You wanted to read the book, you were excited to crack it open, you came into it with good faith and anticipation… but you ended up dnf-ing it. Which book and why?
Mine was The Maid by Nita Prose. It was for my book club and looked like a fun murder mystery. Instead I got instant manic-pixie-dream-neurodivergent-girl vibes, and I noped out before the crime scene was even found.
I’ve done a fair bit of book cover design work for self publishing authors, and tend to skim read to get the gist of what’s going on.
Let’s just say that when you hear of all these people who never hear back from publishers… it’s generally for a good reason. Not that good work doesn’t get missed sometimes, but I do not envy the agents and publishers who have to slog through this drivel to find anything half readable.
I have a creative writing degree (BA). In our classes, we had to review each other’s work, and they would review yours, in turn. Sometimes, the best thing I could think of was " I really appreciate your use of punctuation and/ or the correct spelling throughout."