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Review by Sunshine: Lucifer's Fall

Title: Lucifer's Fall

Author: Vushie

Summary: [NO SCORE – NOT INCLUDED IN OVERALL SCORE]

I decided not to review this part because there isn't exactly a summary. It's only an excerpt from the book itself. Regarding the excerpt itself, it's a pretty good choice – it introduces the protagonists and the dilemma, but avoids major spoilers. Good choice! 

Grammar: 3.5/5

For the most part, your grammar and punctuation is pretty great. It's very clear that you know your grammatical rules, but I do think that you need to go over the more recent chapters and brush up some little typos or tensing issues. For example, in instances like:

"The Devil had made me a promised."

It should be 'promise', as opposed to 'promised'.

I do, however, think that you might want to refresh your understanding of punctuation. While it never got in the way of reading, I definitely found a few punctuation slips here and there, as well as a few run-on sentences. I went through the first chapter again to pinpoint some of these punctuation issues:

"When he moved towards me once more, I raised my hand again in warning, Light flared again between my fingers."

If we read that sentence aloud, it is a bit clunky, and that's mostly due to that final comma and the repetition of the word 'again'. My suggestion is to change it to one of the following:

"When he moved towards me once more, I raised my hand again in warning. Light flared between my fingers."

Or, you could consider:

"When he moved towards me once more, I raised my hand again in warning, Light flaring between my fingers."

Or:

"When he moved towards me once more, I raised my hand again in warning, and Light flared between my fingers."

Another little thing I found was in the following sentence:

"What, is your name?"

If you were to read that aloud, the pause is quite awkward. I don't think the comma is necessary at all. And, finally, semicolons. Semicolons can be incredibly tricky. They are used to separate two clauses that can work perfectly as sentences on their own, but are strongly intertwined. Now, let's look at an example from your story:

"He leaned down even closer until his scent invaded my lungs; smoky and exotic with just the hint of something sweet."

In this instance, the two clauses are very strongly intertwined – which is fantastic. However, the second clause, 'smoky and exotic with just the hint of something sweet' does not work as a sentence by itself. Therefore, the semicolon is incorrect. I would use a dash instead. 

Character Building: 4.5/5

First of all, Sandriel. I love her. I love her voice and narration in particular. Her witty quips, her badassery, the way she occasionally throws in a bit of sarcasm when she's narrating her story to the reader – it's very engaging to read, and it makes her such a fun character to follow.

It was very clear from the beginning that you wanted to depict certain characters in a certain way, with the cool but occasionally-prone-to-mistakes Sandriel (which is great, by the way – I live for character flaws), to the seductive, sexy and rather intriguing Lucifer. As a reviewer, though, I'll be honest and admit that I initially couldn't take Lucifer seriously with all the erotic ways used to describe his voice, but I'll get to that more in the writing style section of this review. It's good to see that he branched away from that, though, and evolved as a character.

I also must commend you on how well you handled the changes in perspectives. They all felt natural and, though it was odd to have a character narrate in first person while the others narrated in third person, I found that it worked very well – it was like Sandriel was our home base. Speaking of perspective changes, you do have quite a few characters overall to keep track off – but you've been doing a pretty good job so far. Even when I picked off reading after a while, it was very easy to catch on.

A lot of characters do feel very strong and bold, for lack of better terms, but I do think that it works in your story because they all show this strong-willed nature in different contexts, with different twists in their backstories and motivations. So, great work!

Writing Style: 4.5/5

I loved your writing style. When it came to first person, you handled the balance between internal character monologue, dialogue and action extremely well, and even in third person, the story didn't feel at all alienating. It was incredibly accessible and not too heavy to read, which suits well with the genre.

I also loved the stylistic use of one-sentence paragraphs and one-word sentences! It was a great way to keep the reader on their toes, and it was also a great way to contrast the descriptive paragraphs. It was so, so fantastic to see details of the setting, and I loved that you never paused the narrative to describe it. Rather, you wove little, subtle details into the story as you wrote, which was simply wonderful to read.

I won't lie, though, there were some moments where you overused certain words. One of these is 'silkily', which was used often to describe Lucifer's voice. It got to a point where I started counting, and that often made it hard to take whatever Lucifer was saying seriously – which is not necessarily a good thing. In the first chapter alone, you used the word 'silkily' five times, and I do think too much is too much. Once the reader starts to notice and keep track of a certain word, you know you have reached that 'too much' threshold. 

Plot + Uniqueness: 4.5/5

At first, I was sceptical. Because there was no summary, I was worried the story would be about Lucifer stumbling upon some innocent, human girl, he seduces her but learns the true meaning of love, and they live happily ever after.

Thankfully, your story was nothing like that. It was so much better.

I loved the philosophical notions underpinning your story, particularly towards the start. It was so refreshing to see that, because I usually find it so odd reading stories that include Lucifer, angels and demons that don't include any biblical references apart from the characters and their stereotypes. It was so nice to see that you took your story to a deeper, more profound level, and it was also great to see some sneaky references to the biblical world – with the symbol of the apple popping up here and there as well.

I found the concept of the past lives interesting, I found the worldbuilding sleek and easy to follow, and I found the setting immersive. Your story is building up into what I imagine will be a rather explosive climax with the eerie introduction of Sindore, so I wish you the best of luck as you write that! 

OVERALL SCORE: 17/20

Overall, a pretty fantastic story with great characterisation and an immersive world. Great work! Just be sure to work on polishing some typos and punctuation, and you'll be good to go. I hope this review helps!