The New York City Girl By: Craftergirl888
Description: "Do I have to?" I whined. "Yes you do. You're coming with me whether you like it or not." Mom said sternly. Ally D. Carter once lived in the Big Apple. She had popularity, friends, and a job. Her friends call her Al and her mom does too. Ally's mom got a new job in California and makes Ally go with her. It was either stay in the Big Apple with her father who married off another woman, or go with her mom. Ally and her mom fly over to California. Ally's mom buys this house near the beach, in a quiet neighborhood. Ally is enrolled into a new school where everyone will know her as a big city girl. But when she meets Kevin, things start to change. Ally gets more and more friends, and gets a really good job. Kevin hears the rumors of a big city girl was coming to move here. Her name is Ally. He finds out that she lived in his neighborhood, next door. Ally surprises Kevin, she's beautiful, nice, and everything a girl wants to be. He finds out that he's falling for her, every boy is. Kevin isn't sure what his feelings for Ally is, but he's sure that it's real. Will Kevin be able to win her heart or will another boy steal her from him?
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Right off the bat I want to mention the picture at the beginning of the chapter really helped me imagine the house, especially matching it with the abundant descriptions the author provides of the characters' surroundings and house in general. I loved how the author really manages to emphasize the mother's popularity wether it be subtle or more upfront throughout the entire chapter, and how it affects Ally's life. It also helps bring about the mother's character in general, showing her role as a single mom.

Now I just want to point out the the description is a bit long, which really isn't that bad however descriptions are meant to entice someone to read your story, so I suggest make sure not to tell the story in the description and make it short and sweet. Towards the beginning of the story I did notice that some things were over-explained, something that should be taken care to avoid because overstepping may come across almost as condescending depending the context, however it wasn't that bad in this story, it's something to take care not to do again. Moving on, there were a few times where things just seemed a bit random to me. Just small things that were never hinted at, and really didn't go into the context at all, such as Ally suddenly wanting a new outfit as soon as the mother got strict. If Ally mentioned the outfit earlier, it would've just made more sense. This goes into my next point, the sudden bankruptcy. Now as a reader I don't know the full story, and I don't know the mother's financial situation, but the way I read it, bankruptcy wasn't exactly the way-to-go option here and therefore made it, random. This then leads me to believe that maybe the author didn't know exactly what bankruptcy meant when they wrote it? But I'm not here to question the authors intelligence, so what I recommend is hinting at a recent bad financial situation in the mother's life that has been going on for a bit that could make bankruptcy logical, or explain the issue more in the chapter that shows why it suddenly doesn't allow the mother to pay the debts she owes, and where these debts may have come from (maybe the father caused the debts, it's up to you as the author) and now just moving right along overall there were very few grammatical errors, nothing that can't be fixed in editing, and I just have some setup suggestions to finish this paragraph off. If you have a character thinking something, I suggest making it in italics to separate it and allow the reader to, well read it easier. If a character is speaking, make sure to keep all of that characters dialogue in one paragraph to avoid any switching dialogue confusion. Make sure to use many transitions to avoid becoming choppy (it became a bit choppy towards the end) and finally, in the ending there were some scattered words that were kind of switched over to past tense and it made it awkward to read, so I just suggest quickly going in and fixing up those words to bring the story back to present tense.

As I read I fell in love with the relationship between the mother and daughter, how well they knew each other and how close they were, especially with their similar point of view on Ally's father. I also liked the cliffhanger that the chapter ends on, making you want to read the next chapter immediately, but alas, you have to wait until it's updated ;) I enjoyed reading this story, and the author wrote well with her short but abundant chapter. I'd like to end this review with a wide smile and a request of my own: please update! :)