Reviewer: samantha-writes

Orphan Of Sins by pppandora

Cover: 3/5
— This cover is pretty well-made, so @magesticzayn did a good job, but there are other problems I have with it
— There isn't an author's name on it. The name of the artist seems like the author's name, but it isn't, so it's misleading. You can probably add this yourself if you want to, but it's a pretty notable issue.
— The cover is dark and the colors match, so I like that.
— The fonts, at least for the word "Sins" don't particularly match the theme of the story. That word in particular makes it feel more like a happy story when it's more of a dystopia, and it feels contradictory to the dark themes. The other fonts are fine, though.

Title: 4/5
— The title sounds poetic and is unique, so I like it.
— "Of" really shouldn't be capitalized. I can't think of any reason the word "of" should ever be capitalized, and although there could be some instances, such as if it is used at the beginning of the title, it doesn't fit here.
— It fits the story fairly well, so just change the word "Of" to lowercase and it'll be perfect. (I'm being very picky, but there isn't much to critique with titles lol.)

Blurb: 10/10
— The blurb is a good length, and although I would personally combine some of the paragraphs, I understand that's your personal choice, so it isn't a problem.
— It's important to mention that Quinn doesn't want to marry and, instead, wants to become a specialist, but you do well by mentioning that she objects to her promotion to marry.
— I think you give a great amount of hooking at the end, so much that I was more than ready to start reading.
— The readability was fantastic, which is a nice change from the blurbs I normally read.
— There really isn't much to critique here. I tried being as picky as possible, but I really couldn't find much, so I think it's great.

World: 5/10
— I would've liked more details about the girls' lives at the academy. Maybe you could've had some scenes at the beginning involving the academy, like a class scene, the girls doing chores, or them hanging out with each other. There just isn't much showing readers what life is like at the academy and more telling readers what life is like. It would be better to show readers instead.
— You do a better job later of describing the layout of the academy, but it was a bit sudden.
— I was thrown off by the fact that there was a forest within the gates because you mentioned many times that they'd never seen the outside world, yet there Quinn was in a forest and later in a cave. I'd maybe mention that they'd never seen the outside world besides the woods within the gates.

Plot: 17/20
— I love this concept so much. It's so unique and interesting.
— I kind of wish there was more exposition that introduced the lives the girls have to live more in-depth. Again, using the first chapter maybe to show their lives at the academy and introduce some important characters rather than doing that in the middle of the rising action after readers are already too engaged in the main conflict to be concerned with the characters.
— Your main conflict is so interesting that I really enjoy it. I'd love to see more development with the plot and continue reading to see where the story goes.

Characters: 2/10
— This, sadly, is probably your weakest category. You've done great with the rest, but your characters are just lacking overall.
— Not only do I think you should've done better to introduce them early on, but there need to be more details about their appearances, mentions of their ages, and hints about their personalities.
— You gave some details later on, but by that point, I nearly forgot which characters were which. I had to reread to remember who Juliet was because you'd hardly mentioned her.
— You do vaguely describe Juliet's and Quinn's basic appearances, particularly when the sisters (I don't even remember their names) are analyzing Quinn's body. Other than that, there just isn't much to give the readers an idea of what the characters look like, so we can't picture them and really dive into the story.
— The personalities seem well-established so far, and though some aren't what I expected, they're pretty good. Everything else needs to be adjusted and added onto.

Chapters & Content: 4/10
— You don't start chapters off very well for the most part, but you end them nicely. The starts to most chapters feel like you're recapping from the last or giving readers completely unnecessary information, but you just need to start off from where you left off, no recapping. The endings are pretty good, however. They tend to be great cliffhangers that pressure your audience to keep reading, which is exactly what you want.
— The first chapter, though I can tell it's supposed to be something like a prologue, seems like it could be backstory added in sparsely throughout the story rather than all at once. Readers don't know enough about the characters to care about Little May or the academy to understand what's happening. It's completely pointless to have the entire first chapter dedicated to giving backstory that can and should be hinted at occasionally to get readers curious about it before being revealed.
— There are some scenes or parts of chapters that really don't feel necessary, and maybe they will be later on, but if they feel too pointless to the audience, they're probably not a good thing to include. You could either reduce the amount of detail or make it more interesting somehow so readers catch on and realize that it must be important.

Grammar/Spelling: 10/10
— There were so few mistakes, really, that I can't take off a single point. Genuinely, if I did half points, it would probably be 9¾ (haha Harry Potter reference if you read that series), but I just round it up when that's the case. To be fair, it's almost flawless anyway, and as a grammar freak, I very much appreciate that!
— You have a typo in Chapter 2, in the sentence, "Quinns heart leapt out of her chest as the door opened, revealing the Reverend who stood beside two large burly women," where "Quinns" should say "Quinn's" because it's showing possession. Secondly, you should use a comma to separate "large" and "burly" because it's a rule to use a comma between adjectives that are side-by-side. (There are some weird exceptions, but this isn't one of them.)
— You sometimes write fragments that I believe are accidental. You have periods where there would appropriately be commas, like in the sentences, "Quinn knew whatever it was. She'd do her best to fulfill it." The sentences could be change up a bit when combined, maybe to something like, "Quinn knew that regardless of the request, she'd do her best to fulfill it," but simply replacing the period with a comma will do.
— Your most notable errors with grammar, though difficult to notice, punctuation when transitioning from dialogue to speaker tags and vice versa. If you have a complete sentence of dialogue followed by a speaker tag, like in the sentence, "'By gods, she looks revolting,' Sister Nora said," it should end with a period unless you have more to add onto that same sentence that won't make it a run-on. However, you ended the speaker tag with a comma and continued on into the sentence, "'How does one expect to keep a man if she has nothing to show for?'" which means you definitely need to end the speaker tag in a period because you're going to start a new sentence. Also, capitalize the first word of that new sentence, which will probably be auto-corrected on whatever device you're using if you use a period anyway. You don't make this mistake anywhere else from what I've seen, so I think it was just a minor mistake.
— I found another run-on later on, the sentence, "The hope of Little May coming home was gone, she was never coming back." Here, you use a comma where a period or semicolon would be grammatically correct, making it a comma splice, which is a bad grammatical mistake to make. It's only one little error, so it's not a big deal, but you should fix it. Authors can sometimes get away with using comma splices, but in this case, it would be best to go without it.

Writing Style: 8/10
— You have great variety in your vocabulary that works with your audience.
— You don't use as much imagery as I'd like and as readers would prefer to have in crucial scenes, but there are some in-depth descriptions. To appeal to your audience more, you should add more when appropriate, when detailed events are occurring.
— Really good overall, though. The dialogue feels appropriate for the characters and the vocabulary is just broad enough to appeal to a specific audience, so great job!

Enjoyment: 8/10
— The story has a great concept and main conflict that makes me want to keep reading.
— Juliet is making me on edge as far as I've gotten, and I'm nervous that she might give away the secret, but I'm also intrigued by her because she seems to know more than the others do.
— The boy's appearance is obviously important, and I'm soooo interested to see why he's there and what he has to say.
— This story really has me hooked. I'm toooo ready to keep reading!

Overall: 71/100
The chapters should be changed first when you go into editing because that'll be the most tedious adjustment, followed by additions to the world and characters. Those are the biggest issues, but you should also make small changes to the grammar and writing that I mentioned. Otherwise, there really isn't much to fix, and I really love this story so far! It's built on an amazing and stable concept that will be easy to build a plot off of, so I'm looking forward to continuing it! Good luck writing and editing!