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Wings and Shadows
Fifteen-year-old Lucianne has the power to inflict pain on anyone she wishes—an ability that renders a girl unconscious on the day she discovers it. Unbeknownst to her, the use of magic reveals her location to the Qroes, a sadistic association intent on stealing the powers of individuals like her. With her ability far too new to control, she is caught, beaten, and thrown into a cell.
She believes the metal lock has sealed her fate... until a winged boy appears outside her cell in the dead of night, whisking her away to Soratia—a world ruled by magic and roamed by griffin-human hybrids. To Lucianne, Soratia soon becomes home.
When the Qroes land their hands on the Soratia’s most powerful asset, shattering the tranquility that had rested over the land, Lucianne takes it upon herself to stop them from wreaking more havoc onto her new home.
But her powers are unreliable, and as more and more teens her age keep disappearing into the enemy’s clutches, Lucianne must make a decision: go after the enemy and risk death, or run away and hide, leaving thousands of lives to perish.
She believes the metal lock has sealed her fate... until a winged boy appears outside her cell in the dead of night, whisking her away to Soratia—a world ruled by magic and roamed by griffin-human hybrids. To Lucianne, Soratia soon becomes home.
When the Qroes land their hands on the Soratia’s most powerful asset, shattering the tranquility that had rested over the land, Lucianne takes it upon herself to stop them from wreaking more havoc onto her new home.
But her powers are unreliable, and as more and more teens her age keep disappearing into the enemy’s clutches, Lucianne must make a decision: go after the enemy and risk death, or run away and hide, leaving thousands of lives to perish.
- GenresFantasy
236 pages, Unknown Binding
Published March 27, 2021
57 people are currently reading
973 people want to read
About the author
Dominika Pin
1 book115 followersDominika Pin is a teenage author. Her writing career has just begun.
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May 14, 2021
EDIT/CONTENT WARNING: I found a series of racist tweets on an account which the author says belongs to her sister (but I think may be a sockpuppet, explained below) some quoted later in this review. Please take care reading after the "edit" point. The tweets quoted in the edit section include the quoting of fabricated anti-black statistics and defending police brutality.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Picked up a kindle copy of this today out of goodwill, as the author appeared to have received a racist anti-immigrant review. The book was so-so and a DNF for me. It had a lot of the problems you find in self published work — in that it would have hugely benefitted from a professional editor, and was generic, tropey and generally very amateurish.
Had I realised the book was self published I probably would’ve approached the book and the author’s claim with more skepticism. I read very high quality SP fiction all the time, and don't consider myself a snob, but I have seen SP authors go to some silly lengths to drum up self-promotion for their books. I think this is the case here as it seems the author left herself a fake flame review then posted it to twitter to boost publicity.
The review (now deleted, though it began with a line about how good the book was, and that reviewer was about to give it 5 stars — this should’ve been my first red flag, and I feel silly not for noticing this) complained about the fact the author is a recent immigrant. The review was left by an account set up on the 12th of May which had rated a handful of big hits and American classics, then — randomly, reviewed this one SP YA fantasy (the only review on the account of course). The author immediately discovered and re-posted it.
When the author started getting called out for how suspicious this all was, a blatant sock-puppet account (@SorinaDo - if you'd like to look for yourself) with 13 followers (not followed by the author, but full of undisputed knowledge about the author’s ethnicity, socio-economic background (parents jobs included) and personal life etc) appeared with a wild new backstory for the fake flame review.
The sock/Sorina started claiming that not only had she discovered the troll's identity by finding his phone number in the “Goodreads database” (setting aside for a moment how utterly ridiculous that is - you can't enter your phone number into goodreads) and that this young man was, in fact, a spurned admirer of the author’s (a guy she rejected 2 weeks ago, apparently). If you wanted “evidence” you could DM this random sock account (presumably to receive some fabricated screenshots). Another new, low-follower account also appeared claiming to be the troll, but quickly deleted and SorinaDo appears to have been arguing with at least one other, now deleted account.
A twitter password reset request revealed that both the author’s account and the sock/Sorina's account were tied to a phone number with identical final digits. Make of that what you will — it could be a coincidence. I’m afraid I don’t have access to this “Goodreads Database” of cell phone numbers, so I can’t confirm.
The author has not clarified any of this new information in her thread — ie: that she was sent the troll review by a disgruntled acquaintance, rather than receiving a random racist review. This is strange to me, given that people are buying her book on the basis that she was the victim of random, racist trolling, rather than that this is apparently part of an ongoing dispute/harassment by someone who knows her. I don't understand why you would not clarify this particularly when you appear to have a close friend in your mentions arguing this point to everyone who replies with suspicion.
