Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Surviving You

Title: Surviving You

Author: Thesparklingwriter

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 5/5

I really liked your summary! I actually think the excerpt at the beginning was super powerful, and the repetition added drama that later on contributed to the summary. And, speaking of the summary, it's extremely cohesive, each point flows onto the next, and you perfectly introduce the protagonist, the conflict, and the final rhetorical question shows us some stakes. All in all, I think this is a brilliantly succinct summary, so well done!

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, your grammar was pretty polished! There are just a few things you need to look out for.

First of all, dialogue and punctuation. When dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question, and an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"You can do this." I whisper to myself.

It should be:

"You can do this," I whisper to myself.

Next, please ensure all your proper nouns are capitalised. For example, when you're saying 'mum' or 'dad' instead of 'my mum' or 'my dad', you need to capitalise it. For example:

It was all three of us against the world until dad died.

It should be:

It was all three of us against the world until Dad died.

Next up, apostrophes. You use them for contractions, such as "it's" which is a contracted form of "it is". However, in examples like:

...but I just hate tense atmosphere's in general.

You shouldn't have an apostrophe, because you're not saying 'atmosphere is'. It should simply be:

...but I hate tense atmospheres in general.

Watch out for words that are similar, but not the same. For example, two, to, and too. Two is the number, to is like saying I'm going to the park, and too is when you're saying something like, I'm too tired or I'm doing that too. So, for example:

"Daddy said that you were to infatuated by the..."

It should be too instead of to.

Overall, you just need to polish up a few things. You have sentences ending with commas instead of periods, and you also have random slip-ups in the writing such as:

It's just the popular girl me trying to escape.

I think you mean popular girl in me trying to escape. 

Characterisation: 5/5

Despite all the despair that Lacey has been through, she shows us that she's a promising protagonist from the start – describing a car as a three-legged hippo. That was a great way to draw the reader in, and right to the end, she shows her passion, her fieriness, and her determination that makes her a fantastic and flawed protagonist.

And, of course, there's our Dallas or Leo, who is our brooding teenager by day and motivational speaker by night. I love the banter between them – they make small things, like scouting toilets for wilderfoxes, fun, and he can be such a child at times with the whole 'race you to the car!'. It did feel a little hasty how she desperately wanted to be the one to make him forget the pain, but it was good that you made Lacey acknowledge this herself – that it's not normal to feel this after twelve hours.

I think all the coincidences were great, considering what they all led up to. One hearing ghosts, one seeing them. One's dad working for Desire, and one's mum working for it. Overall, I think your characters were pretty spot on, so well done!

Writing Style: 4/5

I won't spend too much time here because, overall, the writing was excellent. It wasn't too superfluous, but had a pretty good pacing overall. While I do wish you spent a few more fleeting moments on description, there was enough for readers to get a sense of the mood – fantastic work!

At some points, the writing felt a bit robotic and stoic. This is probably because of repetitive sentence structures. When writing, make sure not all of your sentences start in a similar format. For example, here are four sentences you had in a row:

I pout but follow...

I need a good six hours...

I'm in no hurry...

I'm still trying to...

All of them essentially start the same – I [verb] [the rest]. Because of that, the writing reads as a bit awkward. I suggest searching and revising those moments. 

Plot + Originality: 4/5

In general, this story hit very close to home – hearing about climate strikes, Greta Thunberg, one degree centigrade every fifty years but not doing anything about it, and resources running out. This story is nothing short of important, and I'm glad you touched on that towards the beginning.

Now, the story itself! Wow – it turned from a story about survival into love into... some really awful parents being awful people. I liked the way we started at survival mode, and, as our duo found out that their parents may not be dead, it became more about bonding and finding their way there. Then came the plot twist, overhearing something about viewers, and things start to get a little freaky. I also loved how there were some moments that foreshadowed that plot twist – like, why else would Lacey have been taught to drive at such a young age?

Loved the final chapter, but I do think it could use some tweaking. For example, these are really high stakes. We just found the parents who we thought were dead for most of the book, and they've been doing some pretty awful stuff to their children. And then, in the midst of the anger and deceit and betrayal, Leo is just like, "She's cute when she's angry."

It makes the moment lose impact, lose its climactic base. And that entire final chapter felt way too rushed – it was too many emotions mixed into one. I suggest splitting it, and then having a final chapter that winds down the reader after all the shock they've just had to take in.

Nonetheless, the ending you do have is beautiful – about losing a lot, gaining a lot, finding love, a sense of belonging, and most importantly, faith in humanity. Good work.

OVERALL SCORE: 21/25

Overall, a captivating story with lots of twists and turns! Make sure you slow down your pace and work on punctuation, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!