The antique shop of the devil

Again, the concept is not new and has been used in some web fiction before. Yet the overall dynamics of the shop are still obscure up to now and are pretty intriguing. The characters are what drive the story with their unique personalities and quirks. Yet the grammatical errors and a not properly developed writing style hold it back and disrupt the overall immersion. But with some minor editing, this is a very unique and intriguing story to look forward to. 

Style: The writing style needs more work. The sentences are often too short and lines end abruptly. In many points throughout the story, this style of writing messes with the continuity and flow. 

Story: The story is pretty unique in my opinion. Getting reincarnated and running some sort of shop is not a new idea. Yet this is not just any shop. Victor-the shopkeeper sells some pretty strange and powerful stuff all the while being completely oblivious to their actual nature. The story moves on from there with those 'antiques'. He might be the devil himself - but the synopsis claims he isn't, we will see. 

Character: The characters are wonderfully written. Victor for example has some really good routines that make him feel pretty relatable. Also being sort of an airhead makes him very humorous to read about. The side characters show pretty good interactions too. 

Grammar: Okay, there are a lot of grammatical mistakes. Most are minor, but they accumulate in a way that I feel is problematic for the flow of the story. Many articles are missing here and there that disrupts the reading flow and take you out of the story. But with minor editing, these can be solved. 

Make sure you’ve got enough Remis and balls of steel to shop in here

Style

The formatting gets distractingly weird at times and the prose is weak, average at best, but luckily it is saved by good dialogue. More emphasis on physical descriptions and detailing the world surrounding our character would be an added value to this story.

Grammar

Looks good. The author explains they are not a native English speaker, but the mistakes aren’t immersion-breaking. All the sentences are easy to understand the problem are some missing full stops and question marks here and there, plus problems with quotation marks.

Character

Victor, our main, is a cool character. Kinda has that jaded, IGAF attitude I gravitate towards. Can’t say much for the rest of the cast though at this moment of writing.

Story

The story not having a clear direction on where it is going may be seem like a problem but then you realize the “slice of life” tag and everything makes sense. I have to give it to the author on making a unique “isekai” tale with what has to be one of the most entertaining ways I’ve seen someone being transported to another dimension.

It is frustrating trying to understand what kind of world we are in with such barebone details about it so far (but it is way too early to say such things).

The core of the story is a laid-back, black comedy you can say, where we see Victor deal with all kinds of customers while building towards something bigger, which is a vibe I totally dig.

This is a certified good time.

It starts out as a fun, light read and before you know it, you find yourself drawn into the story and wanting to know more about the world and the characters, I recommend.

The MC is a regular human but he seems to have a second identity that he don't know about. The other characters are also quite interesting and i look forward to know more about them.

We follow a mix of different characters evolving around what seems to be a giant investigation/revenge/misunderstanding. The scenes are quite dark even though it's highlighted in a comical way. And it's really working!

Style score - Very unique one. I had some trouble at first getting used to this style and felt odd reading the first two chapters. But you get soon used to it and raise your head wondering what time is it, ten chapters later. Can't really put words on it. Just read and you will see.

Story score -  Although it has not yet fully developped, there are multiple promising options available. It is very slice of life, but the way the main character act adds a lot of "I want to know how it will turns out". The plot is just building so there is not a lot to add here.

Grammar score - Maybe the biggest hurdle. I found a few typos and some weird sentences in the first chapters. I don't like how the paragraphs are split. But the author is actively looking to improve this specific parts and is quite responsive to edit suggestions. Also, I found that the next chapters were each better than the previous one. So not really a throw-off. It can only improve and the author showed it was his goal to do so.

Character score - I admit I am not a big fan of multiple characters POV going through the same plot and I really just want to know about Victor, but that's a personal opinion. Objectively, the characters are fun to read and do add to the story.

All in all, a nice unique story, worth the read. Sure, there are areas to improve, but dedicated readers are already pointing some at the author, who is improving with each chapter.