I would say to hold off on buying this author’s work until she’s matured enough not to leave herself troll reviews, and callously take advantage of the goodwill of the YA and wider reading and writing community. The book is not of fantastic quality any way — I wouldn’t like to discourage a young writer, but this behaviour will not win you any favors.
As a person who took this on face value, then watched this ridiculous saga unfold, I must say I greatly regret supporting this author financially.
I may be wrong, but there are too many coincidences, deleted accounts and potential buyers involved for me to continue to take this author's claims on good faith.
Note: I did set up a new account to leave this review — I work in the industry and have no desire to be brigaded by the author’s sockpuppets.
Though should she wish to find me, I assume she or "Sorina" will be able to easily hack my number from the goodreads database! That, or perhaps she’ll invent a new identity for me — a hostile uncle, a Tiktok nemesis, another anti-immigration troll — who knows!
I'll never check this account again, and assume that the author will try and get this taken down. I hope moderators see the value in this good faith review from a very disappointed reader and leave it up. I think potential readers deserve to know both about the book's sub-standard quality, and the high probability of the author's deceptive behaviour.
EDIT:
Hopping back on for a final time. the author has deleted her original tweet but she also specifically attempted to reply to a couple of assertions I made here, and stuff still isn’t quite adding up.
- the Sorina account is her little sister — forgetting the Sorina account replied to someone early morning on May 13th (my time) stating “Both of us are upper lower class at best. Her dad’s a painter, mines a mechanic, moms work at factories.” This tweet appears to have been deleted.
Siblings with different dads and Plural moms at plural factories? Maybe her sister was pretending to be her friend, maybe she had to change the sock’s backstory to justify the shared phone number. Putting aside that the Sorina account doesn’t exactly read like a young teen’s. Maybe they’re adopted with regular contact with bio-parents, who knows at this point.
In trying to find that "upper lower class tweet" I'm afraid I discovered some shockingly racist tweets from the Sorina account.
First, I searched the @ with "Parents", "mom" and "dad" and found some tweets where she says her parents came to the states 6, 10 and 25 years ago:
Here's a tweet from Sorina where she says her parents came to the states 25 years ago: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1... << "Uh... proud of my heritage? Also, my parents immigrated here 25 years ago LEGALLY. So they’re legal. And that document is true because it’s from Justice Of Bureau, a governmental document. You sound a bit mentally unstable... I hope you don’t forget to take some meds"
(Remember that in the original tweet, OP emphasised that she was a LEGAL immigrant)
here's a Tweet were she says they came here 10 years ago: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1... << "My parents came to the US ten years ago. They benefitted from slavery?"
Two tweets where she says she's been here for 6 years: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"I was here for 6 years as well! My parents and I immigrated from Europe with barely anything. My father got into construction and now we managed to purchase two homes in under 10 years. I go to a very mixed school and literally NOBODY has told me they’re oppressed."
You may have noticed a certain *tone* to some of these tweets... I certainly did! and did a little more digging.
here's a tweet where she's shitting on single moms in reply to Andy Ngo lmao: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"There’s plenty of wrong with single moms— this is one of the examples why"
I also found a series of anti-BLM tweets.
Here's one in response to a news story where a protester had her teeth knocked out by cops: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"It won’t because they won’t be spitting at officers and looting banks [crying laughing face] she deserved it" And later in the thread "Hah no I don’t. I’ve never committed a crime in my life, unlike this scum"
Her calling BLM racist: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"BLM leader of Toronto believes white people are “subhuman” due to their lack of melanin and begs Allah to help her “not kill white people”. BLM isn’t racist? #blm #alm #toronto"
I also thought... Let's just search "Black" and "Blacks" with her @ and see what we get"
"Evil exists in every race. Black people (especially males) are evil as well, given that they commit 50% of murders while making up ~6% of the population" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"Racist much? I could argue the opposite by saying black people get nose jobs to get tiny cute noses and look like white people lmao"
https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"10% of blacks and they still commit over 50% of all murders. Here are a few links:" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"If it’s okay to be racist towards whites, it’s okay to be racist towards blacks. Keep the same energy" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
Some tweets from her about the murder of 15 year old Makhia Bryant
"Hush you idiot. The cop couldn’t grab her because she had a KNIFE and would have STABBED him. knife=weapon=danger. Cop eliminated danger like he was trained to do. So please shut the fuck up with your bs" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"Shoot her in the leg? You must have failed human anatomy. The leg has so many arteries she would have bled out in mere SECONDS. Not to mention the risk of the bullets ricocheting and hitting another victim. Cops are trained to shoot for the chest. She wanted to murder someone." >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
Oh dear, oh dear Sorina... Either this is a pretty racist little sister we have on our hands, or the Author has some Qs to answer about her burner account.
