Here are some questions you could ask about the novel
Plot Is it an action packed story? Are there any weaknesses? What are the strengths of the plot? How could the plot have been improved? Is it a complicated plot? Can you compare it to any other story plots? Characterization Are the characters convincingly described? Who is your favourite character, and why? Which character do you like the least and why? How does the author "build" his characters? - by what they do? - by what other people say about them? - by what they say? How have key characters changed by the end of the story? Why? Language Is there any difficult vocabulary (technical vocabulary, for example)? If so, is there a reason for it being there? How complicated is the sentence structure of the writing? - are there long sentences? - is there use of direct speech? - is there use of commas, or other punctuation, to "break up" the story? Does the author use dialect? Themes Does the story have any "moral lessons"? Is there a contest between good and evil? Or is the story more complicated than that? How many themes are there - and is there a minor theme and a major theme? Can you think of any other works that have the same theme? The Narrator Is a first person narrator used? Or is a third person narrator used? Is the narrator "reliable"? [ie an omniscient narrator] Is the narrator "unreliable"? [often first person narrators fall into this category] Why has a particular narrator been used for the story in question? Advantages and disadvantages? [eg first person narrator cannot give us the whole picture]
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