Title: Rocky Rivers by Wingsandpens
Source: Review Shop by TheBlossomCommunity_
Genre: Teen fiction
Mature: Y (alcohol, blood, bullying, cheating, child abuse, domestic abuse, drugs, physical assault, semi-explicit sexual content, slut shaming, smoking, strong profanity, underage drinking, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: G (brief mention)
Status: Ongoing
First impressions: 35/40
Digging deeper: 87/100
Final thoughts: Complete

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*****

First impressions total: 35/40

Title: 10/10
I suspect this title will make more sense after I read the book, but even though I don't understand its meaning right now, I like it. Actually, my first thought when I saw this title was that it may be a name, but seeing as it's not listed in the blurb, I'm going with "rocky" probably means something like a "rocky relationship," and "rivers" may have something to do with Lakeside High or a winding journey. Whatever the case, the ambiguity can provoke different thoughts from other readers and work in your favor, because regardless of what anybody thinks, they have to read the book to discover the intended meaning.

Blurb/synopsis: 10/10
Okay, first of all, here's your gold star for achieving the extremely rare perfect score in this category. I couldn't find any SPAG errors that weren't a stylistic choice, and you've introduced the characters, setting, and plot in three short paragraphs. Boy, girl, conflict, attraction, go! If there's anything I could add or suggest for this, you could consider ending the last sentence with an ellipsis (...) to create a trailing effect that leads the reader to start the story, or add a short, dramatic question to increase reader curiosity for a similar effect. But great blurb, and it's time for me to get into the story.

Cover: 8/10
The cover is a little plain for me, but I don't think you have to add much to fix that. The image is good; your font style, size, color, and placement are all good; it just needs a little something. And without having read the book, I'm not sure what that is yet. Maybe a frame? Not a full frame, just something in the corners. I don't think a full frame would look good. Or play with the background? Maybe just jazzing that up would do it. I'll have to come back to this after I read, but those are my initial thoughts.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 7/10
Introduction: Ooh! Ooh! You have what I was thinking about in the blurb right here! The last paragraph of the summary here has the thought-provoking questions that stir reader curiosity I suggested. I would rework it a bit so the strongest question (the first one and second sentence) goes last. The order I think would work best (numbering each sentence from 1 to 4) is 1 → 4 → 3 → 2. And, of course, you can't just copy and paste the sentences as is that way, but I think that content order would lead the reader into the story best.

As far as the rest of the content in this chapter, I love how concise and clean it is. Clean in appearance, I mean. It looks professional. A lot of introductions and author's notes are really messy, like a scribbled note in the front of a notebook, very informal and very unprofessional. And that can be okay, depending upon the intended audience, but I prefer this polished look and feel.

Chapter one: Well. Starting us off right in the drama. So, the first thing I'm going to say is the age of consent on Wattpad is 18+. I don't know the ages of the characters yet, and I don't see anything wrong in this chapter specifically, but I just wanted to give you that heads up in case a sexual relationship is on the horizon for Atlas and Calista. If they're under 18, you can allude to it, but not show it.

Okay, moving on. This is probably the perfect point to start this story. It lays out the plot conflict from Calista's perspective, meaning the reader knows right away the story spreading through the school isn't the full truth. But it's pretty easy to see Jake and Atlas' perspective on it, too. Without knowing Calista's side or thinking there could be more to the story, it's easy to believe she cheated on Jake, and that's that. But there's more to this, which we'll all discover as the story progresses. This also shows the negative school atmosphere with rampant bullying and hostile cliques, ready to turn on each other at a moment's notice. Calista won't get a fair hearing here, and she knows that, so there's no point in her trying to correct everybody accusing her of wrongdoing.

As far as your writing, you have a tendency toward long, convoluted sentences. I'm a wordy person, too, and this has been something I've had to work on. Sometimes, it's fine. You want variation in sentence length and structure to keep things interesting. But there are times when the phrasing gets awkward and the intended meaning gets clouded. For instance: "I didn't have any memory of that night whatsoever, and what was worse than that was the broody bad boy was waiting for me in front of my locker, Jake Hughes, the packed eyecatcher and right next to him was the defiant chaos thrive, Atlas Landen."

I had to read and re-read that several times to get the meaning. At first glance, I thought there was something grammatically wrong with the sentence, but there isn't. It's just awkward. Condensing and eliminating excess words would make it clearer: "I didn't have any memory of that night whatsoever, and worse yet, the broody bad boy and packed eye-catcher Jake Hughes was waiting for me in front of my locker, right next to the defiant chaos thrive Atlas Landen."

I've found reading my work aloud helps me catch things like that, because it doesn't flow naturally off the tongue. And, really, it just takes a lot of practice to figure out how to say what you want in a clearer way.