- Noting that she has 250k followers on Tiktok - she would’ve done this there if it was a publicity stunt. Based on how few ratings her book had yesterday morning, Tiktok fame was doing very little for her sales? Also, it’s just easier to post a little screenshot to twitter than make a whole video about it. I doubt she intended the tweet to get out of control the way it did, and it was a throwaway post intended for a little attention/platform growth and a few sales, but she probably should have deleted or “clarified” the situation as soon as she brought in the weird backstory, or people started buying *multiple copies* of her book.
- The author’s proof is a series of scribbled on screenshots which are very easy to fabricate and impossible gather any real info from?
- she didn’t really address the “i found his phone number through the goodreads database” claim (you can’t put a phone number into Goodreads) and said a “friend” contacted her, though in the original thread the Sorina account appeared to make the discovery (ie: QTing the original tweet and replying to people to announce *she’d* found the troll and *she* did it through the “GR database”). When challenged on this, the author appeared to merely ignore the fact the Sorina account repeatedly claimed to have discovered the identity of the troll.
"YALL I FOUND HIM" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"I found the guy and it’s legit. I connected phone # to the GR database and found his account via contacts. It’s a salty 17 yo mf that Domi rejected two weeks ago. Made a troll account. Both numbers correspond with his insta so stop bashing my bf’s name. You can DM for pics" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
- The Sorina account's only activities are replying to people to repeatedly recommend her "sister's" book, replying to people to be super racist and defend cops, and a couple of things about other YA books. Have a look through her replies and RTs as well as the tweets quoted above.
So, two possible stories here:
1. an author who, despite a large following on tiktok, has low sales on her new self published book. As she is young and likely not aware of how common this stuff used to be: she impulsively decides to leave herself a flame review for some attention/sympathy and throwaway posts it to Twitter where she needs more engagement (and the audience is older, the writing community is a lot more dug in and more likely to buy stuff). The tweet picks up speed faster than she expected, when people question the tweet, she makes up the spurned admirer story, and brings in some socks to deliver it and back it up. She doesn’t realise that the new backstory makes her leaving the original tweet up without comment a bit disingenuous. She sees this review, panics more, further complicates the backstory with a little sister and a series of screenshots. She couldn’t really keep track of the socks and what she’d already claimed and made a series of errors attempting to address my suspicions. She also didn't think any one would find the extremely racist tweets on the Sorina account?
She deletes the original tweet, but leaves up her “proof”.
2. An author with (according to her tiktok) huge sales figures (she made more in a month than a grown up author made in a whole year, apparently) receives a review which appears to be from a random racist troll. She posts the review to twitter and the tweet goes viral. Meanwhile, a friend contacts her to says she has somehow traced the GR review to a spurned teen the author met online a month ago — as demonstrated by a partially blacked out screencap of an instagram exchange where he talks about how impressive and talented the author is. Meanwhile Meanwhile, her little sister (who is EXTREMELY RACIST) is popping OFF on Twitter, relaying the story to any one who questions the author, making stuff up about the goodreads database and also pretending they have different parents for some reason. Then, reading a review which erroneously accuses the her of making up the story at worst and being disingenuous at best — posts screenshots to prove the story without revealing details of people’s identities. She also had no idea her tween sister was spending a lot of time being racist on twitter, I guess. She deletes the original tweet and leaves up her proof.
I suppose both stories are feasible? One involves some high effort sockpuppeting and some assumptions, the other has holes and conflicting info. though both involve at least one super racist child.
I don’t feel great about causing her stress (I’m aware this isn’t the sanest thing i’ve ever done) but I still don’t think this was genuine, and the author digging in and over-explaining some things, ignoring others, really hasn’t helped her case. Nor has the small trove of racist tweets on the "sister's" account...
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Picked up a kindle copy of this today out of goodwill, as the author appeared to have received a racist anti-immigrant review. The book was so-so and a DNF for me. It had a lot of the problems you find in self published work — in that it would have hugely benefitted from a professional editor, and was generic, tropey and generally very amateurish.
