Title: The Lab by MysticalElf08
Source: Review request
Genre: Science Fiction
Mature: N (blood, death, guns, kidnapping, loss of a loved one, mild profanity, needles, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Ongoing
First impressions: 36/40
Digging deeper: 86/100
Final thoughts: pending

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*****

First impressions total: 36/40

Title: 10/10
If this title doesn't scream Sci Fi, I don't know what does. It's a title that leaves a lot of room for imagination, but for me, it triggers a sense of foreboding, so I expect The Lab to be a bad place. Which, judging by the blurb, it is.

Blurb/synopsis: 9/10
This sets the premise for the story up nicely. Not too much information, but just enough to introduce the main characters, the setting, and the basic plotline, and it's really clean, grammatically speaking, so all my suggestions here are nitpicking. Overall, this is a great blurb, and I can't wait to get reading.

Playing with sentence length and word choice in the first paragraph may increase the hook a bit, as short, snappy sentences can add more punch and heighten the intrigue level for the reader. In the second paragraph, there's some repetition where two sentences in a row start with the same word and similar age info ("At just four years old," "At a young age"), so I'd probably play with that, too. You could just cut the second instance. Also, clarification about "they" would be good, as we've had no subject introduced in this paragraph other than Jace and his parents, so it sounds like "they" could refer to his parents. Then in the last paragraph, I'd probably add "get" before "back to their homes." It just feels like it should be there to me.

See? Nitpicking. 😉

Cover: 10/10
This is a gorgeous cover. I'm not sure if it's the same cover the book had when you submitted it for review (sorry about the delay), but I love it. The neon blues work so well to enhance that Sci Fi feel from the title, and the dark silhouette of the winged girl makes me think "test-tube baby." The font you chose for the title would be too messy for a longer, more complex title, but readability is not an issue with this short, simple title in bright white, and your placement and size are perfect. And, of course, your name at the bottom is nicely done with a neat font that's easy to read but sized so as not to distract from the rest of the cover.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 7/10
Prologue: Oh, this is a great prologue. Having Kaitlyn introduce the story in her own words is a really effective way to pull the reader into her mind and her life right away. It feels like we're in her thoughts, listening as she mulls over and pulls together things like general parental instructions, her kidnapping, highlights of the horrors she's seen, and reflections on the good she experienced through this. Instant engagement and immersion. And I love the last sentence. It's really pointed and poignant. Again, this is very clean writing, but I do have a few suggestions to help polish this a little more.

In the second paragraph, I'd probably change "that" to "who." Generally, if you're referring to a person, you'll want to use something more personal and human than "that."

There's something weird going on with the formatting of the fourth paragraph. It's probably something that happened when you copied and pasted the story into Wattpad. Unfortunately, the only fix for these formatting issues is just to go through and double-check that Wattpad didn't mess anything up.

The first sentence of the last paragraph is tripping me up, and I think it's all to do with what comes before the comma. "Too though" doesn't feel right to me. Maybe use "But" at the start of the sentence and cut "though." Then, I'd probably change "were" to "have been," in keeping with the present tense throughout this chapter. And adding "moments" right after the comma would improve the flow, I think.

Chapter 1: Thanks to the prologue, the reader starts this chapter with an immediate sense of dread, because we know this peaceful, happy moment of playing in the park with her parents will end in disaster. You do a really good job showing how the clown lures her away, and then when the trunk is empty and her parents come running, her emotions switch from trusting and relaxed to terrified and tense in an instant. The meeting between her and Jace is very sweet, and then the emotions flip again when the horror starts at the lab.

But the writing here isn't as clean as the prologue and the blurb. Your biggest issues are punctuation with dialogue and comma use. So, first, when dialogue leads into a dialogue tag that directly describes what or how something is spoken, you should use a comma instead of a period to close out the dialogue. For example, in the second paragraph, there should be a comma instead of a period after "leave."

In that sentence, you correctly made the first word of the dialogue tag lowercase, and you should do that whenever the dialogue leads into a dialogue tag in that way, even if the dialogue ends in a question mark or an exclamation mark. So, three paragraphs down, "my dad" should be in lowercase following the dialogue that ends in an exclamation mark, and the same thing when Bongo the clown is asking her a question (lowercase "he asks me").

There are a few lines without punctuation within the quotation marks to close out the dialogue, but there should always be something there, and it should always be on the inside of the quotation marks, not the outside. Similarly, there should always be punctuation to end a sentence.

There are some instances where I think you could add some commas and maybe take one away here or there, but my best advice in this area is to use an editing tool. My editing tool calls me out for missing or misplaced commas all the time, and I'm getting better at using them correctly, but they're still a pain.

*****

Digging deeper: 86/100

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

Blurb: 4/5
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Grammar & voice: 11/20
As with chapter 1, your biggest issues are dialogue and commas. There are also a few run-on sentences where a semicolon would work better than a comma. For example: "They inject you with something that gives you an enhancement, as you can see I have horns, and Beatrice can fly." Here, the comma after "enhancement" should be a semicolon or a period to separate two full sentences.

