(CLOSED FOR CATCH UP)Project Athena | Reviews

Author: animahez

Genre: Fantasy/Action, Romance, Drama

Reviewer: OutOfMyImagination

Hello and thank you for requesting a review from me, like you asked, I focused on the plot, character development, and world-building, adding an overall impression of your book.

In the world destroyed by Bothyner Global Havoc, we meet Lyos, a boy with special powers and a dangerous disease. Join Lyos and his best friend Garuvy in the search for answers about the origin of the Bothyner event. The first action lets you explore a post-apocalyptic world full of action, creatures, and mystery.

The cover could be more appealing, but it could be a problem in catching readers' attention. The font is not very visible in the blue background, the secondary image is barely there just confusing the full image. Try using Canva; they have pre-made 抖阴社区 covers that you can tweak and get better results.

The book description gives a good look into the world built and the prehistory of the story but it's too much for the book description, it feels like an info dump. You implemented this information in the story so there is no need to have it in the book description. What drives readers to the book is a catchy and not-too-long book description. The main things you need to include main characters, the place of the story, and the main issues that arise in the story and that would be enough for initial interest.

The prehistory is info-dumpy not just in the book description but in the story as well. We usually like to follow a few characters in the story, but here it feels like we are switching between TV channels and trying to piece the story together. Try to have one or a few characters that we can follow as they navigate through the story. There are so many characters introduced at once that it's very hard to find any difference in them.

All characters are described once and in a way that is not memorable for example: "Andark is a 29-years old man with black hair on the right side and purple hair on the left side. He wears a Bothyzard Robe." All characters are introduced in similar ways and it's hard to remember them despite their descriptive differences, it feels a bit robotic. And in this description, readers will want to know how "Bothyzard Robe" looks like. Descriptions are an issue in your story overall. They are rare and it's hard to imagine the scenes.

The dialogues feel disconnected and hard to follow, they either feel like an info dump about the world or don't connect well when characters talk. The overuse of ellipsis in dialogues loses meaning since they are in pretty much all the dialogues. Ellipsis in dialogue is used when the character loses the trail of thoughts and/or feels hesitation to talk, and that is part of why all characters blend and don't have distinctive voices. So there is not much character development so far.

The world build could be more captivating, we see prehistory but we don't see surroundings at all. What does a water prison look like? Every reader will imagine something different even if you add more specific descriptions, but you at least should try and explain what exactly you mean. Instead of using sound-related dialogues like "GRRRAAAOO" describe the sound since this type of expression can pull out readers from the story. When you create the world there is so much you need to cover, showing what things are like in our world and things that are unique to this world you making. It can be anything and everything: buildings, foods, currency, surroundings. We have some glimpses of that in character description but we can't know for sure if the hair is blue because it's normal in this world or if they dyed the hair.

I would rate this story two out of five stars I think it has potential but it needs a bit more work when it comes to dialogues, character introduction and world build.

I would recommend this story to readers who like dystopian stories, with hints of different abilities and powers.