Had I realised the book was self published I probably would’ve approached the book and the author’s claim with more skepticism. I read very high quality SP fiction all the time, and don't consider myself a snob, but I have seen SP authors go to some silly lengths to drum up self-promotion for their books. I think this is the case here as it seems the author left herself a fake flame review then posted it to twitter to boost publicity.
The review (now deleted, though it began with a line about how good the book was, and that reviewer was about to give it 5 stars — this should’ve been my first red flag, and I feel silly not for noticing this) complained about the fact the author is a recent immigrant. The review was left by an account set up on the 12th of May which had rated a handful of big hits and American classics, then — randomly, reviewed this one SP YA fantasy (the only review on the account of course). The author immediately discovered and re-posted it.
When the author started getting called out for how suspicious this all was, a blatant sock-puppet account (@SorinaDo - if you'd like to look for yourself) with 13 followers (not followed by the author, but full of undisputed knowledge about the author’s ethnicity, socio-economic background (parents jobs included) and personal life etc) appeared with a wild new backstory for the fake flame review.
The sock/Sorina started claiming that not only had she discovered the troll's identity by finding his phone number in the “Goodreads database” (setting aside for a moment how utterly ridiculous that is - you can't enter your phone number into goodreads) and that this young man was, in fact, a spurned admirer of the author’s (a guy she rejected 2 weeks ago, apparently). If you wanted “evidence” you could DM this random sock account (presumably to receive some fabricated screenshots). Another new, low-follower account also appeared claiming to be the troll, but quickly deleted and SorinaDo appears to have been arguing with at least one other, now deleted account.
A twitter password reset request revealed that both the author’s account and the sock/Sorina's account were tied to a phone number with identical final digits. Make of that what you will — it could be a coincidence. I’m afraid I don’t have access to this “Goodreads Database” of cell phone numbers, so I can’t confirm.
The author has not clarified any of this new information in her thread — ie: that she was sent the troll review by a disgruntled acquaintance, rather than receiving a random racist review. This is strange to me, given that people are buying her book on the basis that she was the victim of random, racist trolling, rather than that this is apparently part of an ongoing dispute/harassment by someone who knows her. I don't understand why you would not clarify this particularly when you appear to have a close friend in your mentions arguing this point to everyone who replies with suspicion.
I would say to hold off on buying this author’s work until she’s matured enough not to leave herself troll reviews, and callously take advantage of the goodwill of the YA and wider reading and writing community. The book is not of fantastic quality any way — I wouldn’t like to discourage a young writer, but this behaviour will not win you any favors.
As a person who took this on face value, then watched this ridiculous saga unfold, I must say I greatly regret supporting this author financially.
I may be wrong, but there are too many coincidences, deleted accounts and potential buyers involved for me to continue to take this author's claims on good faith.
Note: I did set up a new account to leave this review — I work in the industry and have no desire to be brigaded by the author’s sockpuppets.
Though should she wish to find me, I assume she or "Sorina" will be able to easily hack my number from the goodreads database! That, or perhaps she’ll invent a new identity for me — a hostile uncle, a Tiktok nemesis, another anti-immigration troll — who knows!
I'll never check this account again, and assume that the author will try and get this taken down. I hope moderators see the value in this good faith review from a very disappointed reader and leave it up. I think potential readers deserve to know both about the book's sub-standard quality, and the high probability of the author's deceptive behaviour.
EDIT:
Hopping back on for a final time. the author has deleted her original tweet but she also specifically attempted to reply to a couple of assertions I made here, and stuff still isn’t quite adding up.
- the Sorina account is her little sister — forgetting the Sorina account replied to someone early morning on May 13th (my time) stating “Both of us are upper lower class at best. Her dad’s a painter, mines a mechanic, moms work at factories.” This tweet appears to have been deleted.
Siblings with different dads and Plural moms at plural factories? Maybe her sister was pretending to be her friend, maybe she had to change the sock’s backstory to justify the shared phone number. Putting aside that the Sorina account doesn’t exactly read like a young teen’s. Maybe they’re adopted with regular contact with bio-parents, who knows at this point.
In trying to find that "upper lower class tweet" I'm afraid I discovered some shockingly racist tweets from the Sorina account.
First, I searched the @ with "Parents", "mom" and "dad" and found some tweets where she says her parents came to the states 6, 10 and 25 years ago:
Here's a tweet from Sorina where she says her parents came to the states 25 years ago: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1... << "Uh... proud of my heritage? Also, my parents immigrated here 25 years ago LEGALLY. So they’re legal. And that document is true because it’s from Justice Of Bureau, a governmental document. You sound a bit mentally unstable... I hope you don’t forget to take some meds"
(Remember that in the original tweet, OP emphasised that she was a LEGAL immigrant)
here's a Tweet were she says they came here 10 years ago: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1... << "My parents came to the US ten years ago. They benefitted from slavery?"
