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 Review #3979618 |
| (5.0)| Hi JaceCar   It's been pleasure to review your "Invalid Entry" on behalf of the WdC Angel Army Group. Please be reminded that I'm still newbie and that my review is based on one person's opinion and you have all rights to choose if you like it or not. So please feel free to use if you find something interesting or just ignore if you don't like something.  Chapter two/Boredom?I've noticed that your every chapter contains a quote by world famous people and I like that idea. It somehow explain to reader what is that chapter all about. While reading your novel I want to say that you have nice collection of these quotes. I was thinking about this. I like them all but what other people has to say about this? I never heard of Soren Kierkegaard before but I googled his name. They consider him as the first existentialist philosopher. This quote that you put here fits perfect to the chapter because I've found connection, Soren's theological work focused on Christian ethics and the beginning of your novel occupy reader with thoughts about church and your idea that Alexei and his family weren't too much into it. This is going to be sensitive theme once when you publish your novel. No matter how much we avoid it religion will always be a theme that people simply want to discuss about, it doesn't matter if it's about vampires or not. As I said I'm not too much familiar with Soren's work, I found out some things just from wikipedia and I realized that his work is about: the Church should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a leap of faith. Which is perfectly fine if I connect all this with Alexei but here you are giving to people and especially to critics to give you critic about what you said in your novel. The quote for herself is perfect, I was just wondering if you thought about critics once when you publish this novel? To me as non professional it doesn't matter too much but there will always be someone who will look for 'hair in the egg' ( that is our national synonym when people are looking for at least little bad in some good thing ). I just wanted you to think about this what I just said because I know that religion is the only theme in the world that can bury you down as well as lift you up, and even if Soren tried to say that man as individual can find God and I agree with it but our society is different today. I know that quote that you put at the beginning is nothing about the church but I think that critics will try to find that 'hair in the egg' because of who said it. Maybe yes, maybe not, I just tried to point to you. Of course, this is just my small opinion. I also thought about one more solution but please be reminded this is just my opinion. How about that you make your own quotes for each chapter? You know when you read books that are famous there is always few most popular quotes that critics single out and something that readers pick up sometimes either as some guidance in life or just as great quote, something they can relate to and something that will stay yours forever, like brainy quote I mean. The rest of the first part of this chapter is great, but I have few things to consider. Before he got home and before phone conversation with Anastasia he has been at school. You just described how it all went that day and I'm fine with it. If I may suggest here one thing. Between class of Biology and study hall I found some kind of emptiness, like if there you're missing at least one small, unimportant conversation. Like you rushed this part to go somewhere more important--phone call with Anastasia. Maybe you could fill up that emptiness with this: someone said something to him while he was walking to the next class. I said this only because after study hall you rushed things a little bit. You said it was boring and the rest of the day was not so bad, you put just few more things and then we are at the evening conversation with Anastasia. This is something that I like with Anastasia:  "What are you wearing, pink or something? You should get at least a couple of girls to look your way. There have to be some cute ones around there somewhere."I like Anastasia, she seems funny and I love the way she is joking with him, she asked if he is wearing some pink shirt and that could be main reason for people and girls are avoiding him. That could definitely be a main cause, pink shirt on guys are funny.  "Your teacher? Uh, I hate to tell you, but... that ain't going to work, little bro. I don't care how good looking she is.""Yeah, I know. But in all my classes, doesn't matter which or what, she is by far the coolest, and the only one who ever pays any attention to me. She's the only person in this entire town who treats me like a human being." "Alyosha, you gotta stop that now, before you get yourself in trouble. You don't have a chance with someone like that, for one thing, and even if she did pay any attention to you -- she'd end up in jail for years over it. Would you want to do that to her? You've got to know when to say no." This conversation is fine to me but I got different feelings about it. I realized that Anastasia is young and funny girl and here they are talking about potential dangerous if they end up together. Now, my point is--I could also get different feeling about how they are saying this, how Anastasia's voice sound here? Is she angry? Is she saying this blankly? Is she worried too much about her brother or she is just trying to 'shake his shoulders' to wake him up from 'this dream'? You have only conversation but you don't have that--he could feel she was worried,--he said/she said part in dialogue. I also like the ending sentences of the first part of first chapter. I wouldn't suggest anything here. Bloodwork? Nice description of how Zoelle worked with blood test, I could almost imagine like I was in that class watching how she is doing it. I have one sentence that you may consider and I will list it below: "I... had a question," he stammered uneasily. Man, she was beautiful today. Like every day...Since you are talking in third person here looks like narrator is Alexei. You said: man, she was beautiful