Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Lina: The Cases of George Alpha #1 - Cupcakes

Title: The Cases of George Alpha #1 - Cupcakes

Author: Arnevandamme

Reviewer: linalagosya

Summary: 2.5/5

The summary does a good job of setting the tone of the story. There's clearly some absurdity to the premise and the summary plays into that well. Readers will know what kind of story they're heading into. There is an attempt to explain the world and the character briefly, but this could be expanded upon. What kind of person is George Alpha? His name is in the title so I'd like to know a little bit more about him in the summary. You don't want to go too deep into the world, as that will probably just confuse readers, but you could consider elaborating on that as well here. What kind of Abilities might people have? Giving us this information with the same quirky tone as the part about the cupcakes will help inform us while not seeming like an info dump. The summary could easily be a whole paragraph rather than just one sentence.

Grammar: 5/5

I found the grammar in this pretty much perfect and error free. It was easy to read and clearly proofread, which I appreciated.

The one thing I would recommend is always putting thoughts in italics for this story, regardless of who is thinking them or whether or not you use a tag. Certain books and stories get away with not doing this for very specific reasons. But there's no reason, here, I think, not to use italics. And it would help make things consistent and clear. You could also consider changing the way you format the conversations with dispatch to indicate that it is telepathic. But these are just suggestions, as is there was nothing grammatically wrong with the formatting.

Character Building: 2/5

This section was my biggest critique for the story. The main character blends into the background of the story. George Alpha is a great name, but he doesn't seem to live up to it. He is the protagonist of this story but he doesn't pop off the page. For these short kind of detective stories, a lot of times the character does not have much development. They are who they are and they solve the crime and that's it. Although I think you could totally include character development if you want to, I think George Alpha at least has to have a personality that pops off the page. Consider Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. They don't change much over the course of their novels or short stories, but these characters are iconic. They're also very different from each other. Who is George Alpha? What of his characteristics can stand out the most? Is he timid? Brave? He seems slightly humorous based on the voice and tone of the story, but I don't think that's enough. Is he lazy? Or hardworking? I didn't glean any of this from him working the case alone. I think if you really devote some time to fleshing out his character and making him shine on the page, that would take this series to the next level.

Writing Style: 3.5/5

Overall I found this story easy to read. It had a nice flow, and the writing style was simple but effective. I feel like you didn't waste a ton of energy on flowery language and description, and I appreciated that for this kind of story. It was easy to just follow along with the investigation. That being said, I did have a few critiques on the writing style.

The writing is pretty dialogue heavy, which is fitting to the story and provides a nice rhythm to the chapters. However, it is hard to continue to read long bits of dialogue without having some sort of break. You want to make things easy on your reader, so consider breaking up the dialogue with some of the MC's thoughts or observations a little more often. This will also give the reader more insight into your character faster. You could also include more character movements or tones. People hardly ever just sit still and talk, so try to think of what would be natural to the story. A good example of this is when Eddie leans conspiratorially to divulge his mistress's cupcake habit. That's a great little character moment. You don't have to overload the story with these, but a bit more would be nice.

Consider finding spots to add a bit more flourish of description to the story. It has a really fun tone, and you can play with that more even in describing the settings or the things our MC is interacting with. Little specific pops of fun. For example, what is one of Rascal's defining characteristics? Maybe the MC can make a note of it in a fun way when he starts talking to him at the crime scene. The employee is wearing an apron - does it have the Bakery's logo on it? Is it a sexy lady sitting on a cupcake? (I picked this because it's called Brothel's). I think there are lots of moments like that where you can add a special, specific flair to your writing that will really help bring this world and this story to life. You don't have to write paragraphs about each setting, by any means, I'm talking about little pops of description that match the tone of your story. The "frightened puppy" line is a good example of this kind of thing.

In the chapter "Walking the scene," the character explains Abilities. This is great world building and the information is really cool and well explained. However, due to the sparsity of info and general lack of longer paragraphs or descriptions in previous chapters, this stood out in kind of a negative way as being a lot at once. My suggestion for a smoother read would be to shorten and tighten up this section a bit as well as spread out the info a little more, and/or to bulk up the chapters before with a bit of info as well, so this doesn't feel as out-of-left-field as it does. For the Spirit Central explanation as well, I think that could easily be interspersed as he's going there and talking to the victim, rather than explained all at once.

Plot + Originality: 4/5

I loved the world of this detective story. It didn't overwhelm the story but it added a certain bit of flair. It wasn't just your run-of-the-mill detective story. The Abilities and the reincarnation aspect, I thought, were portrayed in a really fresh and original way. I hadn't seen it explored in quite this way before, so that was refreshing. The way that the Smelling Ability is described is really vivid. Even though it's something I haven't seen before, I could picture everything as described and it makes sense that this would prove a useful Ability for the detective.

The investigation itself, as well, was unique. The cupcakes gave it a humorous flair but it was still a serious homicide investigation. I found myself thoroughly enjoying reading along to figure out "whodunit." For the most part it unfolded nicely. There was a nice plot twist moment when George says he's going to go talk to the victim. I liked that chapter ending. Well-placed.

George getting stabbed in the eye is a nice shock value component, but I found myself curious as to why we didn't get to actually see how this happened. He's a detective, did he not defend himself? Fight back? Was he not prepared for this aside from his Healing Ability? The quickness of how it's described makes it seem like it just happened really easily and effortlessly, which doesn't seem super grounded in reality. Not that the story as a whole is grounded in reality, but this feels like maybe it should be. The fun of the detective getting into fisticuffs or getting roped into a chase is a big part of this genre, and I felt like we were robbed a little of getting to see this in scene.

I think there were a few times where we fell into questioning of witnesses and suspects and it didn't necessarily yield any new information that the reader didn't already know. Although this is probably realistic to real-life, consider maybe going through the interrogations to see if there's something you could cut from one because it's said in another or something along those lines. Also, the more you make those secondary characters pop during those scenes, the more fun it will feel and we might overlook reading the same info multiple times.

OVERALL SCORE: 17/25

Overall I found this story thoroughly delightful. I love the world and the tone and the absurdity of the premise. Cupcakes! I think the main character needs more development to make him really be someone we want to follow, especially for multiple stories. Some work could be done overall to help bring all the characters and the world to life through the use of description.