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When I Leave

ninjacookiecutters , your review by shashi1903 is ready.

Sorry for the wait

TITLE AND COVER

Wow I really like the title. I love the vibe I'm getting, like the misery of loss. It's very intriguing.

Even the cover is kinda on point. The darkness tells us of all the losses he has faced, and the way he's looking up at the stars tells us how he still has hope. It's wonderful. I would not change anything in the aspects.

BLURB

The blurb actually has satisfyingly enough information.

It's so exciting (please don't think I'm a psychopath) about those corpses brandishing knives to kill them.

Plus, I loved that line about the day starting with a history lesson, and ending with an epidemic. Very good line for a blurb.

So all in all, all three aspects, the title, the cover and the blurb are good enough to catch a reader's attention, and I'm very proud of that fact.

CONTENT

Let's start with the plot.

About this disease. It seemed a bit sudden, that he read news on a mobile phone and rushed to his home. If it was that serious, won't he have seen the news beforehand and been anxious about it even before he got to school?

And Kyle and Annalise's relationship progresses way too abruptly. You say she is his enemy. It only seemed like it in that particular sentence. Absolutely nowhere else did it seem like that. Then don't you think using the word 'enemy' is a little too extreme? Maybe just make him mention that she was cautious about what people thought about her, and that's why she didn't want to be seen with him. And that was the one thing he absolutely hated about her.

I don't know, just give us some instances where Annalise 'ignores' Kyle or something to show us why he called her an 'enemy'.

Then, you need to slow down with the time lapse. Or maybe show us a bit more about what's going on with this disease, and how it's affecting people. Just out-of-the-blue mentions of people lying on the streets isn't enough. Give us a bit more explanation to that in the early chapters. Give a detailed, no matter how gruesome, explanation.

And just one thing, how could that man, who lost his daughter, and still had complete conscience of what he was doing, yet wanted to kill Annalise? Even that's fine. But well, it would be better if someone else explained it to her after the attack. Make them stay in the moment in that particular scene, it's just a suggestion, don't make him explain it to her, just make him say that she would make a perfect leader, that he had nothing to lose, yada yada yada. Make him stay in the moment.

Other than that, I think your plot is very well thought out and executed even better. You give very brief explanations about everything, but I guess it works out just fine in your case.

Now we come to Kyle.

Awesome character, you've done a great job in bring out his overwhelming anxiety, especially the part with him fainting in the assembly area. I thought he would go crazy and start swallowing sanitizer (you'll know what I mean if you've read 'Turtles All The Way Down') but well I've always had a thing for a little 'extra' drama here and there. But does he hate his brother? Or does he love him? At some instances, it feels like Kyles loves him, but in others it feels like he treats Jason as a burden? Do you want the readers to think that?

Then there's Annalise. Again, great job with Annalise, with her scared, yet hopeful character. I'm not gonna lie, at first, I thought Annalise was like his younger sister or something whom Kyle wanted to protect from the entire situation. Well, that was partly because I've watched 'Logan' a lot of times. But well, I think mentioning what Annalise meant to Kyle in the blurb would be a nice thing to do.

GENERAL THOUGHTS

There were no grammatical errors which I could find.

In general, I really loved it actually. It's a very good plot, very well planned. Just a little detail here and there, would make it even better than it already is. A little more description of emotions, a little more scene descriptions here and there are all you need to take this book from good to the best.

☆

XOXO
Shaheen