Gemicide by LPKnits

Reviewer: writes_love01

Thanks a ton for taking me as your reviewer. Your book was quite long so this review is gonna be a bit long too. Please do not take me as rude if you found out that what I said offended you. I am a critical analyser and if any of my words or statements felt offensive, please do understand why I said that particular statement. So, let's begin!
Before going to the points, let's discuss some other stuff I saw in your book.

First of all, a book or a story isn't just a combination of words. It is emotions, experience and the dedication you give it. When I read your story, what I could find was a few words kept together. Like, see this as an example-

She wakes up and walks to the kitchen. 
"Mom, I'm hungry," she says to her mother. 
Mother gives her the food. She eats the freshly prepared plate bacon and omelette. Her mother used to prepared them every day for her. She missed her father. He hadn't returned yet. He was missing. She left for school and met her friend, ab (I'm not giving a name) at the front. 

"How are you?" ab asked her.

"I am good. What about you?" she asked ab.

"Me too. Do you know, he looked for you today morning," ab said in a cheering tone. 

"I really think he loves you," ab added.

"Shut up! He doesn't like me!" she reddened as ab talked about him.

She saw him coming towards them. He was handsome, perfect at studies and really amazing at studies. She loved him even though he did not say anything about his interest.

"Hey!" he waved his hands at them.

"Why are you late?" he asked.

I feel illegal to write like this, lol xD. LPKnits what do you say about this? Does this sound like a good story? Or even at least a piece of an ideal story? The number of errors in it is thousands. Repetition, grammar, punctuation, tags, dialogue, description, too much more, there are a lot of things that should be changed here. Now read this one ↓

She opens her eyes as the alarm kept ringing. The snooze button was tired of being used for the 5th time the day. Feeling tired, she looked at the clock. Gasping, she began getting ready for her school. Wearing a fresh set of t-shirt and jeans, she ran downstairs to the kitchen. Her mom was preparing tasty bacon and omelettes. One of the most favourite foods on her breakfast menu.

"Good morning, Mom," she mumbled as her mom kept a plate of bacon and omelette. Her mom grinned and went back to her cooking by greeting her in return.

Delightfully, she savoured the food and ran off to school. She was already getting late and knew if she did not attempt a run, she'd be out of the class today. There was a parents-teacher meeting today at school and her father hadn't called them yet. News about him was that he was dead or maybe left them. But, she did not believe the others. She knew he was just busy and needed some time to come out of the works. As she reached the school gate, she saw her best friend waiting for her with her bag. 

"Hey! Where were you? It is already 5 minutes past the time!" ab rushed into the school by dragging her with her. There was total silence on their way. "Did the homework?" ab asked unexpectedly as they reached their class. 

She looked up at ab and replied, "I left a few questions since I doubted them,"

She suddenly saw a male figure approaching them. It was XY. The boy whom everyone admired and wished to have with themselves. She could see many fantasies creating inside her mind when it got disturbed by his charming voice.

"I did not see you today morning. Why did you get late?" he asked by folding his arms.

See? How different it is? The first one has many errors. So, the first one I would say is, try giving the right description for your story. Even if the concept is good, if the book doesn't have good grammar, description and style, it can't be considered as one in competitions or awards. Your book might have many views and votes, but that isn't enough. If you're writing for reads and votes also, you would have to write a book with enough description and not just a combination of sentences. 

Give the right amount of description to your story. Don't just describe the scene or just go with dialogues, show the readers what the protagonist or the characters are witnessing and feeling. Your book was only "telling"  the story and not showing. When you tell the story, it brings a bad impression to the reader or judge. 

Now, dialogues. I noticed that you used different paragraphs for one character's dialogues. One paragraph for one character. There are rare cases when a character uses two paragraphs for their dialogue only if it is long. Example-

"I don't know if I will be able to do this," she sighed.

"But, I have no other choice," she said.

The above one is wrong ❌

"I don't know if I will be able to do this," she sighed. "But, I have no other choice," she mumbled under her breath.

The above one is right ✔

Next, the use of dialogue tags. Always sticking to "said" and "asked" might sound repeated. But, they're the most used ones and yes, it is fine to use them. While in a conversation between two people where it is clear who is talking to whom, you might not have to use any dialogue tags. Always remember, in case you see that the dialogues aren't clear, you must use the dialogue tags. 

Repetition. 
I saw repetition in your story a lot many times. In one paragraph, when there is a word repeated for the third or fourth time, it is counted as repetition. It includes pronouns, adjectives, and even simple words. It also affects the dialogues. I had seen many times that you've used "Ah" and "dusky girl" a lot many times in your book. You can just use the person's name for "dusky girl" in the prologue. Anyways, the prologue doesn't matter even if you disclose the main character's name. It just makes it simple for the reader rather than making it hard for the reader to just keep reading it as "dusky girl" other than the name or the pronoun. Try to reduce the number of times you use the pronouns of the character a lot in the book. 

