Sunflower Reviews

Chelsea - Viva La Parys

Review: Viva La Parys

Reviewer: Chelsea (MrsCLSmith)

Client: asteroid103

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Cover:

This cover is okay. I like that background image, set in Paris, France, but since the story doesn't take place in Paris, France, it doesn't quite fit. I know the title is Viva La Parys (which is Spanish — more on that in the title section) and is supposed to be a play on the well-known French saying, but I'm not sure it merits a full Parisian cover. There are so many beautiful descriptions of the book's actual setting in your work. I think including the real Parys would be more fitting. The font is also a bit too small and the color choice makes the words even more difficult to read.

Title:

The title is good and is a fun play on words. It's clever and definitely does its job of drawing the reader in. I do think that it's perhaps not in the proper language. I'm pretty sure it should be Vive la Parys, as I assume it's a play on Vive la France (which is French) and not Viva Las Vegas (which is Spanish). Personally, I don't think it makes sense for it to be in the Spanish language, but it's up to you to change or keep it. Again, this is based on my assumption, so if it's supposed to be in Spanish instead of French, please disregard.

Blurb/Summary:

Your blurb is pretty good. I think it does summarize the plot, but it's also too long, a bit confusing, and full of grammatical errors. I would consider getting rid of the "rules" section and focus on summarizing. The two rules just kind of don't add anything. They just make it more difficult to read. For the spelling and grammar, I suggest you copy and paste it into a document processor that will show you the spelling and grammatical errors. You have misspelled words like "although" and a few others which will definitely turn some readers off.

Writing Style, Grammar, and Mechanics:

It's not uncommon for books on Wattpad to need some TLC when it comes to editing, especially for grammatical errors, so please don't feel discouraged by what I'm about to say because it's all things you can very easily fix.

This book's biggest weakness is the plethora of spelling and grammar errors. I started out inlining corrections, but I quickly had to give up because there were just too many. It seemed to me that you often spell words phonetically or use the wrong homophone (Just as an example of a few I jotted down in my notes - you spell cough "coff," physique "physeek," entrance "intrance," and many more). I'm not sure if South Africa has its own dialect or different acceptable spellings from American and British English, but if not, I think you have a lot of work to do. Due to the sheer number of spelling errors, I have to assume you are not using a word processor for typing up your story, and I think getting one will really be beneficial to you. There are tools that you can use to help you spell words correctly. I suggest using Google Docs. Creating a Google account is free and Docs is a free application. If you copy and paste your story into it, it will show you all of the spelling errors and some of the grammar ones. After fixing those, I suggest finding an editor on Wattpad who can help with the rest.

Some of your errors I think you can fix yourself in the meantime:

Your dialogue is formatted incorrectly. You have the comma outside of the quotation marks every time anyone speaks, and it should be inside. Google "formatting dialogue."

You often use the incorrect homophone.

Like I said, Google Docs should help with the English misspellings, but your phonetic spellings aren't limited to English. For example, when Nate speaks French, he says "anshonte mademoiselle" instead of "enchante mademoiselle." Again, maybe there is a South African dialect that I'm not aware of, so please disregard if there is.

There are a lot of subject-verb agreement errors and tense jumps. Read your work again but this time aloud. This will help you to identify these types of errors.

Plot, Setting, and Pacing:

I genuinely really liked the plot which is a bit of a shame because if I started this just on my own for fun, I would quit reading in chapter one because of the number of errors. Fix those, especially the ones in the blurb, and I think you'll gain a lot of readers.

This was a fun and exciting read. While there were times that I felt the romance between Eric and Danelle was a bit rushed and the chemistry lacking, I think you did a nice job building to the action of the last few chapters. I also liked the mafia subplot to the romance. It made for some fun action scenes and a little bit of suspense.

The pacing was a bit slow at points. This could be because of the errors, but I also think it is because there is no snappy dialogue at all. Everytime a character speaks it is followed by a description of what they or someone else is doing. There is also a lot of telling instead of showing in this book which can also slow down the pacing.

The best part of this book in my opinion is your descriptions of the setting. I could tell that you truly love what you're writing about and your appreciation shines. The animals and the landscape were exciting to read about. Danelle racing cheetahs on her motorcycle was cool, and I loved when Eric and her dad fed the zebras. I wanted more.

Characters:

Danelle's characterization is consistent and realistic. She doesn't change much from Chapter 1-21, and she's likable. I also really respected and admired how strong she is and that she isn't afraid to fight back and straight up shoot people, like when she runs into the mafia guys the first time. I enjoyed reading her POVs, and I liked her family, especially her dad.

To be honest, I found Eric to be very unlikable, but I think that was your intention. He's supposed to be that type of guy. To be frank, he's a douche. I kept wishing for some sort of redemption arc, but it never came. I don't want to include any spoilers, but when he was not affected whatsoever by what happened to his aunt in the end, I was really put off. Even if they weren't close, etc., to have no reaction whatsoever and just gloss over it was strange to me. Honestly, I felt there was a lack of chemistry between Danelle and Eric throughout a lot of it, and I think that's because there wasn't a lot of depth to him; whereas, Danelle was more fully realized.

Recommendation:

After the spelling and grammar get some TLC, I would recommend this to someone looking for a romantic suspense novel or a novel set in Africa.