Review on Torn Within by Caupcayke

COVER 📘

The background, fonts, size and colour choice is nice. The cover is attractive and will surely draw attention. The background gives off this certain vibe that just fits perfectly with the plight of Leticia, so I would say you did amazing on this.

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BLURB 📘

Your blurb is nice, I will say this was also a piece well written. I really liked the first paragraph and how everyone just fits in as you go on. It's nice and interesting. I suggest you give an extra space after each paragraph, so it looks well spaced.

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CHARACTERS 📘

Now, to be honest, I read the first four chapters of your book and I didn't find a character I would say I like because the ones I saw were wicked and annoying. From Maverick to Victoria to Lara—is that her name? The secretary I mean.

I want to slap all of them. One because they are all stupid, especially Maverick. I mean, yes, all the proof pointed against Leticia but if she had the heart to steal fourty one million naira why the fuck will she be with you? He should have perceived something fishy, like, it's like is fish brain all this fictional multi millionaire characters are carrying. But...I won't say I blame him much, fourty one millionaire is enough money to render one stupid enough and again, all evidence pointed against Leticia, it sad that her words didn't mean much though.

Victoria was just the worst, the woman is just pure evil and wicked. To have push her daughter into marriage at such a young age all because of money and status and the last statement when she wished kidnappers will kill her daughter just showed that she's the devil's concubine.

Leticia, I don't know why you chose this name for her, I understand Maverick's own because he is an half-caste, is Leticia also one? Anyways, so far, all I have for her is pity. I mean what else can she do, she tried to explain and tell them they were wrong and they didn't listen, I only wish her fictional life the best.

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PUNCTUATION 📘

This was great and done well, mostly in the narration, you made use of the punctuations perfectly.

Though coming to the dialogues, there are few things I have to point out.

Use the em dash [—] when your character has been interrupted in a speech mid-word, use an em dash if your character was able to complete the word but was interrupted before they could finish their thought or an hyphen. Use an Ellipses only when your character are the ones taking a pause.

When Leticia was stuttering, I would advice you don't use so many hyphens, it made it hard to read the words.

Example:

"L-list-en M-m-ave-r-i-ck, I-I re-al-ly kn-know noth-i-n-g a-a-a-bout wh-"

Do you see what I mean? I know you were trying to show that Leticia was scared and stammering, but the hypens and the word breaks were too much.

Your reader is smart, so just occasionally remind your reader of the stutter. Readers will fill in the blanks spaces, and no one wants to read something that reads exactly like a stutter sounds.

Stuttering occurs on the first sound of the word—not the first full syllable.

Example:

"It's a s-s-imple equation stupid!" ☑️

"It's a sim-ple equation stupid!" ❎

Lastly, avoid the use of Interrobangs (?!).

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DESCRIPTION & GRAMMAR 📘

Your description was amazing, you did a good job in relaying your characters feelings and emotions to the readers, you also did good in describing the scenes the events took place, especially the moment Leticia was on the bus and you did well in talking about the hawkers around, it painted a good image on the hardship people actually face.

Grammar was also great, I didn't spot any misspellings or grammatical error. Though I advice you don't shorten words. At one place where Maverick was speaking, you wrote 'cause' as 'cos'.

Also, the words you wrote in pidgin English, then translated in English, well suggest you used the style I show below.

Example.

"C'é una chiave!" Sergio cried out in disbelief. It's a key! He held it up to the light.

If it was just a greeting that was said in another language, then no need to translate it, but you can include that it was a greeting in the narration.

Example

"Buon giorno!" Jennifer's landlord called out a hearty greeting as he passed her on the stairs.

Or you can simple write the words in English and write 'The driver replied in Pidgin'. If you want to drop in the foreign word, make sure the meaning of the dialogue would still be crystal clear even if you deleted the foreign word.

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OVERALL IMPRESSION 📘

Now, there are is one thing I'm pondering over. Leticia's ATM card, she said it was missing, and Maverick's secretary had just said all money has been going... I don't even understand that part, she should have gotten the alert on her phone. If her card was missing and any transactions was going through it, I believe she should have gotten the alert on her phone, right? Or am I getting it wrong.

Anyways, this is a really good story, I really enjoyed the few chapters I read, though ninety percent of the time I was insulting one character to the other. Amazing work on this author, keep up the good writing ❤️

                          
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