Flow. 
The flow of the book is the main thing. No matter how many errors you have, if the book has a flow in it, the reader will be hooked on the book. But, I could barely find flow in your book.  You just wrote the scenes as if they had no meaning or connection. Try bringing some connection with the chapters. Yours was mostly like, you say that the protagonist, that is Ida, loves to play badminton and suddenly she says she misses her father? Like, bruh. There is no connection between those two! You can bring a scene in between that like she remembers playing badminton with her father or something that has happened with them both while playing badminton?

And when you open the next scene, always, try making a separate border or something to show that it is the next scene. Like, this-

................................
 Waving at her mother, she rushed off to school as the time was growing less. 

***************************** OR
<><><><><><><><><><><><> OR 

She kept staring down at her book as her teacher kept nagging her for not completing the homework. It was just a few questions and she actually forgot it while she watched the show of the people who lived together inside the cruise and had fun!

Any kind of separation in between the chapters other than just leaving a line. Or maybe a tiny paragraph elongating the topic like this- (this example is the same one above)

Waving at her mother, she rushed off to school as the time was growing less. Her day went cool with nothing much other than her teachers taunting her. It'd have been better if she hadn't forgotten to write the homework other than watched the dammed show of those stupid people living on a cruise!  

The kind of difference you see and feel is a lot. The flow of the story is always important and always makes a great impact on the book and its engagement. Now, I am almost done with the off-topics, let's get to the points:-
I literally wrote 1.4k words until now. Sorry if it is a lot too much (T_T)

Cover: 3/5
The cover was delightful, but the designs and the elements weren't matching up well. Other than using the girl, try just with a gem if your book is based on that? I did not mean your book is based on gems, but the title? It can be better in my opinion 

Title- 5/5
The title even though hadn't bought any much sense to me, sounded genuine. 

Blurb- 9/10
Maybe the blurb can have a bit of spice? It hadn't actually made me into reading the book at the moment. So, you can try adding or removing unwanted things? 

Plot- 10/20
The plot actually sounded quite boring and used. It must've been because of the lack of engagement and proper description and flow, it could've been distracting. The protagonist sounded too childish and immature at some point according to her age. The protagonist's age and the writer's age should never mix up or maybe the characters. The ages of Ida and Julia are really confusing later. The times when you show the antagonist, try bringing up a slight bit of hatred or something without telling the readers? The connection between the places, characters and the plot is kinda variant. You'll have to work a lot on it, maybe. 

Character Development- 6/10
The characters did not sound real nor did they feel as if they were. The characters weren't moving ahead even though the chapters' pace was too fast. We can already know that Ida and the guy already like each other and other than just showing their love to each other at random places, try giving them a space for themselves. 
Each character has a different tone. If all the characters have a similar tone, it'd be really hard for the reader. Tone, I mean is not the language or slang or whatsoever they speak. But, the way they speak. A monotoned person and a cheerful person. Take for example a movie! Every actor has a different tone from most hilarious, negative, monotonous, sarcastic and much more! So, give a different tone to your characters.  

Originality- 3/5
The originality in the story was quite less. The people, especially the antagonist sounded a bit too unrealistic. The school and its students were a bit confusing and doubtful which creates an expression of unreal.  

Grammar/Spelling- 12/20
You have gotta work a lot on your grammar and punctuation. Especially the dialogue tags and also the flow of the book depends on the proper sentences and realistic words. Try using an application or extension like Grammarly or Linguix to get more synonyms and effective words for your book. 

Style- 7/10
The style of your writing was too fast. Like, the scenes end unexpectedly and jump off to the next without a proper ending. The dialogues had repeated words and sentences and every character sounded the same. You can do the same as I had mentioned a lot above about writing.

Engagement- 3/10
The lack of flow and description in your book had obviously distracted me a lot of times and I couldn't concentrate on the book. So, you know what to do, right? 

Presentation- 4/5
The presentation... There was nothing much in the book to be told as that interesting. And maybe you can make barriers or end in each chapter? The next is, the way you performed in it. As a writer, you were too much activity in the book even though it was the characters who should be active. Try not to make yourself active inside the book. Give more importance to the characters and give them more space.

Total: 63/100

You can improve a lot. Don't worry! You haven't jumped into the writers' ocean yet. You're taking preparation for the leap. I began researching a lot on books and on how to write really good and stuff. I literally gotta say. It was all inside me. I just was looking at the wrong place. I realized my own strength and began writing again. A long time ago, I was just the same. A guy with a book that had no actual flow, grammar or even a good plot. I used to write for reads and votes and later understood it wasn't a good idea to stress yourself to write for gaining those things. I began writing for myself and my satisfaction. I literally improved a lot. So, try writing for yourself and not for comments, votes and reads on your book. 

~MJ

☄. *. ⋆. *. ⋆. *. ⋆. *. ⋆. *. ⋆☄