Two tweets where she says she's been here for 6 years: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"I was here for 6 years as well! My parents and I immigrated from Europe with barely anything. My father got into construction and now we managed to purchase two homes in under 10 years. I go to a very mixed school and literally NOBODY has told me they’re oppressed."
You may have noticed a certain *tone* to some of these tweets... I certainly did! and did a little more digging.
here's a tweet where she's shitting on single moms in reply to Andy Ngo lmao: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"There’s plenty of wrong with single moms— this is one of the examples why"
I also found a series of anti-BLM tweets.
Here's one in response to a news story where a protester had her teeth knocked out by cops: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"It won’t because they won’t be spitting at officers and looting banks [crying laughing face] she deserved it" And later in the thread "Hah no I don’t. I’ve never committed a crime in my life, unlike this scum"
Her calling BLM racist: https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"BLM leader of Toronto believes white people are “subhuman” due to their lack of melanin and begs Allah to help her “not kill white people”. BLM isn’t racist? #blm #alm #toronto"
I also thought... Let's just search "Black" and "Blacks" with her @ and see what we get"
"Evil exists in every race. Black people (especially males) are evil as well, given that they commit 50% of murders while making up ~6% of the population" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"Racist much? I could argue the opposite by saying black people get nose jobs to get tiny cute noses and look like white people lmao"
https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"10% of blacks and they still commit over 50% of all murders. Here are a few links:" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"If it’s okay to be racist towards whites, it’s okay to be racist towards blacks. Keep the same energy" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
Some tweets from her about the murder of 15 year old Makhia Bryant
"Hush you idiot. The cop couldn’t grab her because she had a KNIFE and would have STABBED him. knife=weapon=danger. Cop eliminated danger like he was trained to do. So please shut the fuck up with your bs" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"Shoot her in the leg? You must have failed human anatomy. The leg has so many arteries she would have bled out in mere SECONDS. Not to mention the risk of the bullets ricocheting and hitting another victim. Cops are trained to shoot for the chest. She wanted to murder someone." >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
Oh dear, oh dear Sorina... Either this is a pretty racist little sister we have on our hands, or the Author has some Qs to answer about her burner account.
- Noting that she has 250k followers on Tiktok - she would’ve done this there if it was a publicity stunt. Based on how few ratings her book had yesterday morning, Tiktok fame was doing very little for her sales? Also, it’s just easier to post a little screenshot to twitter than make a whole video about it. I doubt she intended the tweet to get out of control the way it did, and it was a throwaway post intended for a little attention/platform growth and a few sales, but she probably should have deleted or “clarified” the situation as soon as she brought in the weird backstory, or people started buying *multiple copies* of her book.
- The author’s proof is a series of scribbled on screenshots which are very easy to fabricate and impossible gather any real info from?
- she didn’t really address the “i found his phone number through the goodreads database” claim (you can’t put a phone number into Goodreads) and said a “friend” contacted her, though in the original thread the Sorina account appeared to make the discovery (ie: QTing the original tweet and replying to people to announce *she’d* found the troll and *she* did it through the “GR database”). When challenged on this, the author appeared to merely ignore the fact the Sorina account repeatedly claimed to have discovered the identity of the troll.
"YALL I FOUND HIM" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
"I found the guy and it’s legit. I connected phone # to the GR database and found his account via contacts. It’s a salty 17 yo mf that Domi rejected two weeks ago. Made a troll account. Both numbers correspond with his insta so stop bashing my bf’s name. You can DM for pics" >> https://twitter.com/SorinaDo/status/1...
- The Sorina account's only activities are replying to people to repeatedly recommend her "sister's" book, replying to people to be super racist and defend cops, and a couple of things about other YA books. Have a look through her replies and RTs as well as the tweets quoted above.
So, two possible stories here:
1. an author who, despite a large following on tiktok, has low sales on her new self published book. As she is young and likely not aware of how common this stuff used to be: she impulsively decides to leave herself a flame review for some attention/sympathy and throwaway posts it to Twitter where she needs more engagement (and the audience is older, the writing community is a lot more dug in and more likely to buy stuff). The tweet picks up speed faster than she expected, when people question the tweet, she makes up the spurned admirer story, and brings in some socks to deliver it and back it up. She doesn’t realise that the new backstory makes her leaving the original tweet up without comment a bit disingenuous. She sees this review, panics more, further complicates the backstory with a little sister and a series of screenshots. She couldn’t really keep track of the socks and what she’d already claimed and made a series of errors attempting to address my suspicions. She also didn't think any one would find the extremely racist tweets on the Sorina account?
