency of changes during a single chapter and by that, I mean that there are a lot of POV changes, sometimes even to describe three or four sentences before jumping to another POV. That can make your book seem a bit choppy which is something I'm sure you'd want to avoid.

Also, the scene cuts (transitions from one scene to another) can sometimes be connected by simple one or two sentences, you don't have to place a divider every time. For example, when Kookie gets a call from his father where he tells him that he and Y/n need to show up at his place, there was a very intense scene happening prior to that where they were discussing the truthfulness of their marriage. I'd love to know how the two of them felt while they were travelling to his father's place! Even one or two sentences talking about their feelings would make the experience of reading your book even more enjoyable!

⍋Insidias (13.5/20): I know you wrote this when you were a young teenager and the times were a bit different then than they are now. An arranged marriage where the guy has another girl that only uses him for money, where the wife comes back for revenge after glow-up thanks to a friend (I was rooting for Tae to be with Y/n, not gonna lie), just for them to get back together at the end connected by true love that was kind of there from the beginning is cliché. I even screamed at Disney princesses when they fell in love so easily and I was just a little kid so I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I'm not a huge fan of cliché tropes.

There are some plot holes here and there, the one I'll take as an example is the father's decision to give the company to Y/n even though she has no experience working in that branch just to spite Kook and Chanyeol, then later telling Kookie he did that so Kookie wouldn't fight with Chanyeol. Before any of these events happened, way back there was a scene where Kookie was eavesdropping on his father where he told his secretary (if I remember correctly) that he'll give the company to Y/n just so Kookie has to stay married to her. To help you keep track of all the events happening in your book, I suggest writing the key elements as notes just so you can remember important things that happened before and will happen in the future.

Still, you can make a great story with a cliché plot if you learn how to utilise all the playable cards you have at your disposal. Instead of having a girlfriend that is so easy to hate, have a girlfriend who is so sweet I just want to hug her and cry. Instead of Kookie being a prick to his wife, have him be a sweetheart that simply has no deeper emotions towards her than friendship. Mix it up a bit, make Y/n fall in love with someone else but decide to stay in the marriage because of Kookie's father.

There are so many ways you can change the plot and make it more original and less expected. Surprise me as your reader, don't make me go - oh, I figured that'd happen! - you are a talented writer and so damn creative, don't be afraid to show it! Don't hide behind the security of 'already seen', write 'already seen' but then flip it around and make me gape because of an unexpected plot twist! I know you can do it and I'm here to support you all the way!

⍋Characteribus (12.5/20): There are a lot of supporting characters that have their stories along with the main story between Kookie and Y/n and I'd like to give you advice when it comes to having many characters in a book. Maybe tone them down so you can make the ones who stay develop without much struggle from your part as an author. Also, an interesting thing you could do is maybe make Jimin's and Yumi's story a book on its own! I'd definitely read it if it was a spin-off!

Sometimes when we place too many characters in a single book, they don't get a chance to develop and we as writers disperse the story in that way because we want to give attention to each one without realising that they are losing their integrity. The fact that there were so many of them is one of the reasons I couldn't connect with your characters. I realised you wanted to give Y/n a sense of naivety and innocence while you wanted Kookie to seem indecisive and unsure of his feelings, but to me, they seemed like two 13-year-olds that would banter around for no specific reason whatsoever and make decisions that sometimes didn't make much sense, especially when we remember that they are in their twenties (The fact that Kookie cancelled their honeymoon after two days with an excuse he had some business to attend to isn't that believable since he'd probably know way ahead of time if he had it or not, but if it were something urgent, you could have interpreted that in the story and made it even more interesting!).

What would improve them as characters are some simple descriptions of their feelings and thoughts. For example, even though Y/n trusts Kookie that he doesn't have anyone else besides her, make her think about the fact that maybe, just maybe he does. She'd just seem dumb otherwise (that's fine if you want her to be like that, sometimes I got a feeling that you wrote a satire about all the arranged marriage fanfic's and if that's the case then you did an AMAZING job!), especially since she's in her twenties. The fact that Kookie moved on from Yuna in a blink of an eye was also a bit rushed - at the beginning, he was quite strict with his opinion on Y/n's appearance, but all that went away all of a sudden without much explanation as to why.

Those transitions you struggle with can be easily fixed by the advice I talked about before - focus on describing their emotions more and let me know as a reader that changes are happening in their personalities! What did Y/n exactly do to change the way Kookie looks at her? I want to know what made him crumble his wall towards her! Those complex emotions are so fun to explore as a writer, don't be afraid to delve deep into them and find out what hides behind Kook's indecisive behaviour!

⍋Totalis puncta et summaries: 82.5/110! Ri, I must say that I'm so proud of you! You have an amazing story base you can develop in so many ways, especially now that you've grown a lot both as a person and as a writer! Fake Love is perfect to read if you are curious to see how Ri matures through this book and have a nice laugh because she has an amazing sense of humour!

I hope you take this review as a positive experience and find inspiration from it to further advance your story and make it into something you'll look back on and tell yourself - yeah, I crushed how good I wrote that! - since you deserve nothing less from it! Please don't take this review personally and please keep in mind that this is just me trying to help you in the best way I can!

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Coming soon - gguk_love

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