Elephant Reviews [CFCU]

Parallells

By: Chido_10bell

First Impressions (ex. Cover, blurb, title)

-Title: The title is fine.

-Cover: The cover is very nice.

-Blurb: The blurb was good, but the parenthetical addition of the father's name is unnecessary detail.

Mechanics (ex. Grammar, sentence structure, etc.)

There are some grammatical errors.

- Perhaps try to vary the location of the dialogue tags a bit to improve the diversity in sentence structure. In some of the dialogue in Chapter 4, the dialogue tags are very similar and in the same position in multiple lines, starting with "'I can't wait for the premiere of Spiderman: Far from Home, the wait is killing me,' Liam exclaimed at his newfound movie interest." The next line ends with "...I gushed at the thought of the main actor" and the next line ends with "I asked in a curious manor."

Plot & Characters

- One thing that was noticed in the first chapter was there was a lot of telling instead of showing the readers what was going on or how the characters were feeling, and there was a lot of dialogue that was pretty much just exposition.

- It seemed odd that the father had ice cream at the ready for the daughter after her nightmare.

- A couple things were noticed that were inconsistent for where they were located, in this case in America:

      -In Chapter 6, they both order margaritas but the age limit for alcohol in the US is 21

      -In Chapter 13, measurements like 14:02 PM are used, which is unusual as the 12 hour time is used more often than the 24 hour one in the US. Also, there is a measurement in Celsius when the measurement in America is Fahrenheit. But if this takes place outside of the US, as it takes place before she moved to New Jersey, then perhaps inform readers of her location so the measurements are justified.      - There is also a mention of Celsius in Chapter 25, and a mention of 17:00 hours in Chapter 31.

- The flashback, (chapters 11-13) is not set up or addressed at all, it is kind of randomly placed within the story.

-In Chapter 25, there is no need for the names in between the video call scene because it isn't a text. (aka the "[Anna ❤︎😈]" and "[Me]")

- Chapter 29 could use a POV header because it changes over to Andrew.

- Chapter 30: Her father didn't immediately ask why she got a sprained ankle. 

This seems like this story is coming along nicely. We wish you the best of luck with your writing journey!