Just Add Witches by Denyefa4

Reviewer: Jeon_Dinara

Cover and Title: 8/10
Cover: The new cover is really nice. The typography in it was amazing. The shadow details given to the background image were really cool. The main protagonist was present on the cover: Joseph. Overall graphics were also good. The blue + grey + black theme matched a lot with the vibe of the story. The current cover is such a keeper!

Title: The title was related to the story, which is good. However, I didn't understand it. "Just add witches" Why 'just add'? I feel you wanted more of a young adult type of title, but trust me, it doesn't sound too well. Maybe tell a little more about the significance of the title in an 'introduction' chapter.

Blurb and Prologue: 9/10
Blurb: The burb seemed perfect! It gave a gist to the story while keeping a little suspense in the minds of the readers. A little input about Joseph and his mom would be great. For: "A teenage boy named Joseph who was living a turbulent life due to his mother was thrown into ... (the same as you wrote). The length of the blurb was ideal. Overall, it was a praise-worthy blurb!

Prologue: The prologue was a Flash-forward type which is very unique. It keeps the readers in utter suspense as they want to know how the book got to that situation and what will happen after. The future scene that you have taken was excellent and had a gripping narration. The last line of the chapter which said 'Let's rewind to the very beginning' just makes me imagine different scenarios that the protagonist would have been in to end up in this situation. The prologue did give me the overall vibe of the story. The conflict of life and death of the protagonist that was set up definitely caught my eye.

First Impact: 8/10
Book aesthetics: The cover wasn't that eye-catching (even though it was the picture of an eye, you get it? It's a pun) just because of the fonts used. The ending banner that you kept in every chapter was sort of irrelevant. What has Saturn to do with the story? Maybe if you kept that same Ceye on the cover, it would be great. The gif idea was nice, but still, it was unrelated to the story.

Blurb: I would definitely read the book after reading the blurb. It caught hold of my attention. It was neither too short nor too long. The last line which said "as he chooses his heart over his duty to the coven" made me interested in the aftermath of his decision and hence made me read the story.

Prologue: The fact that you even kept this as a highlighted chapter just gave the story the way. Many Wattpad writers ignore the prologue, or even if they include it, they don't focus on it much. The distinctiveness of the prologue itself will let many readers get interested in the story! The prologue was a little too short compared to the rest of the story. Yes, I agree prologues should usually be short but, a little more detailing of the scene would be great.

Grammar and Vocabulary: 7/10
Grammar: I didn't find any grammatical/ typo errors while reviewing. The punctuation and verb patterns were also on point.

Vocabulary: The vocabulary used was medium-hard. The language used was kept simple, as used in daily life. Not many complicated (fancy) words were there to enhance reading. The vocabulary is B2 level. Hence the target audience can be teenagers and some young adults.

Story Flow and Pace: 9/10
The story flow was amazing, one chapter connected the others and everything made sense. The story was very smooth to read and I enjoyed it a lot!

The narration of the story was perfectly paced. It was neither too fast nor too slow. However, sometimes I felt you were just passing time in the life of the character to "continue with the story" For example: Twice, the character was just staring at the ceiling of his room, which just means you were kinda out of ideas. Instead, you could've described the room a bit more or added a thought from the protagonist's mind about his past/ his mother. I even observed that you tried to skip many scenes just to move on to the other.

Character Focus and Description: 7/10
The character focus in the story was a bit a lot towards the protagonist. Every chapter started with and ended with him. I understand that the whole book is about him, but others have their limelight too. You can add others' povs or just add a little more about them, like, not much information about Theo. Who he was, and why was he the 'loner' one? I hope you focus on that in the future.

The character description was really good. Every single character was described beautifully with good detailing.

Uniqueness: 8/10
The overall vibe reminded me of harry potter and I think you took inspiration from it. A different world with only same-sex love is something really unique. I was commenced by the past of the protagonist. The way he has to go through stuff just because his mother made a "mistake". There wasn't a proper 'villain' in the story, but the story was in general pointing out the strict rules to be followed in that world.

Plot: 17/20
There were three plots in this story. First was Joseph's progress in learning to free his stepdad from the step. Second was the build-up of the love between Joseph and the female interest. The last was the past story of his parents. I feel they will merge with each other somewhere in the story (as told in the blurb). However sometimes, introducing too much at once makes the reader overwhelmed and confused. You could've kept the love interest topic for the later chapters and focused on Joseph's learning for now. The rising action was great, the story about Joseph's past was kept on edge. Which made the readers even more curious.

Writing Style: 9/10
The writing style was great. This type of writing style is found in novels with are narrative, to keep the readers enhanced in the story. It had enough dialogue and narration. The paragraphs weren't too big to make the story boring. It had good detailing too, which is such a plus pointer.
Ps: I feel you should give your story a shot in some awards! It's worth the read.

Total: 80/100