Rookywriters Book Reviews

No. 12 A slightest Touch

Introduction

¤ Book title and author - The slightest Touch by kkkkkarenj
Genre - Fantasy

¤ First impression - Title... First thing that comes to mind on hearing the title is, A slightest touch of what? 

¤ Weakness - Writing style is inconsistent. In some parts it's fast paced, other part it's normal.

¤ Improvement - Slow down writing pace. Carry readers along as you write. Drop relevant information about certain past events that will give readers hint on what to expect in subsequent chapters.

¤ Strengths - Good diction. Good description of characters and locations. Writing style strongly conveyed emotions within a scene.

Body

¤ Opening - Good opening from the prologue.

¤ Conflict - Olivia finding about her twin, gave a positive turn in raising conflict level in the story.

¤ Plot - The themes in this story are a bit confusing. From the summary, it says,

After the successful sacrifice which successfully wiped out the memory of their existence to the world the deviant...

Then chapter one opens up to Olivia waking up to go to work at a 'cafe' ...

From the summary and prologue, I was imagining a Lord of the ring, or Merlin kind of story settings. I was totally flabbergasted.

The main events of the story started in chapter five, but after Miles says he needed a sandwich the story took another turn.

¤ Setting - Settings of the story is not really clear. Are we having a timeless shadowHunters kind of setting or a normal 22nd century American teen life setting. The picture is vague.

Also, waving off character's intentions in a chapter gave the story a non professional look.

Most chapters started with the intention of solving a real issue at hand and I expected the issue to be resolved, but at the middle of the chapter the issue gets kicked off and other irrelevant stuffs takes over the characters.

This leaves piles of unresolved scenes and creates twists that readers can't keep up with.

¤ Characterization - Olivia has a good background story which is easily relatable. Isaac and Hayden, not clear where they are coming from and their role in the story, and Myles Favre, whose presence distorted the normal routine of Olivia's life. There is need for a more background information about him to know where he is coming from.

¤ Dialogue - Dialogue is pure and revealing. Most information about the story is spilled during the conversation of the characters.

¤ Point of View - The story evolves mainly around Olivia. It would have worked pretty well if it was written from a first person pov  (my suggest) It actually felt like it was been written in a first person pov not a third person pov.

¤ Show versus tell - Actually the whole story was more of telling than showing. New events and characters kept showing up telling us to just accept them anyway.

¤ Format of the text - Good paragraphing. Chapter length is normal.

¤ Grammar and spelling - From the first chapter, there was a little irregularity of some little words that was repeated over again, which literally had no use in the sentences. Words like in, it, into, of, for, I think they're called prepositions.  Example the prologue part,

- In a irregular rhythm of

Can be written as

In irregular rhythms of

- Only hoping for it to soon be over

Can be written as

Only hoping it will be over soon

- He whispered in her ears, in a seemingly comforting voice...

Can be written as

He whispered close to her ears in a comforting voice

- But none of it comforted her...

Can be written as

But none of his words comforted her

- She noticed this, she was more worried on another thing...

Can be written as

She noticed this, she was more worried about another thing

In chapter five,

- Insubstantial tints of the bright clouds...

Can be written as

Insubstantial tints lining the bright clouds

Check for such words and try rephrasing the sentences where necessary.

¤ Style - Writing style is well groomed and definitely well developed.

Conclusion

Comment - The whole time travel, teen fiction, past life, parallel world, mind control, super power, high school themes is too much for a story with a simple title as 'A slightest Touch'.

What are your initial idea about the story? Pick one or two themes and work out a good plot. Create relatable characters not just teens and build a world around them. Fantasy is a whole big world out there, explore it while maintaining the main idea of the story.

However, If you want to work with these themes, still cool, just that 'A slightest Touch' may sound romantic for a fantasy book.

My suggests... Though. I love the idea of your book.

Thanks for letting me evaluate your book.

Any comments or questions about any confusion just PM me or hit the comments.

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