today-- this sentence is fine but this is from narrator's point of view not from Alexei. If you put it as italic and make it like his thought or reformulate, take out word 'man', you can just say that she was beautiful like every day. Try to say what you wrote and you will see what I'm talking about. Good Samaritan? If I compare this part with previous versions I saw you didn't make too much changes here, just a few added sentences then and there to make it more visual, to describe the scene with Marie little bit better. I wouldn't have anything to say here. Whoever suggested you, or not, to make this part clearly I agree with everything. No need for improvement. You described how Maria looked like, how Alexei felt while she was trying to 'kiss' him, we know how her boyfriend and his friends look like and of course, the main reason, why they beat him up. Hospital food? Here also I have nothing to say, everything seems fine to me. Valley history? I'm not quite sure if the beginning of this part is right: Michael told him, "The valley was a quiet place, designed by the Morgans..." It is nice explanation of what the valley is but it's distracting me with 'Michael told him". Maybe if you started with "The valley was a quiet place..." and then in the middle you could put 'Michael told him'. I'll try to give you my example now: "The valley was a quiet place, designed by the Morgans," Michael started with a story, "the church denomination that was most prevalent here to be perfect isolated community, everyone in harmony, marching to the beat of the same drummer." etc. Yu don't need to change if you don't like, this is just how I would write it down. "The whole valley," he continued, "with very limited exceptions, participates in the Morgan version of Christianity, and derives their local government from church offices." Now, between first and second paragraph I also feel some emptiness, because in second paragraph you said 'Michael continued'. That makes me think about something. To me it feels like Alexei did something while he was telling a story to him and you didn't write it down. It feels like, for example: Alexei was surprised and he was just sitting there with his mouth wide opened. This is just as example of some act that you could put in between paragraphs. It's just because of that 'he continued' part. To me feels like Alexei did something and no matter what he did, or look like while Michael is telling a story, he still continued with it. So, my suggestion here is just to try to describe some feeling of Alexei when Michael started to tell the story. It can be maybe how he felt pain in one moment or how he moved in bed, nothing special but it has to be something that distracted Michael just for a second and then there it comes this 'he continued' part. The rest of this part is fine to me. What I liked the best? I am not too much familiar with all these blood types but the way it seems like you know about it more than me and you are trying to explain to the reader what is it all about, about Rh factor and even how Zoelle did blood type practice at school class. That was awesome and I really felt like I'm in there, too, trying to learn things about my blood. So, thumbs up for that. I appreciate thoughts about the valley and how Michael explained it to Alexei in the hospital. It is visual, readable and instructive. A whole chapter seems like it's instructive and you're doing great job. No one can tell you that you are not familiar with things that you 'preach' to us. When writing a novel one writer needs to posses not just skills but he also need to posses great knowledge about certain things, it depend what he is writing about. Same like you are writing about blood and her types, it's great. Plot? Since I was reading previous versions of 'Vamparisi' as well I have seen that you changed and reordered chapters. I mentioned before that I like your way of retrospective telling a story and this chapter continue with the first one. I love this version rather that first two. It seems more clear. You also split some parts, some things added, some things taken but overall to me seems like great version of great novel. Writing style? We know that this is your first attempt to write in third person. You don't have too much mistakes, I didn't get too much distracted, it seems fine. Mistakes that I spotted I listed already above but again, please remember that this is just based on one person's opinion. Settings? For every scene setting you have description, not quite how it looks like but you provided enough in conversations between all characters. I loved most of the things here because I could feel like I'm in there too. Final thought? I review your novel because I promised but also because I love it. There is so many things to learn from here and also things to discuss about. Here I'm talking about things that I said at the beginning of this review, the things about quotes and the church. I'm not Christian and I'm not too much familiar with tradition. We all know that religion has long spectrum of colors and everyone see it different. Maybe this is not too much important for your novel. I mean yes it is, because Morgan community was all that about 'their church'. I was just thinking about this from human side. Even if your novel is great you know there will always be someone who will try to find something bad in it and I'm afraid that critics may stuck with this religion part and I think, if you can handle critics then it should be fine. As I said, religion is broad term and no matter what we do there will always be someone who thinks that his religion is better than yours. As I said maybe this has no anything with 'Vamparisi', maybe you could just think about it and of course if you find it interesting, feel free to use everything I said above, in your great novel. Thank you for understanding once again and I apologize if sometimes it takes too long for my review. You know how is WdC, sometimes I'm distracted but I always fulfill my promises. So, I will see you in the next chapter.~Minja~ "The WDC Angel Army" check out my contest "Jane Austen Contest "  Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 04/20/2014 @ 3:28am EDT