There are also some run-on sentences where commas should be semicolons or periods. For instance: "Nobody attempted to help, the school was owned by Jake's family and the students just hooted for Linda Hughes..." The comma after "help" should be a period.

Your other issue is dialogue. When dialogue would normally end with a period, but it's leading into a dialogue tag, change the period to a comma. The first letter of the first word in a dialogue tag should be lowercase. Dialogue tags describe how something is said and can't stand on their own as independent sentences. So, for instance:

"This isn't over, b****." She screamed through the packed hallway.

"She" should be lowercase in that sentence, and the period at the end of dialogue should be a comma. Now, if the sentence was something like this, you wouldn't make the first letter of the first word lowercase or change the period to a comma, because it's not a dialogue tag. It's a new sentence:

"This isn't over, b****." Her scream was audible even through the packed hallway.

If you're ending dialogue with any other punctuation mark (exclamation mark, question mark, ellipsis), you don't have to worry about changing that depending on whether a dialogue tag is present. You just have to remember to make the first letter of the first word lowercase for a dialogue tag.

Also, since Linda was screaming in that example, I'd recommend using an exclamation mark instead of a period or comma. That shows screaming, shouting, excitement, etc. without the need for italics, bold, double punctuation marks (?!), or anything else to show added emphasis. When used sparingly, an exclamation mark can do a lot on its own.

There's one random missed space between "after school," which I chalk up to a simple proofreading miss, but I thought I'd just point it out.

*****

Digging deeper: 87/100

Cover & title: 8/10
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Blurb: 4/5
I didn't say anything about this before because I thought maybe you would flip perspectives later, but I feel like I need to point out that the blurb is misleading. It makes it sound like Atlas is the main character and the story will be told from his perspective about Calista, or at least started in his perspective, but it's the other way around. Calista is the main character, and she's telling the story. So I'd recommend reworking the blurb to start with Calista's name and make it more about her and her impressions of Atlas so it fits better, because it feels really weird going from this to the first chapter. Even if perspectives change later on in the story, Calista's is the first perspective, so the blurb needs to prepare the reader for that.

Addendum: The perspective change comes in chapter seven, but after that Atlas chapter, we're back to Calista, so I'd still recommend reworking the blurb around Calista. That would better prepare the reader to jump into her perspective in chapter one. Or you could do the first paragraph about her, second paragraph about Atlas, third paragraph about the plot conflict, and the fourth paragraph prompting reader curiosity and asking the leading questions to get them to keep reading.

Grammar & voice: 10/20
The issues I pointed out in chapter one continue in the following chapters, with the biggest areas for concern being long, convoluted sentences and run-on sentences. I think an editing tool may help you here, because there are places where grammatical errors pop up in these sentences, and an editing tool would pick those up and draw your attention to these areas.

There are rare misused verbs here or there, things like "casted" (which should be "cast"), or a random present tense verb that should be past tense (stretch/stretched, lend/lent). There's one instance of a slang usage that would be fine in dialogue, but in the narrative, proper usage is more appropriate: "but his hand gripped my arm and sat me down." "Sat" is slang usage here, so I'd use something like "pulled" instead.

There's an occasional wrong version of certain words, too, like "spiritual talks," which should be "spirited talks," or "It nerve wracked me," which should be "It was nerve-wracking." This may be a colloquialism, but you used the phrase "then and there" in a way I'm used to seeing as "here and there," too.

I noticed some issues with clarity that I hadn't seen before, so I wanted to point those out as well. When Calista gets home from detention, she says regarding her little sister, "I was worried that she would be here alone." That makes it sound like she's about to leave Alina alone, but she's not. I think you mean "had been here alone," because that would show she was worried about the time when Alina was alone while she was in detention.

Then, when Atlas showed up in the kitchen, I didn't know Alina was in the kitchen. You'd never mentioned her being there prior to this point, so it surprised me when the phrase "I narrowed my eyes at the cheeky girl" told me another person was there with Calista. And, of course, it had to be Alina, which is clarified in the next paragraph, but mentioning her earlier, before Atlas showed up, would eliminate any confusion there.

Later, when we learn about Calista's mother, she says, "That was the sole reason mom dumped us for her extravagant billionaire crush - I really couldn't blame her; they fought like maniacs, and I would rather they divorced than harm Alina emotionally." That makes it sound like her mother and the billionaire fought like maniacs, because she never mentioned her dad, and the only reference point for "they" is her mother and the billionaire. Obviously, that's not the case, so that needs clarification, too.

A similar thing happens when Linda meets Calista outside the school. She talks about someone being right behind her, and I think the reader is supposed to know it's Coach Serena, but that's not clear until Coach Serena is suddenly there. Also, wouldn't Calista have noticed Coach Serena if she was right behind Linda?

