Sunflower Reviews

Kinal - Masquerade Vehemence

Reviewer: kinalhariya

Review: Masquerade Vehemence

Client: alexandria_nick

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Title and cover:

Title looks classy and has raised my expectations. The best quality of the title is to explain the gist of the story in minimum words. And your title does exactly that.

Cover:

Cover is the simplest and yet attractive. The mask relates to the title. And the colour used is eye-catching as well. I also loved the font style.

Blurb:

The whole blurb is good and well written. But it can be made more interesting. What really steals the show in your blurb is the dialogue. A rush of excitement is passed as the readers start making assumptions about the story through the two sentences they speak. Timelines change, a same yet different country and so much more.

Moving towards the chapters,

Start was great. It started out with a great description and then followed by a comparison. I loved the italicized version that followed, making the above paragraph much more meaningful.

I found the chapter a little confusing. I had to read it twice to understand who was speaking and about whom. I would suggest breaking the long paragraphs, especially those which contained two-three different dialogues. Some space between them lessens the confusion.

The scene break had a huge time difference. In my opinion it would have worked better for the first part to be termed as a prologue.

The first chapter has left me with enough curiosity. I believe that Elliot's and Nathan's conversation is something that would make sense in the further chapters. We know what is happening but why...is the question that is unanswered. I have my own set of assumptions and would love to see if my guesses are true or if it turns out to be something else altogether.

Second chapter is the one that relates to the dialogue in the blurb. I loved the conversation between Nathan and Sarah. Their bickering and her hiding her uneasiness made the characters seem real.

★{"We're not on the same page here."

★The response to - I allow females to have a puff was really great. It put down the man who thought females needed their permission to do anything. The response was jaw dropping and gave the taste of his own medicine to the man. Ah! The look would have been amazing to watch.

★The sentence where she describes the difference between the types of friends. And then says, 'you're kind of old, so you won't really get it', this made me burst out of laughter.

★It was really fun to see that they couldn't keep up with the trends and how the language changed over the years. The use of polished language to showcase the previous years and then the difference in speaking in the current time. Everything looked amusing. I would also suggest showing such scenes more to develop a comparison with both timelines.

*****

Story moves at a steady pace. Overall, the story and the facts mentioned are really interesting. However, the way it has been projected at the starting chapters seems a little tiring to me.

Descriptions of places are done nicely. All the places, the expressions of the characters; detailing is great.

Characterization is nice. Characters have their own distinct voices. It is clearly shown how their past has molded their personalities.

Dialogues again are awesome. The back and forth between the two characters seems amusing and also provides lots of information about their world.

Vocabulary is fabulous and grammar is perfect for most of the part.

Most of the time paragraphs are of proper length but in between they turn out to be too long, making things jumbled up.

Concept is really awesome and fully original. I had been expecting the usual timeline story from the blurb, but the story is way beyond that. Plus the fact that the story has creatures that I have never heard of. I have read tons of stories with werewolves, vampires, faes, witches, even foxes but Terminals-that is something I am reading for the first time.

The story aces in all individual aspects. However, it all jumbled up when put together. Connectivity is missing in the story. It is hard to picture what is happening while reading.

The scenes feel a little confusing. I have to read more than once to understand who is speaking and what the scene is about. Once understood the scene feels really interesting. But going back and forth loses the flow of the story.

The above problem happens in the earlier chapters. However, the latter chapters move really smoothly and I have no complaints against them.

Errors:

First chapter

→"You want me to go like a living life assurance with someone whom I barely know, to bring back someone of whom I've no got idea about?"

This should be written as:

"You want me to go like a living life assurance with someone whom I barely know, to bring back someone whom I've no idea about?"

Second chapter

The Grand Mansion, which could also be mistaken for a palace, consisted of huge staircase with polished steps, leading to a suite of room on the first floor.

This sentence sounds weird to me. So look into it.

Titles -Chapter 4 and 5 are repeated.

Chapter 4 (the second one)

Black from top to bottom. Only things not white were his headphones....

I think here you mean that the only things white were his headphones..

Suggestion:

If there are scene breaks, then there should be something more than 2-3 paragraphs. A change of scene towards the end of the chapter looks weird.

Last words,

Great storyline. I enjoyed reading it. There are many facts and dialogues that were awe worthy. A little work on smooth presentation is needed, but overall it was a great read.