Reverie Reviews

review #59.S3: Mr. Weirdo

Mr. Weirdo

Author: @avniy1312
Reviewer: CoffeeAndSilverInk

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SYNOPSIS

"Why do I feel like I know him but still don't?"
Lisa moved into a new apartment, surrounded by kind neighbours. But there was one person in her building who exuded an air of mystery that left her feeling both curious and unsettled.

Little did she know, this mysterious person harboured a deep-seated need for revenge against those who had wronged him in the past, darkening his soul in the process.

Just as the tension between Lisa and the mysterious man reaches its peak, a man steps into their life, turning their worlds upside down. As they navigate this unexpected twist of fate, both Lisa and the mysterious man are forced to confront their pasts and rethink everything they thought they knew.

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Note: The following review is written by someone with no real writing credentials (uni degrees and anything of sorts), only the experience of many years within the wattpadian writing world and having written over 50 reviews in the past 2 years. Please note that reviews are subjective and not law, that they're opinions and should be taken with a pinch of salt. If the following review in any way offends you, please note that that is not the goal and it is one person's view of your story. You are entitled to agree or disagree with the raised points. If you are hurt and need to leave hate comments to feel validated, please don't. The reviewer doesn't care.

Title and Cover:

The title is original and makes sense to the story. The cover also works well, but I would make the Mr. also white to match the Weirdo.

Blurb:

The blurb describes who Asher is well enough, but Lisa is mentioned to have moved in and nothing more. A blurb must introduce the main character's, the main conflict and appeal to the reader. Although I believe the blurb is appealing enough, the previous points should be further explored.

Plot/Flow:

The story is slow paced. It doesn't move much forward since we're mostly getting flashbacks from Lisa's part.

At first glance, the main plot isn't clear. The blurb isn't giving us anything besides the relationship between Lisa and Asher and the fact that Asher is a mysterious person. Reading on, I can't understand what the main conflict is. That said, I hope everything that is happening will eventually lead to an explicit main conflict.

The plot about Adam is interesting but seems undeveloped so far. A lot of the things that are happening seem unconnected, and I assume at some point in the story they will connect and start making sense.

We have Ryder's mystery at the Brickwell's engagement, which by itself is interesting. There's also the Adam plot, which I would like to see more of. And, of course, the blood in Asher's hands. All of those don't seem connected but quite interesting on their own if further explored.

Descriptions:

The prologue is a lot more descriptive than the rest of the story. They're both over descriptive in terms of action.

Characterization:

I think more interactions between characters are needed to understand the characters in depth. Backstory information is presented well throughout the story, but those are facts about them, not who they are.

Writing:

The prologue's writing style is completely different from the rest of the story. Writing 3rd pov and 1st pov generally has different results, however, the difference between them seems as if two different people wrote each of them.

The two things that made it hard to read the book were the over description and the redundancies. Don't take me wrong, I think this book needs the character and spatial descriptions. It's the action descriptions that should be toned down. As someone once told me, when writing about making pizza, don't describe every step of the pizza making (or coffee making in this case). There are several mundane actions that are explained step by step that simply don't need to be described. If it's not necessary for the plot, cut it out (which would fasten the pace). And the same can be said about the repetitions and redundancies that become more and more frequent as I read further. Avoid saying the same word three thousand times in the same paragraph. Avoid explaining the meaning of a word (e.g. neighbour already means they live next to you). Those two things are recurrent in the writing style and decrease readability a lot.

The same thing can be said about feelings. If there's a description that Lisa is scared, no need to say she is. The writer's golden rule is "Show, don't tell", and this book is very "show and tell".

There are some things that need to be checked such as general and dialogue punctuation (lack or wrong use of it), the prepositions (the incorrect use of them), verbal tenses (the switching between present and past tenses instead of sticking to one, and I don't even mean flashbacks, in the same paragraphs even), the capitalization of names (the lack of it), misspellings and sentences that don't make sense (how does a building shine through windows?). Weak adverbs should be avoided in storytelling (e.g. really, very, clearly, obviously,...).

Thoughts are presented the same way dialogue is. To avoid confusing readers, always add "she/he/they thought". About actual dialogue, said is used a lot (I'm not saying said is dead, don't believe that propaganda) when, at times, the characters are asking. Make sure to use asked instead of said in those situations.

There's one quote breaking the fourth wall, which would be fine if that was the intended writing style, but it isn't. The bold time stamps could be avoided and replaced with short transitional paragraphs. Asher's first pov was introduced with no indication and that is confusing. Some sentences simply aren't sentences and some of the dialogue isn't realistic or make sense.

Negatives aside, the information about the main character is introduced well and not in an info-dumping kind of way.

Overall enjoyment:

I'm not a fan of reviewing AI books. I don't care how much was used, if it was only the prologue or whatever. If you ask AI to write a book, you can also ask for it to review it. Is it the same? Of course not. But that's not my problem.