Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Beautiful Chaos

Title: Beautiful Chaos

Author: jes_uba123

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 4/5

I actually really like your summary! I like how you introduce your two protagonists separately, and then show how the two characters' lives will intertwine. There is just enough information about them to instantly make us warm up to them, and understand their motives in the story. There were just a few tiny things:

The school Adelia Greene has ever dreamed of finally accepts her.

Maybe consider:

The school Adelia Greene has always dreamed of finally accepts her.

And also, I wish there was a bit more oomph at the end – okay, so they fall in love. What's the conflict? What will the obstacles be? Is there an obstacle they will end up facing? Is there something stopping them?

Also, be careful about using excerpts in your summary – you want to ensure they are grammatically perfect. But we'll talk about that in the next section!

Grammar: 3/5

Your grammar and punctuation were alright, and it never disrupted the fluency of the story. However, a few things did pop up so let's go through them:

I took a look at the surrounding outside, it wasn't much of a busy street, but people had carts and shops around.

That is a run-on sentence. That's because two of your clauses are independent clauses, which means they could be sentences on their own if they are separated. Because of this, they should be separated by a full-stop or a stronger punctuation mark. I suggest:

I took a look at the surrounding outside. It wasn't much of a busy street, but people had carts and shops around.

Next, your tenses. You keep switching back and forth between past tense and present tense. For example:

"Wait, wait..." They both stop to look at me." "You guys knew that we were not allowed to cook in the kitchen?" They both nodded.

If we break it down:

They both stop to look at me. [stop = present tense]

They both nodded. [nodded = past tense]

You need to go back and make sure you're keeping your tenses consistent.

Next, let's talk about 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:

"Hello, I'm Alicia," she stretched out her hand.

It should be:

"Hello, I'm Alicia." She stretched out her hand.

And another example:

"Hello, are you at school at the moment?" She asked in a low voice.

The 'she' shouldn't be capitalised, since a question mark in this context is almost treated like a comma. It should be:

"Hello, are you at a school at the moment?" she asked in a low voice.

Next, a few smaller things:

"Hello, mum."

You actually need to capitalise 'mum' because it's used as a proper noun. Basically, 'mum' should be capitalised, whereas 'my mum' wouldn't be capitalised. It should be:

"Hello, Mum."

And also:

...he blew cold air from breathe to ease the pain.

'Breathe' is the verb, whereas 'breath' is the noun. But, also, this sentence just doesn't really make sense. Consider

...he blew cold air to ease the pain.

Characterisation: 4/5

I won't lie, it was a little hard writing this part because you have ten short chapters up, which means I don't really get to talk about character development since we haven't really seen much happen to them yet.

Nonetheless, I think Adelia is quite a charming protagonist! She's getting quite a bit of attention, with the triplets already talking to her, and what I love is how quirky and engaging her voice as a narrator is. She can be sassy, opiniated, and I laughed at the, "I'm sorry dear, but I don't shake hands; neither do I allow people to touch my hands." That ongoing gag was brilliant.

I also enjoy the banter with Vanessa and Brianna, however, if there was anything I would work on, it would be your showing instead of telling. I'll talk more about it in the next section. However, here is an example:

So when I received a call from the company, I was kind of shocked and felt depressed because the damn company had threatened me to do what they wanted me to do or else.

Basically, show us how that would feel. Shocked and depressed – how does it feel to experience those emotions? What physiological reactions would she feel? Thoughts she would have? How would it feel? It'll make the story and characters more immersive. More examples below!

Writing Style: 3/5

Without a doubt, your writing style is absolutely captivating. The voice of your protagonist just seeps out of ever word, and it's incredibly easy and engaging to follow. I do wish you would pepper it more with some literary devices, especially when it came to building mood and tension – some personification, simile and metaphor could really have amplified how immersive your story is, and honestly, a bit of description of the setting would have made the reading more personalised.

As I said before, there were moments where there was a bit of telling instead of showing – or even when the writing felt less cohesive because it felt a bit forced. Here are some example:

I grasped it immediately to make sure it was the exact way I liked it. Tasting it, I got satisfied because it had the exact taste as the one I usually got from Italy.

Okay, what did taste like? What reminded her of Italy? Maybe just add a small sentence instead of 'tasting it' by showing us what she would be tasting. That would make it more cohesive and fluent.

I'm pretty much frustrated at the moment, but now, business came first before high school at the moment.

First of all, the 'at the moment' is redundant because we already have the 'but now' indicating the moment. Additionally, what does 'frustration' feel like? Describe it for us. Or maybe have her go through all the thoughts that are frustrating her, only for her to push it aside because business came first.

Plot + Originality: 5/5

I feel like we're only just getting into the tension within the story, and we're still wrapping our heads around the school and new setting. I do love that it takes a bit to learn the full motive behind the school – she's come to the school to get information, and the school seems to also be about training and building up hackers.

We're meeting new characters at a steady pace, and the transition between scenes and chapters is seamless and smooth – well done! I'm very excited to see where you take this story once it is done with the hiatus.

OVERALL SCORE: 19/25

Overall, a promising start to the story! Make sure you work on your punctuation and tenses, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!