Review of Breksta's Academy

[Jessie Rule]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Breksta's Academy" by Natasha Quay.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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Breksta’s Academy is an ambitious story about right and wrong, revenge, hope, and friendship. It includes some intense scenes with dark themes like death and grief. These moments come at you fast and can be shocking. It is easy to empathize with the characters as their struggles are revealed in detail to the reader. We are privy to all of their thoughts and feelings. The writing is surely earnest. I enjoyed the plot and direction of the story but struggled with the pace and writing techniques. The author often switches between active and passive voice, which results in some clumsy sentences and long drawn-out passages. I found the writing as a whole to be quite wordy and slightly overdone with repetitive details. This made it difficult for me to gain momentum and it took me longer than expected to finish reading the book. I believe that this story would benefit from another round or two of editing. There are run-on sentences, confusing and unclear phrasing, and many sentences that feel ungrounded or out of place. It makes it difficult to fully understand what is happening in the scenes. While I only found two spelling typos, I feel that the editor needed to spend more time on the grammar and structure of the writing. These errors create a distracting read. It is clear that this is the author's first book, and in that respect, the breadth of the story is laudable. However, it feels as if they bit off just a little bit more than they could chew. I found the ending to be rushed and unsatisfying, and wish it had been given more attention. I give this story a rating of 3/5 as the grammatical and structural errors I found created a clunky and awkward story. I look forward to reading the author’s next book and seeing their improvements as they progress.

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Breksta's Academy
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