Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Lost in Havoc

Title: Lost in Havoc

Author: gurlcynical

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 4/5

Lots of really great things happening in your summary. You perfectly introduce your protagonist and the backstory that leads into the conflict – and then you move on to explain how everything ties together, from the bucket list and the camping program to the whole concept of peace and acceptance. I really like the themes already brimming within this summary about moving on and finding hope, so very well done.

The only issue was the lack of cohesion in your summary, and that's because you continuously changed tenses.

Ellie Bylthe Osborne was heartbroken and have become a reckless girl... [was = past tense, have = present tense]

Then the next paragraph is all in present tense as she finds a bucket list. But then, the next paragraph, you say she embarked on a journey – which is then in past tense. It's jumping back and forth in tenses, which is incredibly jarring. I suggest going back and polishing all of that so that it's consistent and fluent. 

Grammar: 3/5

Upon reading, I realised that tense errors were a very consistent thing within your story. I'll talk more about it in the writing style section, because that's where it heavily influenced the story. However, there were a few things that need fixing in the other departments.

First of all, punctuation and dialogue. 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:

"...it was fantastic." She said smiling at me.

It should be:

"...it was fantastic," she said, smiling at me.

Next, ellipsis. When you're using them, you need to ensure you do three dots – not more, not less. For example:

"Hmmm.. thanks, I guess."

It should be:

"Hmmm... thanks, I guess."

Additionally, you have some sentences that are just incomplete. For example, in chapter five:

...are parked school buses, minivans, and cars a

And that was it. I think, overall, you need to go back and revise your chapters so smoothen out a few of those technicalities. 

Characterisation: 3.5/5

I love that Ellie becomes more and more impulsive throughout the course of the story, a little more free and fun loving and confident – when she basically stole those seven wrist bands from whoever Mrs Donovan was, I was honestly so amused at how much she had grown. Which is great – I love that character development. She and Nico are very cute, too – he irritates the hell out of her, but he still is very sweet, buying her the sticker she wanted from the gift shop (even Kayden was telling them to hurry up and admit it!).