The Hot chocolate Book Review Center(Closed for good)

Review#160

Death Disco by: laybrinth101
Requested by: laybrinth101

First off I want to talk about the cover of the book. The cover needs some work and could be much better. Like it's fine if you still had a cabin on the cover, but it could have like maybe a darken sky and an outline of a bloody hand on it or maybe a bloody hand with a faded out disco in the background rather than some random picture of a cabin in the woods that you found online. This would have given it more of that spooky and murder mystery sort of vibe to it and it would draw more readers into reading your book. Plus having the title of the book and the author's name helps too cause then readers know who the author is on the cover since the cover is the first thing that people see when they click on your book. I recommend that you either use an app like photoshop or some other photo/cover editing tool to help you make the cover a bit better or have someone who has experience in digital art help you make one for you, if you have trouble making one yourself since there are plenty of people on Wattpad who are willing to help you with the cover when they have the time.

Next, I want to talk about the summary of the book. The summary could also use some work. It could've been more interesting if it wasn't three lines that hardly give any more info on what the story is about. It could have been better written if you had either changed the first line of the summary to "Allison and her friends go to a family friend's house in the woods along with Jamie, Mary's niece, to throw a disco party in 1979." Or added more to it so it wasn't just three sentences and nothing else. Plus I don't think you need to say who all of her friends are in the summary either since they're most likely get mentioned or make an appearance in the book anyways. This would have drawn more people into the story as well since people tend to read the summary of a book to know what it's about before going in to read it. I know you probably wanted to get straight to the point or were maybe having trouble coming up with what to write for the summary but it definitely could use some more work and maybe a little more thought going into it before calling good.

Now onto the grammar errors and writing structure of the book. The writing structure was okay and there was a few grammar errors but nothing to major where it affects the story too much.

Next is the descriptions, setting and characters of the story. First let's talk about the characters since it's probably the shortest thing that I will probably talk about in this section of the review. The characters oh boy where do I begin with this. To start off I guess is the fact that to me personally I felt as though the characters didn't have much or zero personality to them. They all felt too flat and didn't really have anything going for them other than that they were friends having a party in the woods. There wasn't really anything that made each of them stand out or made each one of them unique in some way. Plus at times, I felt as though they didn't act their age and acted like little kids more so than young adults. Plus, there wasn't much if at all, hardly any descriptions of what they looked or what they wore. It was a bit frustrating because I didn't feel like I had a connection to any of the characters let alone on what's happening to them to begin with. Plus some of the dialogue between characters was a bit awkward at times too and the sudden switch to different character's POV was also awkward and didn't really have any sort of smooth transition into them when they appeared.

Next is settings and descriptions. Now for this, I wished that you had described more of the settings and described more on what was happening cause it would have made it a more enjoyable read if it had. There were at times, one maybe two lines of you describing stuff but not much. If you had done more to describe of what was happening or like I said before with the characters were wearing then it would have been easier to visualize rather than it being too vague. This would also help draw in more readers like I said before cause it would make it a much better book with a bit of editing.

Finally there's the pacing and the plot of the story. The plot was okay and I didn't mind you taking the time to introduce the characters in the first few characters. The pacing on the other hand was a bit fast. We get introduced to the characters and what they're up to but there really isn't a lot of time to really build up their personalities or interactions
between each other other than the few that we do get in the story before the party in either chapter 4 or 5. And even then, we find out who the killer in the prologue which in a way, ruins the story cause it's supposed to build up to this unknown person killing the people staying at the cabin later in the book. It would have been more surprising or interesting if we got to see some of the killer's behavior before he shows up and kills everyone there and then dies after being shot by the police. Or kept the killer's identity unknown until later in the book and still build it up that way as well.

Overall, the idea for a 1979 disco party in the woods that ends in murder is interesting and would recommend it anyone who loves murder mysteries and disco parties but it definitely needs more work.

Thanks for letting me review your book.

-Traveler_lilly