Our first story for our Community Book Club was reviewed five people, and all the scores will be an average. The first book was…
This story was recommended by @sofia.sigma!
First Impression (Cover/title/summary)
Rating: 3.27
When one person first saw the cover they thought “Cool. This could be an assassin story”. But after seeing the second cover of the guy smoking and reading the summary, they started to think this would be quite cliché. Searching for the title, however, they realised how predictable it could be with how many similarly titled books there were. Though, majority liked/loved the cover! Another got the impression that this would be about a strong female lead taking down a “bad guy”. The description makes them think the bad guy on the cover is the toxic situation the main character is leaving. Or maybe he’s some rogue detective who helps her take down bad guys in conventional ways?
The story (Content and Flow)
Rating: 3.16
Though this story shows a plot from the beginning, it is very fast-paced. Many weren’t too fond of the flow. A lot of predictable drama, when exposition gives you all the clues about future events. The content itself isn’t really justified, nor believable, which makes it hard to relate to the characters. Most liked the plot, but suggested slowing it down and adding a little more detail to help it flow better.
Characters
Rating: 2.8
To start off with, a couple of people mention that there’s an extreme lack of diversity and didn’t see a lot of different skin tones used. One said that Nicole and Noah are immediately likeable. However, they needed individual development. Nicole is sweet and dedicated to her job, and Noah is awkward, but they need more individual development. Going off this, the background characters were a nice touch. At times though, your characters didn’t quite sound as they should. Like the police were a little abrupt. Also, when the explosion happened, why were the police scared? Again, the lead wasn’t relatable, like after she continually rejected her “friend” in such a cold way. Also, “Oooh, Mrs Dilaurentis was her mum.” That wasn’t apparent in her first scene. You might wanna make that more obvious, she doesn’t look like a mum. Also, if she works as a police officer, why does she speak like she’s a child.
Overall, the characters were unrelatable because they weren’t reacting to situations the way any rational person would. I was hoping there was room to grow, but for the main character especially, it felt like she was taking steps backwards instead of developing into a stronger person. The MC doesn’t have a well-worked-through personality. While being a bad-ass cop, who helps when seeing some kind of injustice, while being a grown-up woman, who can support herself financially, still lives with her parents (which can be understandable), and is feeling forced to participate in arranged marriage without really resisting (I don’t consider crying and whining a resistance). Parents are as cliche as it is possible - soft mom, who tries to comfort daughter and reason with husband, and stuck-up father, who “knows best” and doesn’t care about what his daughter thinks, plus with unjustified motivation for arranged marriage. They just seem so unrealistic.
Visually (The directing)
Rating: 3.72
The directing was very impressive, I cannot lie. The intro scene is really well-made, although you might want to change the colouring of your splashes, as they’re hard to read. Some scenes like the siren in the station were cleverly done, but others weren’t so good, like the close-ups with cropped faces. Spot Directing and layering are used extremely well, though it was sometimes a little messy, look at speech bubble positions, some characters appear late in scenes from time to time. Plus, looped animation, not turned off when needed. Also, the music doesn’t need to be all the way through. Music is used to add drama and tension, not just as background.
Language (Grammar)
Rating: 2.83
There are a lot of errors in this story that affect the understandability of the story. I recommend getting someone to proofread it for you. Some sentences were built wrong, spelling, and punctuation problems that were all distracting. Also, exclamation marks (!) were overused.
Choices
Rating: 2.88
The choices seemed to be liked, but there weren’t really any that had much of an impact on the story. People are a fan of when a choice gets rejected and that happened a lot. They suggest having some with three to four options, so the readers feel like they’re contributing.
5-6 was the average number of episodes read by the five reviewers.
Overall, it was good. Not something they’d usually read, but was quite enjoyable. The plot idea is not bad, but it contains certain cliches. With the right execution and a bit of work, it could be a very good story.
Final Book Club score is … 3.11
Start a discussion below of this book if you want to! 
Now for next week’s book, get voting because we only have a few hours left.
The form is at the top!
Get well tho. 