She deletes the original tweet, but leaves up her “proof”.
2. An author with (according to her tiktok) huge sales figures (she made more in a month than a grown up author made in a whole year, apparently) receives a review which appears to be from a random racist troll. She posts the review to twitter and the tweet goes viral. Meanwhile, a friend contacts her to says she has somehow traced the GR review to a spurned teen the author met online a month ago — as demonstrated by a partially blacked out screencap of an instagram exchange where he talks about how impressive and talented the author is. Meanwhile Meanwhile, her little sister (who is EXTREMELY RACIST) is popping OFF on Twitter, relaying the story to any one who questions the author, making stuff up about the goodreads database and also pretending they have different parents for some reason. Then, reading a review which erroneously accuses the her of making up the story at worst and being disingenuous at best — posts screenshots to prove the story without revealing details of people’s identities. She also had no idea her tween sister was spending a lot of time being racist on twitter, I guess. She deletes the original tweet and leaves up her proof.
I suppose both stories are feasible? One involves some high effort sockpuppeting and some assumptions, the other has holes and conflicting info. though both involve at least one super racist child.
I don’t feel great about causing her stress (I’m aware this isn’t the sanest thing i’ve ever done) but I still don’t think this was genuine, and the author digging in and over-explaining some things, ignoring others, really hasn’t helped her case. Nor has the small trove of racist tweets on the "sister's" account...
May 13, 2021
Only posting because the vast majority of people here are coming in response to the angry racist tweet which was a LIE. Check this before you enable an author to use hatred as a marketing tool. She deserves to lose all sales over this. Nothing to do with immigration, all to do with taking advantage of people’s biases on the internet. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Edit: did a little more digging since this really is just such a fascinating turn about and wanted to update anyone following this and realizing they got scammed. She admitted now that “sorina” is her little sister (doubtful but perhaps) and the disgruntled “ex bf” was made up “Peter Sobko” as seen in the screenshots on Twitter. Look him up—both the Instagram and Facebook accounts were created yesterday. She should be banned as an author, return the sales based off this lie, and make a confession before trying to re-enter the writing world. Despicable.
Edit: did a little more digging since this really is just such a fascinating turn about and wanted to update anyone following this and realizing they got scammed. She admitted now that “sorina” is her little sister (doubtful but perhaps) and the disgruntled “ex bf” was made up “Peter Sobko” as seen in the screenshots on Twitter. Look him up—both the Instagram and Facebook accounts were created yesterday. She should be banned as an author, return the sales based off this lie, and make a confession before trying to re-enter the writing world. Despicable.
March 20, 2021
This book was AMAZING. By like page five I was already transported to a completely different world (a better one for sure haha) The characters were very well formed, I only wish the book was longer so I could get to know them better. It was one of those books that leave you in a trance/book hangover once you finish. I am PRAYING we will be blessed with a second book!
May 14, 2021
No matter one's age, blatantly lying to get publicity and sales for your book is completely unacceptable and should not be tolerated. The fact that you are pretending to be a victim of racism and xenophobia is especially despicable. These issues are very real and deserves to be respected, not fabricated and used as a marketing tool for sympathy points.
May 13, 2021
Sadly, a xenophobic reader chose to use their time to spew bigotry against immigrants on this young writer.
In spite of the fact that the bigot's daughter read and enjoyed the book, the bigot, who so far has not identified themself as a member of a Native American tribe/nation, ranted that immigrants were taking jobs from "hard-working Americans".
https://twitter.com/dominikapin/status/1392547611853430784?s=20
In spite of the fact that the bigot's daughter read and enjoyed the book, the bigot, who so far has not identified themself as a member of a Native American tribe/nation, ranted that immigrants were taking jobs from "hard-working Americans".
https://twitter.com/dominikapin/status/1392547611853430784?s=20
May 14, 2021
One star based on the review of YourDebunkingFriend. Anyone buying and giving out 5 stars because of a sob story should read that, not this book.
May 14, 2021
Don't support liars! :(
May 14, 2021
At times it shocks me how easily people could be fooled and baited with certain things when they would feel furious and be blinded by their own emotions. And not just any people. The audience of GoodReads is supposed to be smarter than your average Joe. Yet again they get played by a little girl writing utterly fake reviews about how she is being hated on by racist Americans.