Transitions need some work, too. Calista's in detention, and then she's talking about her walk home, with no indication of any passage of time. A similar thing happens wherever there's a scene transition mid-chapter. You describe the change in the environment (very beautifully, I might add), but you don't address time, so there's this weird, unexplained jump. It sounds like scenes happen one after the other with no time in-between. Even smaller transitions, such as Calista opening the door to James and then them suddenly being on the couch, can get confusing. They were talking at the door; he asked if he could come inside; she told him he had to explain something before she let him in; and then they were on the couch. There's no indication she let him in and no traveling time in-between point A and point B.

Also, and this may be intentional, but the cheer coach swears? I wouldn't expect that from a typical high school coach or teacher, but Coach Serena isn't your typical coach, so maybe it makes sense for her. Just wanted to point it out in case you didn't want her to be that informal.

Plot & pacing: 10/10
This seems to be moving along at a pretty good pace. You lay out the conflict right in chapter one, along with introductions to the characters, and every consecutive interaction between Calista and Atlas moves the plot along. There's no sign of the romance yet, beyond pure physical attraction, but this is a slow-burn romance, so that's perfectly fine. You're revealing a little more of Calista's background with every chapter, and Atlas' mysterious life outside school is slowly coming to bear as well, adding to the underlying tension. Meanwhile, you're also filling in the picture of Calista's school life with Linda and the cheerleaders, and James is helping Calista figure out what actually happened at that party, so the plot is constantly moving without rushing.

Characterization: 20/20
Calista is a relatable character with a school face to hide her true self. The painful events surrounding her mother's affair and her sweet relationship with her little sister and neighbor are things she wants to protect and seal away from the drama that is high school, and part of how she does that is acting a part. Atlas, and others, see her as the stereotypical cheerleader, a mean girl with no depth, and they don't go further than that, so her secrets are safe. Except she's not that at all, and she's hurting, and she's not coping as well as she thinks she is.

Meanwhile, she has Atlas pegged as the stereotypical bad boy and Jake as the stereotypical jock. Neither of them have really done anything to prove themselves otherwise as of chapter five, although she's learned a little about Atlas' home life from an overheard phone call, but we all know there's more to them than that. I mean, why would Atlas care about her supposedly cheating on his best friend if Jake was the football player who dated based only on looks and popularity? If all Jake cared about was having a pretty, popular girl on his arm, he could just replace Calista and move on, but he isn't doing that, which means there's more to him. In that regard, Calista is the coldest, because she never cared for Jake. She was using him because she thought he was using her.

Oh, high school drama.

Linda's the principal's brat, Alina is the sweet little sister, Darla is the wonderful neighbor who acts as a mother figure for Calista and Alina, Coach Serena is the fun coach who acts more like a friend than an authority figure—everybody has depth to them. There are no 2D characters here. And while Atlas and Jake get the most physical description, all the other characters get attention in that department, too.

Harmony within genre: 15/15
I glossed over the genre until I got to this section, and then I went back just to check that it was teen fiction, because I'd already pegged it as that. And so did you. Because it is. High school drama = teen fiction. Check.

Originality: 20/20
There's a lot of teen fiction out there, and a lot of it deals with a cheating scandal that isn't what you thought, or the bad boy getting the girl instead of the jock, or the cheerleader who isn't what everybody thinks—in short, just about everything has been done before. But your story is still unique because of the way you're developing every aspect. The characters, their backgrounds, their thoughts and feelings; the setting; the language you're using; it's all yours. And I really love your descriptions. Sometimes, especially with dialogue, the wording can get a little jumbled, but Calista's walk home, her bedroom, Alina's room, are all described so beautifully. And you don't just do visual descriptions and ignore the other senses. You hit sound, smell, touch, and taste, too, so the reader gets the most engaging, immersive experience. There are no info dumps. You incorporate everything into the story in a way that doesn't break the flow, but adds to it.

*****

Final thoughts: Complete
High school drama, two-faced people, misunderstandings—it's hard to be a teenager, but Calista knows how to play the game. Outside of school, she's struggling to take care of her little sister in the absence of both parents. Inside the school walls, though, she's the popular mean girl cheerleader, hurting others because she hurts, keeping everybody out of her real life with a persona that won't let anybody get close. So when another mean girl frames her and convinces the school she cheated on her boyfriend at a party, it's no big deal. Until her ex's best friend, Atlas, takes a personal interest in making her life miserable. He's the troublemaker bad boy all the girls love and nobody can have, and he's hiding as much as Calista. Now, it's just a question of who can dish out the most pain before they both realize they have each other all wrong.