Katelyn15

Trapped in a Online Game

The idea of the story is great. The author clearly put a lot of time into it and into creating the world. The characters are likable and relatable and the plot is interesting.

However, I had a hard time reading it because there are no periods and a lot of run-on sentences. The dialogue is not separated from the narration so, if I'm reading at my normal pace, it is difficult to discern who is speaking, or even sometimes when someone is speaking. If the grammar and punctuation and spacing were fixed, it would be an easier read and it would be easier to enjoy the other good things going on!

Late Review Swap

This book was good! I liked the way the characters interacted and how they all had such different relationships.

King of the Ruby Crown

The story itself is good and kept me reading. I think there was some good description in there, even if some of the more physical/fighting scenes were a little fuzzy as to what was actually happening. One thing I do think could improve story-wise is that it could be clarified that it takes place in present day earlier on. I spent a few chapters thinking it was kind of old-timey and the shock that it wasn't was kind of a lot.

My biggest problem was that, though I know it was specified that the story was unedited, it was very difficult to read. There were a couple typos and some tense confusion (between past and present). But the biggest thing was the lack of punctuation. Sometimes I had to read things two or three times to understand what was actually happening. I know it will be edited at some point, but this version was the only thing I had to judge by.

I Hear You

To start off, I love the idea of the story and the main characters are good ones. I like their personalities and their relationships and all that stuff.
As far as writing goes, there are some issues. One is tense confusion. I think that it is primarily in present tense, but sometimes some past tense slips in there and it gets a little confusing for the reader. Second, there are some words that are switched around. Many times when it says "out," as in people being out or being outed, it says "oust." Sometimes, instead of saying "while" it says "well." There are other words confusions similar to that because the words are homophones and the writer just has the wrong spelling. There are also some awkward paragraph breaks that kind of ruin the flow of the story.
The plot is a little basic and predictable at some points, like every time the mean guy shows up, it gets a little worse and more information about Porter and Ryker has been discovered. Sometimes the dialogue and the characters' narration is a little too tell-y (as in more telling than showing) and I would like it if some of Ryker's past came up more organically instead of being shoved out into the open. Along the lines of dialogue, the dialogue tags are varied, but the variation is actually distracting at some points. As a reader, I would rather see something like. "'Why didn't you tell me that before?" he asked, his eyes searching mine." than something like "Why didn't you tell me that before? he demanded to know." It's nicer to be able to visualize what the character is doing rather than telling their verbal inflections with dialogue tag words like "state" and "demand" and "comment."
All of that being said, I did enjoy the book, and I'm glad it's not over yet!