The Sleepless Book Reviews [CLOSED FOR CATCHUP)

Letting Go of The Past by emilylephan - reviewed by Ctrain8

Username: emilylephan
Title: Letting Go of The Past

Genre: teen fiction/romanceAmount of reviewed chapters: 3 (Current max as of review)
Reviewer: Ctrain8

1. Title
I think the title works alright. I mean, maybe it isn't the catchiest or most meaningful title in regard to this book (although I haven't had the leeway with reading the rest or what you have in mind) but from what I can tell it works. She is trying to forget that night and that kiss, as well as her old school and all the memories. This works. 

2. Cover
I do like the grays and minimal color deviation. I'm not a pro or that experienced or qualified when it comes to reviewing covers, but I think it's okay. But I do think  bold color for the words on the cover could really serve you well. It's also hard to read your name on the cover, which should be fixed.

3. Description 
I think the description is fine. It is brief and does leave us hanging on questions, which is good. There is a bit of a typo with a comma in there which you should check out. Also, I wouldn't describe her life as a living hell, but rather that it seems like one to her. I'm not belittling anxiety,  but I'm just pointing that out.

4. Plot
As of now there isn't really... a plot. It's weird to realize but there's no plot. Yeah, there's plenty of leads for a plot, especially with Kai but those are only fibers of a plot, and not the entire rope. We need to have a serious, engaging plot arise soon or we will lose interest. I recommend you edit your third chapter somewhat to give more of a hook to a plot that you have in mind with these characters.

5. Writing
The writing seems pretty good. you told me to focus on punctuation and grammar and stuff but honestly it wasn't that bad. Either you figured it all out before I started reviewing or got other reviewers to check out your the story, because your grammar is better than 90% of all other Wattpad books, and I can tell you that from experience. 

However, I wish to see more imagery, details, and showing and explaining of the setting than what was presented. This is a new school for Raven. She would be on hyper alert while going to this school, taking in every detail and everything important. We almost get no imagery of the school itself and how she feels toward it. In describing a place, especially in first person, you not only want to describe it in the most relatable details (in accordance with character knowledge if in first person), but you also want to describe how that place makes the character feels. This means its first impression, how they react to certain things, and so on. This is a great way to introduce conflicts, interests, and likes of the character so you flesh both the setting and the character out at once. It's a good tool and should be taken advantage of.

Beyond this, make sure to never filter experiences through the character's perceptions. It's tricky stuff but we all get the hang of it. This means don't write "I heard fast paced footsteps scamper down the hall" but instead write "The pattering of footsteps echoed down the hall ahead." I didn't find many examples of this, but that's mostly because I didn't find many examples of imagery or description at all.

6. Characters 

This seems to be your pride and focus, which is good because the characters are the most important thing in a story! you could have an interesting setting, an exciting plot, and beautiful descriptive imagery but if you have bad characters it all falls apart. I do believe you have good characters, although they seem a bit too... unrealistic to high school standards. By this I mean that your characters, in particular Alana, are a bit too over the top. Maybe this is just my own high school speaking, but I wouldn't find her really that realistic at all. I suppose Alana is my main focus of this because her problems as a character shine out the most to me. People can totally hunger for popularity and fame in high school, but nobody would outright state that. It's one of the more embarrassing and hidden emotions of the subconsciousness that is usually left either subtle or not even present. Our filters as people cover these immature emotions up, even if you are an immature person, because it's so easy to make fun of.

7. Overall
I'd say good job. Yeah there's things here and there, and you will have to add a lot more imagery, setting, and emotions to Raven on how these all affect her, but for the most part you did a job well done. I was expecting a mess of grammatical errors going in but the worst I found were comma mistakes. That's pretty damn good. Make sure to change Alana a bit and add a lot more to Raven (and Alyx too, but I think you will since you only now just introduced her). You can definitely get further with this story, and I wish you good luck on it and that you continue writing.