Don't buy this book. Don't leave 5 star reviews. Don't be scammed by a 14 year old. All you people that heard of this author in the news and decided to support the poor girl offended with a racist (FAKE) review look like raging social justice warriors that only have heart but no brain.
Dominika despite her age owes all of you an apology and a refund.
The right thing to do at this point would be admitting her deceit and donating all of the money she scammed from people to a well-known charity. That is the only way she can salvage her reputation as an aspiring author.
P.S. Don't be gullible folks. Don't let emotions override your mind. This is how scammers succeed. This is how people lose their money.
Also please read the review by YourDebunkingFriend. It is quite comprehensive.
P.P.S Sorry for my bad English. I am also an immigrant ;)
Don't buy this book. Don't leave 5 star reviews. Don't be scammed by a 14 year old. All you people that heard of this author in the news and decided to support the poor girl offended with a racist (FAKE) review look like raging social justice warriors that only have heart but no brain.
Dominika despite her age owes all of you an apology and a refund.
The right thing to do at this point would be admitting her deceit and donating all of the money she scammed from people to a well-known charity. That is the only way she can salvage her reputation as an aspiring author.
P.S. Don't be gullible folks. Don't let emotions override your mind. This is how scammers succeed. This is how people lose their money.
Also please read the review by YourDebunkingFriend. It is quite comprehensive.
P.P.S Sorry for my bad English. I am also an immigrant ;)
May 14, 2021
Author is a loathsome person and a liar. Spitting on the dignity of the people who have so graciously allowed her access to their society.
Go home, Dominika. You’re not one of us. You’ve proven that.
Go home, Dominika. You’re not one of us. You’ve proven that.
May 14, 2021
Don't support xenophobic, racist authors that fabricate fake racist stories for publicity.
March 29, 2021
This book was amazing. I read it in 1 day. Its so well written.
August 6, 2021
I don’t really know what to say. For a teen author, I feel like I should be kinder however I just think the writing wasn’t very good. There was a lot of missed bits which didn’t make sense in the rest of the plot line and lots of bits went undeveloped. I think it could have been better written and had better development. The plot was okay but not amazing and as I said before, very underdeveloped. Keep writing though, and learn from your mistakes!
May 13, 2021
Great read! (I assume. I'm posting to offset the racists authors getting heat from.)
May 13, 2021
I literally made a Goodreads account just to support the author after the xenophobia she experienced.
Don't let the stupidity of ignorant strangers discourage you!
Don't let the stupidity of ignorant strangers discourage you!
May 13, 2021
Stunning book from a new author.
Keep up the good work and ignore the idiots.
Keep up the good work and ignore the idiots.
May 13, 2021
Giving 5 stars to snuff out the racist that thought it was appropriate to spew xenophobic garbage. Keep going, don't let a jealous bigot discourage your writing!
May 12, 2021
FIVE STARS!!!!!! brilliant!!
May 14, 2021
CW: Violent animal abuse on P.1.
April 21, 2021
Honestly, before I read this book, I was in a reading slump, but this book definitely got me back into reading. This book reminded me how easy it is to fall in love in a new world and new characters. The plot is amazing, and it is easier to follow than complex books I know a lot of people read. I feel as though this could be directed towards any ages, and you will still enjoy it! :)
April 12, 2021
I found the author on Tiktok and as a reader and writer myself I was excited to read it. I thought this book was quite good, especially for a teenage writer, however I felt that the pacing was too fast in the beginning. The author did prevent the book from being boring, even so I would've wished for the book to have been longer so that we could connect with the characters more. The plot and whole story really felt like a version of the Keeper of the Lost Cities series with the discovering that she's special, goes to a different world thanks to a dreamy boy, then theres a group who is trying to capture her. I did really enjoy the characters, most definitely enjoyed Adeline and Mei's friendship and I'm really disappointed that we won't get to see their friendship to its extent. The story always had something new in store and did an amazing job of plot twists. Overall it was exciting and I am looking forward to the other books this author might publish!
March 29, 2021
SO GOOD you cannot tell this was written by a teen this was SO well written I could see this being as popular as Harry Potter
May 13, 2021
Read this a while back, not usually a review person but it was a genuinely good read and I noticed the author received a bad review for being an immigrant so figured this was as good a time as any.
This book is a great entry for the genre, you won't regret picking it up.
This book is a great entry for the genre, you won't regret picking it up.
