Skeleton Reviews

Wickedly Yours| -Havingfun_ISKEY

Client: queen_of_sass
Skeleton: Havingfun_ISKEY
Book Title: Wickedly Yours
Chapters Read: 5, including prologue

Cover: Fun fact, your cover is actually one of my favorites on Wattpad - at least, I always recognize it instantly. The font choice is especially strong. I'm a little bit confused as to why the man is shirtless, but it's something I can move past. The only thing I would maybe suggest is adding some spacing between the letters of your name so that it looks cleaner and is easier to read.

Title: It's cool! It took me a while to connect it to the actual story, and I still don't think I've entirely gotten it yet, but I have made some significant progress since first starting out the story. Also, I like the title reference at the end of Chapter 3. ;)

Blurb: Overall, it's a good blurb, but I have some mixed feelings on some of the word choices. Words like "penciling" and "irrevocably" are words I was able to understand without googling them, but they still take a moment for me to process and it may be worse for other casual readers. I personally don't see the need to use those kinds of overly fancy words for your blurb especially, but it did get me wondering as to whether or not it was an intentional choice - those words were much more common in typical day-to-day speech back in the time period your book takes place in.
The last sentence of your first paragraph - "What started as a respectful request, ended in a scandalous affair that London simply could not forget" - does not need a comma.
Your very last sentence of the blurb - "A catastrophe only fate -and a little bit of the magic of love- will decide the end of" - is technically grammatically incorrect, but it can be argued that it's more of a stylistic choice on your part to help with the flow of the voice. However, I'd still look into combining the last sentence and the previous sentence in some way.

Description/Scenery: The opening to your prologue reminds me heavily of the old cliche, "It was a dark and stormy night." There is absolutely nothing wrong with your opening statement except for its placement in the story. As a writer who draws inspiration heavily from Erin Hunter, who opens their prologues in the exact same way you did, I used to begin my story by first describing the scenery all the time. Recently, I've learned to begin describing the scenery just a few paragraphs later and immediately start off with an interesting hook - whether it be a question, a shocking statement, or something of the like. It's not the end of the world if you don't add anything before your opening, but it's just a word of advice.
To the most part, you're pretty careful with not using too many adverbs, but you could go even further. I usually try to avoid using more than one adverb in a sentence, and even then, I try to really justify the one adverb that I do keep in. For your opening paragraph, "unnaturally" is fine, but "chilly" could be expanded upon - wait a minute, you do. Just a sentence or two later, you say that Lillian is shivering because the air is seeping into the house. That's some great showing and not telling - earlier describing the wind as being "chilly" is redundant. I feel as the novel progresses, you begin to use more and more adverbs, seemingly in almost every couple of sentences. "Stiffly", "sharply", "noisily", and "lovingly" are all used within a very close distance to one another.
Overall, you do a fantastic job with describing even the little things without delving into purple prose. I took note of the literary devices you used (which I'll delve into later), but you could try adding in more similes, metaphors, personification, etc. to really spruce up your writing just that little bit more.

Literary devices: As stated earlier, I was pleased to notice that you did use some, such as the wind playing the candle and the sun winking (personification), as well as Colette's face scrunching up like she swallowed something sour (simile). I have to say, you use a lot more personification in your book especially than what I see from most Wattpad writers, which makes for a more interesting and unique read. You could maybe add in just a couple more to your writing, but it's up to you.

Characters: I like Sophia. She's kind of bossy, but reasonably so - she's pretty much the head of the house after going through the death of her mother and the threat of losing her financial stability. She still, however, has feelings; she just has to hide them from her family and the outside world to maintain the image of being in the higher class. Sometimes her emotions get the best of her; she has bouts of rage and frustration, sometimes taking out her anger on her remaining family members and even inwardly blaming her mother for leaving her alone. It's refreshing to see a mature and responsible female lead in the story, particularly considering the time period you are writing in. So far, I love how you have set up the inner conflict Sophia is facing, and I've only read the first couple of chapters. As for Colette, she's cute and quirky without being overbearing, so that's an instant win in my book.

Grammar: To the most part, it is very, very polished, but there is the occasional minor mistake with incorrect punctuation marks, forgetting quotation marks, and technically incomplete sentences. If you want me to get more into detail, PM me about it; I don't want this review to get too long.

Originality: As you yourself have mentioned, many people have compared your book to a certain well-known masterpiece of literature, and after searching up the basic plot, I can definitely see the similarities. I completely believe you when you say that you came up with your plot all by yourself; however, I can atone your striking similarities to the fact that the story so far does seem to have an element of cliche to it. It almost feels unfair for me to judge based on the first few chapters, but the death of a parent, the abusive parent, and meeting the love interest at a ball are not exactly the most original of plot points. That being said, most of your cliches are justified because they have an impact on the plot/your character development. Sophia is obviously haunted by her mother's death, which could stem off into a variety of situations later on in the story. Maybe she won't open herself up to anyone, for example. Her mother's death also leaves her in charge of the household, which is very interesting to see considering the time period. At face value, you do have some cliches, but I think you have the potential to do some great twists with them.

Realism: I can't exactly say I'm an expert on the Victorian Era, but it's extremely obvious that you put in a LOT of effort into getting almost everything just right. The fact that you were able to weave in all of these cultural aspects without interrupting the flow of the story is quite astounding. Keep it up.

Anything Else: This is more of a nitpick than anything else, but I'd highly recommend shrinking down the size of your chapter breaks so that they look more like actual chapter breaks than giant pictures of black lines. It took me a while to figure out how to do it when I designed my own chapter breaks for All I See, but basically I used GIMP to increase the canvas size so the white space would extend far beyond the actual ends of the chapter break - that way, Wattpad wouldn't take the small image and increase its size to the point that the quality is all messed up. I'll leave a link for comparison between mine and yours (please do not steal my chapter break, anyone).
https://imgur.com/a/DlglTKR
In terms of pacing, it's mostly fine, but Chapter 1 almost seems more like a prologue in itself, as the story then jumps waaaay into the future. I do want to believe you when you say that your actual prologue is important for the story, but I actually get the sense that Chapter 1 is way more influential towards Sophia's characterization and it explains how she got into the situation she is currently in. Plus, a prologue is a part of the story that is detached from the rest of the events of the story, which only further emphasizes my point. If you absolutely feel the need to keep your actual prologue in, then I would suggest perhaps looking into splitting Chapter 1 up into flashbacks or something of the sort (says the person who literally was planning on having TWO prologues in one of the very first drafts for All I See. TWO PROLOGUES!)
In terms of info dumping, pat yourself on the back; you've managed to avoid it, and that's all I really have to say. I'm enjoying learning more about Sophia's life as the story goes on. :)