Genre: Teen fiction/teen romance Amount of reviewed chapters: 5 (current max when reviewed) Reviewer: Ctrain8
1. Title The title suits the story well, especially the perception that Ava has about herself. Not much to talk about here.
2. Cover I suppose the cover is okay? I don't make covers for people but it seems like it has to right balance of empty space of things filling that space. It has its own theme to it too, but I wonder what the pool elements mean and contribute to this.
3. Description
The description hits me in a weird way. Yes it's brief and informative, but I feel that up to now it (the # of chapters written and released when this review was written) does not represent fully what the story is. I expect you have all of this stuff from the description in mind, but it is odd. I can't quite put my finger on it. You'd need to talk to someone else for this as well and get multiple POVs on this because I obviously am inept and not very specific when discussing this.
However, it does do the job but I think the problem may be it doesn't represent the first few chapters that well and the things that go on in them.
4.Plot
It's hard to tell what plot is going on in here. Obviously with the description we know what to expect but like I said, it does not hold true in the story itself. Obviously she wants to get with Tristan, but Shay is a wild card which skews our understanding and expectations. I hope you can edit and revise to add the plot or leads to a plot earlier in the story so we have some sort of lifeline through this story.
5. Writing I would like to first address the elephant in the room so I can get this out of the way. You ever so subtly draw attention toward her liking and/or being sexually attracted to her brother. This is so weird and please get rid of it. I don't know if this is a side effect of the newly starting sexual revolution or one of pornographic meme counter culture but it's gotta stop. Yeah I'm confronting it so some other poor soul doesn't have to. Please eradicate this.
Now that we got that terrible moment out of the way let's get down to business. This is a common error I've seen in many stories as my role as reviewer. It seems that no one in wattpad wants to write setting and imagery, which is weird. It's weird because this is one of the most helpful tools you can use to ground your story and its readers in your story. You can use imagery and the the way your main character views the setting to reflect their emotions or pose a contradiction to their emotions. I cannot stress how important imagery and setting is in stories. Yeah, we know it's present day (most likely) and it takes place in high school, but we never see that. We don't see the dusty floors, aging complex, or the cloudy day. We never taste the lead ridden water of the water fountains. Things like this are what we gotta see, hear, see, taste, and feel.
Let's talk about the technical stuff real quick. Not a big deal (as always), but it still should be addressed. After reading just a few short paragraphs I noticed you have a tendency to not put spaces after your commas. This is actually EVERYWHERE and it pains me whenever I come across one. Please fix. It would be a very good idea to actually catch yourself whenever you do it so you can learn how to type without running into that mistake I actually have my typing tendency in which I write "int he" instead of "in the". Everyone has something, we just gotta take it upon ourselves to fix it.
Let's talk about cliche use. We face the classic, cliche, edgy teenager in this story. Nothing wrong about that. It's important to use this cliche well so the entire story doesn't become cliche in the sense of the hot, smart, athletic guy falling for the nobody-girl. If you do choose this path or a path similar to this, make sure to break conventions and don't make her average. Don't make him smart, or athletic in the traditional senses.
6. Characters Let's talk about Ava Jol. She seems very realistic in the sense of a teen girl struggling with identity and stress. However, she has also accepted she is average at everything. This is an interesting concept I have never seen before in a character. I hope the rest of the book will challenge her realizations and expectations of herself as she realizes she isn't average. there's plenty of characters arcs you could go for here. Lots of possible changes. She also has the obvious flaw of being an edgy teenager. Beyond that, she is also naive. Two great traits that you can work with. I hope these transform her and are challenges by new experiences in the story for her progression (or even downfall?).
All the side characters seem realistic and fine, so there isn't much to talk about there.
7. Overall Overall, while it is dialogue heavy and misses lots of imagery and setting opportunities, the characters seem accurate to real life, although we have had only glimpses of who they are in these chapters. The plot definitely needs to be strengthened, but also not forced. I also recommend you either get a line editor or just go in yourself and fix every comma error and general typo, as there were quite a few.
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Good luck on your story and I hope you keep writing!