This story is under a sub-genre of isekai of getting transmigrated to manage something, usually an inn, a bookstore, etc. Not that big of a sub-genre compared to others, but I'm pretty familiar with this one so I was also interested in this. Fans of that sub-genre can try this story out. It implements the tropes that come with the genre, and adds its own twists and turns. A fun balance between comedic and serious tones. My complaint would be the weird paragraph spacings every now and then - I'm not sure if that's an issue because of copy-pasting from somewhere else to RR and messing up the formatting. I hope the author can fix that because it'll improve reading experience. 

The other stuff... is there as well. If I had to point at one thing I didn't like, it would be the conversations. Or, would it be that if it was just one person saying things out loud? Who knows. I just know that I did not like that method of communicating the MCs thoughts and ideas. People might say that showing is better than telling but telling also has some good ideas every once in a while. Some editing would do this fiction good.

4/5 for now

This story was an absolute joy to read.  We are introduced to a number of characters all somehow interelated to our good friend who runs a mysteriously, menacing antique shop.  Each of the items has some sort of catch to it, and we see how it affects the other characters as the story progresses.

Style 5/5: The story flows very well and the paragraph variation is good.  Also I never minded the POV shifts between characters.  In fact, I find that the most charming thing about this story.  It's fantastic! 

Grammar 4.5/5: There were a few issues regarding grammar that I pointed out to the author.  Although they don't come very often, some mistakes were very easy to notice.  Nonetheless, the grammar for the most part was fine.

Story 5/5: It's a slice of life-ish story following a guy who has been transported from another world, now running a sinister antique shop.  Is this premise interesting at first glance?  Umm, maybe...  Okay, well then was the premise executed well during the story?  Abso-f***ing-lutely!  The story meshed together a bunch of mini arcs of characters falling to curses by the items they obtained through the antique shop.  Each of the arcs were entertaining in their own right and always got a good laugh out of me.  The story is splendid if you're into this sort of style.

Character 5/5: I enjoyed every character introduced into this story.  All of them had some sort of personality that distinguished them from others.  The most noteable I can think of is Victor, the shopkeeper of the antique store.  His laidback personality is something no one could have ever guessed to be the owner of this sinister shop.  His inner monologues are funny and often relateable.  I also really enjoyed the introduction of Rob.  He's polite when needs to be, and an absolute badass at other times.  Overall, the characters were amazing, full of emotion, and bursting with personality!

This story was an absolute treat.  I recommend anyone who sees this review to give this story a go!

Cover: Beautifully designed.

Synopsis: Well written. It really displayed what the book is all about in a descriptive way.

Grammar: High quality. No error that could affect the flow of the story.

Story: The plotline follows Victor Wartell who was transmigrated into another world where he opened an antique shop. This fantasy novel is a mixture of mythos, horror and progression. From what ive read, the story is developing really well.

Style: Third person narration. Well used. The spacing may use some work though.

Characters: So far, they're well written, especially the MC, Victor Wartell. 

Overall: Great work.

The story about opening up a shop seems very enchanting to me. In particular when it's with the "horror" tag. Even though we only see a glimpse of this story's world, i'm already captivated simply because it is a very rare combination. I can only name a few other similar stories, and one that came to mind is "Opening a Shop in the Nightmare World". Oh and the mix element of oblivious overpowered otherworldy MC is also very interesting, my favorite is "I am a cultivation bigshot" manga. Though it is more geared towards comedy. Can anyone give me recommendation?? I feel so deprived and desperate T.T

The story and characters in this are great and fully there. The premise is amazing, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

That being said, the formatting of a line break after almost every sentence takes a lot away from the story. It's distracting, and feels like an effort to avoid detailing a scene. Paragraphs exist for a reason, and circumnavigating that makes the whole thing feel a bit chaotic. 

Clean that up, and you've got an amazing story on your hands.