The Temptations for the Wallflowers | The-Bias-Saga

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This isn't a cover, it's an aesthetic mood-board with text. While it might work as an actual aesthetic, it falls short as a cover design. The title is awkwardly placed and illegible near the bottom due to lack of contrast. The author name is a username (as stated in previous reviews, not very professional looking) and all but unreadable in any case. Overall, the composition, while made up of lovely photos, lacks cohesion as a whole and is very amateur.

Quite poetic, but very cryptic. We have no idea what it means or what kind of story we're about to read.

The date is fine, but we wonder why use a semicolon in this instance?

The blurb is written in past tense, and as a result reads awkwardly. As we've said before, most of the time, blurbs work better in present tense.

"The new girl in town" is an old cliché. Even if it is the case for your heroine, perhaps avoid such an obvious use of the trope. So far Tabitha herself is reading as a typical fictional 'good girl'--meek, unassuming, virtuously avoiding male attention. Again, if this is the case, that's fine, but the presentation needs tweaking. One or two words would have been enough to paint her as a shy, modest girl. This is too wordy. "Attention" is also repeated.

The presentation of this "his" person and their "power" could be a mysterious (though vague) hook if the blurb ended there, making readers want to open the story and find out who "he" is. That said, so far there is no conflict justifying this mystery.

Saying "young head priest of the Church" is again vague and we think incorrect. "The Church" is sometimes used to refer to the whole Christian religion as a generalized term, but you simply mean one priest for a small local church. Furthermore, we believe the word for "head priest" may be pastor or vicar, or he may simply be called "Father". Additionally, in small towns, there is only one priest anyway, managing everything on their own. Only in big cities, with several churches, would you find a strict hierarchy. In any case, this needs research. We're not very familiar with this topic, but the wording of the blurb seems off.

"Revered by all in town": this gives a "small town from the early 19th century where everyone knows each other and where everyone shares the same religion" feeling. Which is, according to our Irish member, realistic... for Southern Ireland, catholic, but not for the Northern Republic, Protestant. Considering the bloody conflict between both until very recently over religion, this feels like a major mistake resulting from lack of basic research.   

"He never expected to find himself tempted by anyone, especially not her.": Once again, we may be wrong, but aren't sexual urges (and how to go around them) a topic discussed during priest training? These young men are men before becoming priests. This feels like it lacks research again.

"He finds himself searching for her, and he does, running from him": Here, the blurb switches to present tense for no discernable reason. As for the contents of the sentence itself, the wording and use of pronouns makes it very unclear. He's running from himself?

"What happens when he finds himself questioning his morals and she questions her place in her faith?": "Find himself" is repeated from the last line. Once more, a convoluted and unclear sentence. The "question" ending itself is rather cliche.

In conclusion, due to vague pronouns, convoluted structure and weird phrasing, we have no real idea of what we're about to read, except that there will likely be religion-based sexual tension and possible stalking in small town Ireland.

EXTRAS

The 'epigraph' is confusingly formatted:

     - Two character names with bible quotes. We don't understand why the characters are linked to scripture quotes, as at this time there is no context to help understand what you're trying to say.

     - Grammatically awry and philosophically simplistic paragraph on morality, which seems incongruous when taken with the later hints of the stories' subject matter.

     - Playlist, for some reason.

     - Character list, for some reason. The story hasn't begun, so why introduce characters now? The story is supposed to do that.

     - What is this "to be revealed in different chapters" line? Characters appear when they appear. That is what they do. Unless that bit refers to the trigger warnings? Unclear.

     - The trigger warnings section seem to have missed the biggest issue here, which is that one of the MCs in what looks to be a sexualized relationship is underage: a 15yo girl as the object of lust for a 28yo priest. That makes it pedophelia in some countries, and creepy by every definition of the word. "Age difference" doesn't cut it. Unless depicted in a very specific, I.E negative and realistic way, this is a despicable subject that we don't want to read about, and it made us hesitate to go further.

