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One Tough Cookie (Prologue - Chapter 4) - @ajuren

One Tough Cookie (Prologue - Chapter 4) by ajuren 

Reviewed by AmyMarieZ

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Overview: One Tough Cookie is a gripping teen fiction story that is simultaneously heartwarming, heartbreaking, and hilarious. After the tragic death of her mother years ago, Amy, a shy but spunky girl with a lot of hidden confidence, gets a fresh start in a new town and tries to find happiness once again. This story follows her as she traverses high school, trying to avoid drama and love. But somehow, they keep coming after her.

Structure: The structure of this story was slightly odd, and I might suggest rethinking or at least considering structuring it differently. I think that a different presentation of this story might do it more justice.

As is, the story begins by showing Amy being bullied at school as a preteen. She comes home and is comforted by her mother. Her mother leaves to go to the store and is killed in a car accident. The prologue shows Amy and her father grieving, and then summarizes events leading up to the present where they moved to a new town to get a fresh start. At the end of the prologue, something strange happens to Amy while she is jogging, and she feels like she is falling. The first chapter opens with her awakening from a dream.

The transition between the prologue and the first chapter confused me slightly. In the first chapter, Amy wonders why she had a dream about her mother. However, because of the scene breaks in the prologue, I had been under the impression that the only part of it that was actually a dream was the part where she was jogging. I might suggest smoothing out the transitions to avoid using scene breaks to make it clear that the entire prologue is a dream, Another option could be simply omitting the dream entirely.

I think what might work best in this story would be to end the prologue either right when Amy finds out about the death of her mother and her reaction is shown or right after Amy decides to make a change in her life for the better. Opening the first chapter years later after her father and her have moved would fit well. The events that happened in between don't necessarily need to be presented, because the reader can fill in the blanks for the most part, and any important details can be addressed later in the story when they become relevant.

The other part of the structure that I was unsure about was the split first person point of view. The prologue and first two chapters are told from Amy's point of view, and then the third and fourth chapter are told from her love interest Drew's point of view. The split point of view is a great way of showing the different perspectives of Amy and Drew, however, I might suggest distinguishing their voices a bit more. As is, Amy and Drew show very similar thought processes and observe their world in very similar ways. Their narration mimic's each others. Differentiating the way the characters think and the tone of their narration could help make them stand out more.

The other potential issue I saw with the split first person point of view was that the third and fourth chapters showed the same events, only from Drew's perspective rather than Amy's. There wasn't much knew information other than finding out Drew's opinions on what was going on. If Drew's point of view was used to present new scenes, I think the same points about his thoughts on Amy could still be presented, but the action itself would be new and interesting so more suspense would build and the reader would feel more hooked.

Grammar: The grammar in One Tough Cookie was poor, which is unfortunate because it is a story with fun and entertaining characters and a lot of potential. The frequent grammatical errors disrupted the flow of the writing and were distracting while reading. The good new is grammar is mostly technical, and it is one of the easiest things to fix with proof reading or help from an editor.