This is the review for self-published author, Mandi Lynn, on her debut book Essence which was published on CreateSpace in August of 2013. This book was the first self-published piece I've boughten and here is what I thought of it.
First of all, the cover was absolutely gorgeous. The girl on the cover is Mandi herself which makes it interesting. The only problem I have with the cover is the spine (and it's not that big of an issue) is the giant gap between the "e" and the "n." Obviously Lynn is not a professional editor, but if she wanted to, that is just an easy shift up.
Essence starts off talking about how Emma was technically dead at her birth with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around her neck, but was soon revived. As the story moves along, Emma finds a stone and by picking up this stone, she was met with her unexpected death that brought her to Phantom Lagoon the place where she simply just exists.
This was a good first debut novel, but I felt that this could have used some more work. The writing was well, but it also felt a little unnatural at time with the language. When the three year old character was introduced to the reader, it felt a little odd because I didn't realize she was supposed to be three. Another thing is that Lynn had a tendency to rush through things and drag on with some things.
When I was reading through it, I did find myself skipping through pages just to keep reading and finish the book. Don't get me wrong, it was better than I expected, the story was a strong story, but I felt as if there was a whole thing missing within it. I wasn't skeptical going in, but when I started reading it, I started to realize why the literary agents began to reject her manuscript.
Lynn, like I stated previously, she started to rush things quite immensely and then jumped back in time and it left me confused. The aspect that I felt was missing was something vital in Emma's life and I didn't feel that it was the way it should have ended. I honestly wanted to know more about Eliza because I felt like she was a strong character whereas Emma felt flat.
I rated this with three cups of tea because I felt that Lynn rushed her writing a little bit by self-publishing. She should have taken the agents rejections as motivations to better her writing and work harder at it to get a fully developed story.
I do have to apologize if it seems like I was completely bashing the story, I just was giving my whole and honest opinion. I apologize if Mandi Lynn sees this and feels anything bad about it.
Until Next Time,
