Reviews 2.0

Stars Carved in Our Hearts (Riyamcyriac)

Reviewer: riyamcyriac

Author: Pretty_Snowflakes

COVER: 8/10

I actually really like it! The background work with the title relating to stars and the little detail with the heart pulse in the middle works well. If I deducted points, it's probably because of the vast difference in the font in the middle of the graphic, but it's nothing too big.

Title: 6/10

After reading the book, the title doesn't make much sense to me. Actually, I think that naming it "Rules of death" would be soooo much cooler and adhered to your audience more.

Chapter Analysis: 7/10

Chapter One:

My favorite line in this chapter is curiosity kills if not killed. That's a very powerful line and is very introspective.

The beginning of this chapter confused in comparison to the other parts. The transitions were a little choppy. You went from talking about the guilt doctors face to the letter without a smooth reason why, and I'm sure that you put the letter in the first chapter for a reason, but it created a disconnect for the reader. Then we were thrust back into the doctor scene. I was very intrigued by patient 301, who had the weird blood. I got a very sci-fi vibe from the detail and I'm digging it! Then he goes into cardiac arrest. The doctors perform "electric shock" on him, which in professional terms, is "cardioversion." In this case, the language matters because it solidified your credibility. I suggest you go back and do some research on how cardioversion works, exactly how long they do it for, what's the process, what people shout. I wrote a scene like this before and I made sure to entail important details like the rubbing of the gel on the patient's bare chest, shouting clear before putting the electric pads on. Since I know medical stuff, I could conclude that electric shock meant cardioversion, but others might not have that knowledge and won't be able to envision it.

Chapter Two:

The first thing I got from this chapter was a continuation of the last, but there was some disconnect, such as why it was so odd for Dr. Fred to stop the resuscitation. I would advise making the chronological order of things more clear and answering the cliffhanger quickly.

The twist with the flashback and her exposing that like patient 301, she had unfamiliar blood, really made her character more interesting to me. I can alrady tell that she is going to attempt to donate her blood to him to save him.

Here's an inconsitancy though. This hospital doesn't seem like the type to number their patients because she said that the boy's name was Stevenson. It's probably for a plot reason, but I found it odd that 301 wasn't called by his name, but then again, this is just an observation, not a critic.

Dr. Fred telling Aryn that it was her fault was a very unprofessional move, and it made me question the integrity of the hospital. Doctors typically, if ever, chide each other after a death, and even then that's rare, and usually dealt with a report. As you said, it's a guilt-ridden job, so it's important to stay supportive.

Chapter 3:

So we meet Luise, who is part of some secret society of humans called "The Protectors." They're some people with odd blood types, but I don't know much about them. I don't really know how young Luise is, but I know he's a minor because his mother had to sign his discharge forms. This makes me question how he has so much knowlegde. He acts much older and has a very snarky attitude, but of course, I can't fit all teenagers into a box, so he might be different.

A second question I had was about his mother. Where was she in all of this? Why is she okay with letting her son's aunt take him home rather than her? Does she know what's going on?

Chapter 4:

So I had a question about this chapter, so I asked my mom, who works in hospitals. She said that you can't just delete medical information in the modern world cause it's linked to a lot of databases. You show this detail later in the chapter. Obviously, your world could differ from the modern, as it's showing, but in that case, you need to display that out better. Then as we go deeper into the chapter, it's revealed that the records are put iin the computer, but without any prior showing that this was a messy/unorganized hospital, it doesn't add up to why they didn't put it yet. This is dismissable, but I wanted to bring it up because it made the story a little unrealistic to me.

Other than that, the feelings she felt about betryqing her job were more sad than panic. I would iagine her hands trembling as she did the ac. Syntax-wise, sentences would be short and choppy. I think this issue can be fixed with more detailed actions and descritipns

The twist was crazy ND THAT CLIFFHANGER THOOO

Chapter 5

So the police are going to sentence her for trying to kill 301. I know I mentioned the Dr. Fred being rude thing but I see it's purpose now to show him as a bad character. I wonder why. Maria being Aryn's ally is reassuring. I certainly think this story is picking up now and is very interesting.

Chapter 6 and 7

So I don't know if she's actually gonna stay in person but I like Cherry. She seems very nice and fragile, and her story is very sad. I can't even imagine something like that happening to me. I like her being a friend to Aryn in this chapter, but I'm worried. There are no more avalible parts to this story but it caught my attention, which is why I kept reading onto these two chapters. The cliffhanger with the book was good.

Writing Style:

Filler words I noticed: Even, only, many, although, so much etc. These also include adverbs like very and anything that ends in -ly.

You use passive tense a lot, which gives you a bunch of long sentences and slows the pace down of your book. This is characterized by the excessive use of was, a be very followed by an ing word, and sentences where the subject is last. Aim to write more in active tense.

Active tense: A mobster chased her.

Passive tense: She was chased.

Use the "by zombies" rule. If the sentence makes sense after adding by zombies to the end of it, then it may be passive.

For example: "She was running" can be "she ran" You can indicate that it's present tense by describing sensory imagery.

Grammer:

Grammatically, I noteiced a lot of errors that impeded me from reading smoothy, but those errors fall more on the style side and lean towards passive tense. Try to minimize adverbs. Adjectives, and to be verbs, and replaced them with more descriptive words/imagery.

Aesthetic:

The aesthetic portion of this book was a little lacking. A tip is to not bold and italicize a word, but instead, just italicize it. Bolding it looks immature.

Plot:

I think the plot is very promising and I am excited to see where it goes! It's pretty original, and it stars a doctor, and I haven't read many books where the main is a doctore (in fantasy). One thing you need to tweak is your blurb. I didn't really get a taste for the novel in the blurb, so if it just casually popped up in my feed, after reading the blurb I would swipe away, and it doesn't deserve that.

Overall

Overall, I thought that had a really good start. After some polishing and more research done about hospitals and worldbuilding, then it can be a really solid book that I would add to a reading list.