The Eight (Chapters 1-5) by Tsunami808

Reviewed by -bethwrites-

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Overview

"The Eight" is a story about four girl spies, all on a mission to find a high school drug dealer who poses as a potential threat to the agency. In spite of conflict between the group, the girls must work together, along with their male counterparts, to track down the drug dealer and complete their mission.

Plot

The first chapter appears to be more of an introductory chapter, to give the reader an idea ofwho the main players are in this story. The story opens up with the girls, Jasmine, Skyler,Rowan, and Selina, at a shooting range. The author included short paragraphs on each of thecharacters, and a quick briefing of their new mission in the high school. After reading the firstchapter, the idea of a top secret government spy agency putting all their resources into findinga local high school drug dealer seems a bit far fetched.

The second chapter was mostly to introduce the girls' new partners to help with finding thiswanted drug dealer. The chapter opens up with Jasmine convincing her friend and fellow spySelina to go to the gym with her, where she picks out a random guy who happens to be workingout at the same time as them, gets annoyed when he doesn't respond to her friendly greeting,and promptly knocks him out. The entire group is reunited later on, only to find out that the guyJasmine tripped in the gym, who also happens to be super hot, is her new spy partner. Slightlyoverused idea, but that's alright.

After this, the chapters became more about all the random things that the girls do together andhow Jasmine and Cameron get to know each other a little more and fall in love, unsurprisingly.One note, the scene in chapter 3 where Cameron backs Jasmine into a wall could be read moreas threatening than flirtatious, so that's something to keep in mind. There were some uncalledfor meanness thrown around by Jasmine, they all go to a party, and Jasmine's heart is brokenwhen she sees Cameron kissing some random girl. Throughout the course of the story, theactual mission is mentioned about once or twice.

Characters

All throughout the story, the characters read as flat and two dimensional. There is little to nocharacter development, and the chapters all end with a seemingly profound statement abouthow working with these new hot guys won't be so bad after all, or how they never knew that one day all of them working just together would suddenly change.

When putting four main characters into a story, it's important to be able to balance them out. Allfour of the girls have the exact same personality, even though they were described in thebeginning to have different traits and characteristics, and their conversations are 90% aboutthings like getting ready and finding a cute cafe to go to. Show the reader more about theirinteractions that advance the plot, rather than stall it, and it will be more engaging!

The relationship between Cameron and Jasmine felt a little rushed, too. The two of them hadliterally met and he's already backing her into a wall, trying to, in his words, "find out more abouther." If it was taken more slowly, the relationship would feel more developed and effective, and itwouldn't feel as forced when she breaks down in a burst of emotions after their secondinteraction.

It's a minor note, but the conversations between the spies and the high school kids came off asunnatural. Nowhere in high school is it possible to find someone who has their own friend group,especially the jocks, that will invite a bunch of new kids to come sit at their table. Try to give thecharacters a little more of a challenge, instead of handing everything over to them without muchof a struggle.

Writing Style

To be honest, the writing was a little cluttered. The dialogue isn't separated into differentparagraphs, and the plot jumps from one idea to another. The reader isn't given much time toabsorb whatever just happened, and it takes a little time to process the action.There were a lotof interjections here and there, some of which were unnecessary and seemed a little out ofplace. The fact that she shares an apartment with her fellow spies and how much she lovesworking with them doesn't need to be thrown in at last minute in the first chapter, and it could beintroduced later on or somewhere in the middle of the chapter to make it sound smoother. Also,it would be good to try to avoid listing everything that the main character does, because itsounds more like a bullet list of her actions rather than descriptive prose. It becomesdisengaging really quick.

Another thing would be to work on keeping the details that don't drive the plot to a minimum. Inchapter 3, there was an entire paragraph dedicated to the descriptions of three different outfits.Try to omit the unnecessary details, and focus on things like the mission. This way the readerwon't be easily distracted. If the author were to add details, it would be good to insert themalong with action into parts of the paragraph rather than listing them. For example, instead ofsaying, "Selina got a maroon key, Rowan got a dark green key, Sky got a light blue key, etcetc," put in these details at different times of the paragraph. It could read something like, "Selinagot a maroon key. I fingered my own purple key, as I continued to look over my file. I heard ajangling noise behind me, and I turned to see Rowan excitedly waving her dark green key."

Summary

The story needs some revising, first to separate the dialogue into paragraphs with each newspeaker, and then to focus the story on one focal point. If the story is about the girls trying tofind the drug dealer, then make sure to focus each chapter on that one particular point andmake everything else secondary. Character development is key to making each interactioneffective, so try to give each character a distinctive voice.The concept of the story is interesting and has potential, though. The bond between the girls isobvious, and it would be exciting to see what all four of them can accomplish when they worktogether. With a little editing, this story will be up and running in no time! :)