CHAPTER 1

We didn't make it far in "Temptations for the Wallflower", mainly due to deep technical flaws. The second issue was the presentation of complicated and ultimately disturbing subject matter.

Style and Grammar

"Stepping foot off the plane, a deep inhale was heard from a small satured girl": The introductory line alone is fraught with errors from line one with a clunky, incorrect, passive sentence. The prose continues along in this way, with PoV issues, subject confusion, typos, redundancy and logical inconsistencies.

Examples from the first paragraph:

     - "satured": typo (should be "statured")

     - "15, end of June": how can the 15th be the end of a month? (Reading further, it appears that 15 is the age of the MC. It's very confusing as is.)

     - The opening line is out of PoV with "small statured girl"

     - Subjects of the second sentence are confusingly intertwined ("She" and "her feet")

     - The third sentence is a grammatical nightmare

     - Grammar aside, the opening is too long to communicate a simple fact: the MC stepped off a plane.

Examples from second paragraph: 

     - The MC's eyes have their own will

     - Describing eye color is out of PoV. If this is omniscient it needs to be rewritten with that in mind, as it isn't working.

     - The MC was just in a plane, but is surprised by the weather?

     - In airports, luggage normally takes forever to be dispatched. Why must Tabitha hurry? She makes it sound like they'll throw away her luggage if she doesn't grab it right away.

     - Disembarking passengers don't follow anyone, they follow signs. Flight attendants are the last to leave the plane.

     - Tense issues and grammar issues abound

In general terms (as dissecting the chapter further would result in a very long and difficult to read review) the grammar is atrocious on almost every level. Sentences don't make sense, PoV is nonexistent, and pronouns and subjects intertwine in a confusing mess. 

The pacing is also really badly balanced. The text drags on because it's repetitive (the same things come back over and over again), but there are also erratic jumps that sometimes cover weeks or months.

Tabitha herself seems mildly unpleasant and judgmental of others, as well as contradictory in character (for instance, grandmother and grandchild share a passion for books, yet Tabitha couldn't spend hours reading in a plane). 

Unlucky for you, Sal lives in Ireland and the setting reads unrelatable to her. The conflict between the North and the South, significant at the time, is absent from the book even at the airport where Tabitha should have faced heavy border control and seen military all over the place. Furthermore, the Gillmore-girls-bookstore depicted is very unlikely for the small town/village Tabitha visits. Once again, this proves a lack of research for the story.

We recommend that you reexamine your prose and seek further education on subjects like sentence structure, consistency and story composition, etc. We also strongly recommend that you do basic research on geopolitics, religion and all other "triggers" your story deals with. 

On the topic of story, that brings us to the next segment of this review:

Subject Matter and Presentation

As stated in our note on the epigraph, the topics you are covering are complex and sensitive ones: sexual assault, sexual predation, pedophilic urges, skewed power dynamics, religion, etc. These subjects require thorough research and careful handling to present an authentic, thoughtful narrative. What you have here (as far as we were able to discern, skimming the confusing and often convoluted text) is simply creepy. Stephan stalks, obsesses over and preys on Tabitha in a very disturbing way. The lengths you go to detail his victim blaming, power-manipulating, sexually predatory behavior and ultimate rape of a 15-16 year old girl in his charge borders on obscene at times. Furthermore, it is unclear if he is meant to be a villain or a "conflicted" protagonist. If he is indeed meant to garner sympathy, we are repulsed. If he is meant to be viewed as a sexual predator and despicable human being (which he is), then his character needs to be better defined.

As for Tabitha, her docility and failure to report Stephan (fearing for her grandmother's feelings) is a reverse-textbook depiction of how to deal with sexual assault while the trauma she would have suffered as a victim of rape isn't present in the text, as far as we could tell. Something crucial is missing here.

The themes presented here are tricky as hell, but we'll never know for sure exactly how you handled them as the form is too flawed for us to properly evaluate its contents.

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net