Dreamland Community's review archive, open to view different reviewers past works :D
If you are looking to request a review, please head over to Dreamland Reviews!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Title: Saving Mona
Author: @Choco_Late8
Genre: Teen Fiction
Chapters Read: Prologue - 2
Cover & Title
I actually quite like the title. It's simple, features the main character's name, and does feel very teen fiction to me, which is all it really needs to be. So I don't really have any complaints there. It works!
The cover feels quite atmospheric, which I like. I'll always be attracted to some fancy text, and you have that. Mona's broken nature comes through with the face on there, and the sort of smoke or fog perhaps mirrors how choked she is by reality? Or something like that xD I'm not sure what the thing behind the text is though - maybe a feather? But I don't mind too much. The only issue with the cover really is the text at the top - it's kind of blurry and small, making it hard to read, as well as being quite long for a tagline. So I think you need something a little shorter and more obvious.
Summary
As far as teen fiction summaries I've seen before, it's pretty good! You establish Mona's problems without being overly detailed, which I like, as well as showing that there is hope and it isn't all doom and gloom because we don't want that xD The stakes are kind of vague - perhaps you could go into what could happen if Dwayne doesn't manage to help Mona? - but I kind of get the feel that she's in a pretty downward spiral so I'm not sure if it's necessary.
The first paragraph does feel a little repetitive, in that you say everyone wants to be Mona and then say everyone loves her as well as saying how perfect she is - I don't think all of that is necessary. You just need to state how perfect she is and then contrast that by saying that she's hiding a broken girl. But otherwise, I like the first two paragraphs.
I see a lot of 'follow *insert character name*' in summaries, so I'd change up your third paragraph to remove that. You could say something like Only together can they find the light at the end of their dark tunnels? I just feel like the follow thing is a little overused, but I suppose it works so I shouldn't really complain xD
The rest of the summary isn't really necessary, I believe. Another overused thing in summaries is the 'This is a story of *list of words*', except that I don't think this one really works. Your last question is pretty powerful, but it doesn't really have a great deal to do with the story itself so I'm not sure. I think your summary would still have enough impact if you just left it off with that third paragraph.
Extra note: to me, the huge list of awards and highest ranks is quite over-facing and feels a little unnecessary. You could put them in an A/N at the start of the book, or just remove them altogether. In all honesty, I don't feel like Wattpad's ranking system means a great deal unless you're ranked highly in a genre tag - I'm not quite sure how it works, but being ranked highly in something like #mona or #abuse doesn't feel like a great achievement to me. But still well done xD
