Skeleton Reviews

Where Light Dies| -TMandIK

Skeleton: TMandIK
Client: Kyle_Hayden
Work: Where light dies
Chapters read: 10

Summary
Hi there! As usual, were starting this review with the basics. Now, in terms of the summary, there really isnt much to criticize. Its great. Short, exciting, and right to the point, it does a good job at teasing the meat of the story, without revealing too much. So great work! The only nitpick I have is that the final paragraph seems unnecessary. It overexplains things and dampens some of the suspense you have previously built up. Plus, the information provided in it doesnt seem necessary, and I feel like the summary would work without it. But this is just a minor nitpick which you can ignore if you feel like it. :)

Cover
Hello, Ivy here, taking over the reins briefly to discuss the cover. To start off, well divide this mini-review into three segments. First, were tackling the illustration. The art style of the image is great. It shows a has fantastic contrast and it tells a story. It also boasts a great level of detail and it draws the viewer in. It is visually interesting, mysterious, and innovative; plus, it also shows a struggle between light and dark, pain and elegance. On its own, it is an ideal choice for a cover, a clever and unique piece that stands out among others.
Moving on to the composition. Looking at the overall structure, I immediately noticed that the image was slightly tilted to the right, which gives off the illusion that the side of light is being pulled towards the darkness. I initially thought this was a mistake, but after reading through your work, I have to say that this was an extremely clever move on your part. A way to subtly give your reader a hint about the general content of your work; so congrats on doing this. When it comes to the color palette, it is good. There is a fine level of exposure and dominance of achromatic colors, which give the image good balance.
Lastly, lets take a look at the font. This is possibly the only part of your cover, which I dont really like. Its thin and pale and you cant read it properly. You have to squint at it, and henceforth it fades into the background. And the reason for this is the positioning. Putting the title into the horizontal position, makes the white letters disappear into the left side of the cover. And the frame doesnt help bring it into focus. In order to fix this, I would recommend you keep the white filling, but give it a black outline, in order to make it more visible. However, the font HAS to be bolder for this to work.
As for the balance of the element placement, I recommend you move the "Rebel Town" sticker to the bottom of the cover in the middle and put the authors name right above it. Another tip, the author name should never be bigger than the title of the book. So minimizing it and enlarging the title is definitely a must.
Overall, it is a good cover, and with the right tweaks, its definitely going to be even better.

Title
Again, not much I can comment here. The choice of a metonymic title works great here. It alludes to both the struggles humanity faces, as well as Blakes internal conflict. Plus, I cant help but feel like this hints at the possible dark turn your novel will take. Good job :)

Plot, originality, and use of literary devices (+narrative)
Okay, now lets get down to serious business. The plot.
Ive always liked me a good dystopian post-apocalyptic story. And Im happy to see that for once, its not zombies that have overrun everything. The idea of the world getting taken over by monstrous demonic creatures that came from the sky (nice inversion of the trope by the way: evil coming from above, instead of from below) is cool and refreshing. It reminded me of a futuristic version of Peter V. Bretts Demon Cycle series, but with an inverted version of the monsters from that movie A Quiet Place as the ultimate baddies. Couple this with a protagonist with an Attack on Titan worthy secret and you get a pretty interesting and compelling concept to keep readers interested.

However, sadly, your story has quite a few problems that dampen the awesomeness of the main theme.

Like the fact that I have no clue whats happening most of the time.
While you start off the story strong, firmly setting the stage in the prologue and giving us the basic backstory, you dont continue this further on. The main storyline gets buried under a mountain of character introductions (this is probably the biggest problem you face and something which Ill discuss in the character section), sudden scene transitions, and POV shifts to the point where Im not sure who is important, who is not, and who everyone is. Or what Dayton is in general. Sure, you give us some explanation about it being a city founded by Alex Dayton, a hero of some sorts, but other than that nothing. Nothing about the culture, the people, the structure, the government, class system. Just a quick explanation about it being underground, since the surface world has become too dangerous, and a little bit about ammo being the new currency if I understood it correctly (a bit of info which was suddenly added into a scene where it wasnt needed), and thats it. Details are important for any story, and yours is tragically lacking in them. Instead of focusing on the dialogue and character interactions, try focusing more on one perspective, and using it to build a basic skeleton of a world, which you can later expand via new scenery as well as new characters. After all, you need to give us a starting point from which the plot will move forward.
Speaking of the plot Im genuinely interested to see which direction this goes in. I would like to know what these demons are exactly, where they came from, and what they want, and Im sincerely hoping you give your own original spin on this. The good vs evil dynamic has been done to death already, as has the tragic Byronic antihero with a terrible secret. Im very much hoping this doesnt end up being just another reluctant chosen one stops the forces of evil plot.