May 13, 2021
I saw the tweet and just came here after ordering a copy of the book. KEEP SHINING ❤️
April 24, 2021
I enjoyed this book a lot. There were some things regarding writing craft that stood in the way, but after you oversee that, this book has amazing world and characters! If you are looking for a fantasy book to be hooked on after page one, this is the one for you!
May 14, 2021
I haven't read Wings and Shadows, but I came here to leave a stellar review after seeing that the author (aged 15, I think?) received a one-star racist review. Judging by the recent one-star reviews, Dominika Pindor fabricated trolls to gain attraction.
I mean, I hardly want to encourage a young writer to mislead or cheat readers (lying will not better your writing journey; it'll completely flunk it), but at the same time, she's only fifteen. I am a mother of four, my eldest daughter is twelve, and I would hate to see her receiving any hate, especially from adults, for making a bad decision. It's not about attacking this young writer. It's about teaching her to learn from her mistakes. I am sure, she's less than encouraged today. If anything, she probably never wants to sit in front of a laptop again.
Dominika, if you read this, take the current turmoil as a learning curve. Do not let this discourage you or impede your writing. If you were my daughter, I'd advise you to apologise to your readers (this shows growth and maturity on your behalf; plus, it teaches you to own your mistakes, which people admire more than lies), and to let the storm blow over before you write again.
Either way, I think it's pretty awesome someone as young as yourself had the courage to write a book and share it with the world.
Stay inspired.
I mean, I hardly want to encourage a young writer to mislead or cheat readers (lying will not better your writing journey; it'll completely flunk it), but at the same time, she's only fifteen. I am a mother of four, my eldest daughter is twelve, and I would hate to see her receiving any hate, especially from adults, for making a bad decision. It's not about attacking this young writer. It's about teaching her to learn from her mistakes. I am sure, she's less than encouraged today. If anything, she probably never wants to sit in front of a laptop again.
Dominika, if you read this, take the current turmoil as a learning curve. Do not let this discourage you or impede your writing. If you were my daughter, I'd advise you to apologise to your readers (this shows growth and maturity on your behalf; plus, it teaches you to own your mistakes, which people admire more than lies), and to let the storm blow over before you write again.
Either way, I think it's pretty awesome someone as young as yourself had the courage to write a book and share it with the world.
Stay inspired.
November 18, 2022
I’m not reviewing this poorly bc of any personal drama with the author. I think all of you guys reviewing bc of that (whether good or bad reviews) are stupid cause it should be abt the actually book. That said, the writing was very immature and under developed and the main character seemed to have no one personality or defining traits and made me actually cringe multiple times. The grammar and formatting mistakes where obvious and I feel could’ve been easily avoided. Now the actually book aside I feel that the author is amazing for actually publishing. If you look at this book as written at so young it’s actually astonishing. Apologies for the harsh review Dominika because I most certainly think you should keep writing and you will make beautiful works in the future. Best luck to you. (Again sorry for the harsh review it’s written as if you where any other author not a teen one. I was hoping you might respect that and want honest feedback)
January 7, 2023
how dumb could you possibly be to fake a racist post and get supporters from that
May 10, 2021
I found this book from the author’s Tik Tok page and I’m really inspired by her posts and tips. However, the book fell a bit short for me. There were some really great quotes that I can tell she really worked on and revised, and you can really tell how much she cared about those parts of her story. However, the characters felt very flat (Adelaide was the quirky ditzy friend, Mei was just in general a basic, good person, Matthias was attractive and helped Lucianne for some reason, and Lucianne had a l lot of ‘I’m not like other girls’ moments.) The pacing in the middle of the book was really good and I liked how much you learned about the castle, the world, and Levond Academy, but the beginning I think is what brings this below four stars for me. It was so rushed (the events felt like they should’ve had eighty pages to take place, not twenty) and the evil Qroes advertised on the back of the book seemed like very basic villains. I think it also would’ve made more sense if what happened to Lucianne when they kidnapped her was more drastic and took place over a few days. It would’ve aided to her character development and helped explain her becoming much more ruthless at the end of the book. I think Lucianne should’ve reacted more to what happened to her, as well; she accepted what had happened to her very easily. Also, Lucianne’s powers were really cool and I don’t know if I’ve read any other book with a character with a similar power, but I felt like it wasn’t used to it’s full potential. There were also some errors with the formatting, and a few grammar and spelling errors the editor didn’t catch. I do think the book was a really enjoyable quick read, and I would recommend it to someone looking for a new fantasy.
May 12, 2021
Fantastic read! More please!
May 13, 2021
I'm loving this book - so intense!
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