Other rare mistakes include wrong prepositions ("He was beside me on the truck" should be "in" the truck) and misspelled words (They're just to blankets" should be "two" blankets), but these are inconsistent, and I chalk them up to you just overlooking them when you were proofreading. You do use "loose consciousness" twice, and that should actually be "lose."

In chapter four, there's an instance of repetition with the phrase "give them an inch, they'll take a mile" in two consecutive paragraphs. In this case, I think it would be better to just merge the two paragraphs, anyway. You could do something like this:

...or actually give me a bit of freedom, but my mom always told me, "Never give people what they want because they'll just expect more. You give them an inch, and they'll take a mile." I never understood the actual saying...

As for voice, there is a distinct difference between Kaitlyn's perspective and Jace's, which I love to see, because so often, that's not the case. They sound like different people, and that colors the narrative. But neither of them sound like young children. Their thoughts are too complex for their age, both when they're first captured at four years old, and later, when they're seven years old. It's tricky, because you're not writing a children's book, so you don't want it to read like one, and they're also in a difficult situation that has forced them to grow up faster than they should. Maybe you only need to play with the four-year-old chapters to make them sound more like they're narrated by a child. I'm not good at writing from a child's perspective and making it sound believable, but I think shorter sentences and simpler vocabulary would help. Or look for authors who are good at writing from a child's perspective and ask them for advice.

Plot & pacing: 10/10
I wasn't sure if you'd start the story with the kidnapping or at a later point, since the prologue covers a long time span, but I'm glad you did start with the kidnapping. I guess you had to, because that's when Kaitlyn and Jace met. But the pace has been perfect. You spent enough time in her first days there to introduce her and the reader to the lab and show how she reached her decision about the way she's trying to get out of the lab, and then you move three years ahead to show what she and Jace have become during that time. A little backtracking for his perspective shows his alternative plan, and now we get to see how they join forces to try to escape.

You don't need to include the time frame in the perspective headings. It's already clear in the text, and I'd only expect a time frame to be listed for a brief flashback within the chapter, but these are entire chapters. Also, the first chapter after the three-year jump flip-flops between saying two and three years in the narrative, so I'd recommend converting all the twos to threes for consistency.

Another suggestion I have is regarding how others describe Kaitlyn's age. A toddler is one to three years old and just learning how to walk. She's clearly not a toddler when the story starts, and after the three-year jump, she's said to be seven years old, which makes more sense. So, I'd change "toddler" to "child" or "young child" in the blurb and the chapter where she meets Bea and Rosa, because otherwise, I'm picturing a strangely mature two-year-old.

Characterization: 18/20
Generally, your characterizations are good. I already talked about how the prologue immediately pulls the reader into Kaitlyn's head and life, making her instantly relatable and the story instantly engaging, and you usually do a good job of continuing that. Sections with more dialogue aren't quite as good in that department as sections without dialogue, so I'd recommend adding more descriptive elements about tone, facial expression, and actions into dialogue tags. That will help the reader envision the conversations and the character interactions better, which will further add to their view of each person as a whole.

So Kaitlyn is a child who lost her innocence the moment of her kidnapping, and she has had to learn how to deal with subhuman treatment and loss in a very short time frame. Her way of coping is playing the perfect test subject and distancing herself from others, hoping she won't feel the pain of loss again and, eventually, her teacher's pet act will get her an opportunity to escape. But she's too soft-hearted to ignore the pain of others, so she takes on a big sister role for her new cellmates and throws herself into the fire—literally—to help them.

And then there's Jace, who went the other direction. He's violent and angry, determined to fight everybody with everything he has, impatiently darting toward every escape opportunity without concern for the consequences of failure. Seeing how he and Kaitlyn interact now after three years has pushed them to such opposing viewpoints will be interesting.

As for the side characters, Veronica is a cold, domineering woman who talks down to her partner, Thomas, whenever he tries to question her or even offer a suggestion. The "helpers" are generally flat, 2D characters until Sasha comes along, and while I hope she's genuinely trying to be kind and friendly, I have my suspicions. Although that may be because I just finished reading a murder mystery where nobody could be trusted...

And Bea and Rosa were the sweet mother figures Kaitlyn needed at first. I think her three new cellmates will give her a sense of responsibility that will only increase the tension between her and Jace, but that's pure speculation, and I haven't seen enough of these girls yet to have a firm grasp on their personalities.

Harmony within genre: 15/15
Definitely Sci Fi. No doubt about that.

Originality: 18/20
The concept of evil scientists kidnapping people for experiments isn't new, but I haven't seen a Sci Fi story like this before. Nothing about what Veronica is doing is logical, but then again, villains are often illogical, and I think she's probably setting herself up for her downfall by turning all these people into superhumans. Adding a bit of romance between Kaitlyn and Jace (not yet, of course, but I know it's coming) brings a new layer to the plot, and keeping them apart so they can develop opposing viewpoints is something I haven't seen done before. And that will increase the tension throughout the plot, of course.

You could flesh out your descriptions more, especially with dialogue tags, but the imagery you have is good. It's mostly visual imagery, though. Focusing on adding in sound, touch, smell, and taste will bring more depth to the world. But this is a really interesting story, and I'm curious to see where you take it.

*****

Final thoughts: pending