Cassie's Reviews (CLOSED FOR CATCH UP)

3: Broken By Design || AsheraJones

Author: AsheraJones

Book title: Broken By Design

Title

I like the title, but I don't think it fits the story. I suppose "broken" is referring to Olive, but I didn't see a broken girl; a sad girl with a terrible boyfriend, yes, but not a broken girl.

Cover

Outstanding cover! Great colors and the title is big enough and is right in the center of the cover. The only thing I'm not 100% excited about is the sentence at the top because the half right isn't legible unless zooming in (I'm using Wattpad via desktop). So maybe another color would work better because both the words and the background are white.

(After reading the story) Up until the last chapter, Olivia is the protagonist. Why is there a boy on the cover? Shouldn't there be a girl?

Blurb

I'm going to analyze your blurb line by line:

I don't think your blurb needs the first line (the dialogue). If you keep it, put a full stop after "change".

I didn't understand the word "facade" in "Olivia Garcia facade has a perfect life,". It doesn't make sense here. Is it a typo? I don't think it belongs there. I believe you meant to say that she pretends to have a perfect life, that her perfect life is a lie. It would be better to say "No one sees the lies behind Olivia Garcia's life. They see her perfect life, her perfect friends, her perfect boyfriend, but everything is a mask (or a façade if you prefer)."

I also don't understand the "fragile kid" part. Do they treat her like that because she's "perfect"?

The rest of the blurb has some run-on sentences [=two or more independent clauses that are connected improperly]. By the way, it's "best friend", not "bestfriend". So, the next sentence could be: "However, there's someone who treats her differently: Tristan Hendrix, her boyfriend's best friend. He's always annoyed by her presence, and she thinks he's rude and that he will never accept her. [In the blurb, you suddenly mention a Chase. I guess that he's the boyfriend, but you haven't mentioned him before.] But everything changes when her life turns upside down."

The story looks simple and the blurb doesn't have the element of surprise. There are thousands if not millions of stories with an MC (=main protagonist) who has a perfect, fake life and someone hates her until everything changes. Your blurb doesn't have something that will make it unique or different from most of the stories of this genre.

Prologue

You don't have to put "(prologue)" before the text. The title of the chapter is enough.

The second line could be omitted. The previous sentence shows that they are taller than her, so the second line is unnecessary.

I don't mind the length of the prologue, but do you think it was necessary? Because I don't. Not every story needs a prologue. Yes, the prologue is very important, but only when the story needs one. If the story makes sense without the prologue, if you can use all the information from the prologue in the main story and if you are writing a prologue because it's a trend, then you shouldn't have a prologue.

As I'm writing this, I haven't yet read anything more from your story, but I'm certain that you can include how Olivia and Tristan met inside the main story.

Plot

I'll have to be honest with you. The girl with the "perfect" life and the "cheater" boyfriend has been written many times in the past. It's a cliché plot story. When I read the blurb, I thought the story was going to be about a very rich, beautiful girl that everyone fears, but I saw a naïve girl instead. I liked that you added her problem with acme and her insecurity about makeup. That made her character more realistic. But I don't know why you chose to make her be with Chase even though she knows he's a cheater. I'm sure many women stay with their man after he's cheated, but Chase doesn't show any redemption if only Olivia feels insecure and sometimes strange when he's around her.