Title: Against You

Author: Iluvbooks5198

Summary: 3.5/5

Your summary is pretty good in that it's a pretty standard teen-fiction romance blurb. It introduces the protagonist and her sad backstory, it then hints at the love interest that comes in and makes the story, and it shows that there may be room for development for the character. Again, it contains all the right things – so well done!

One thing you definitely need to work on is polishing the technical things – tense, grammar, and punctuation. For example, you're missing spaces after punctuation, you have sentences missing commas, and you change tense. Don't worry – I'll get more into this in the following section. 

Grammar: 1.5/5

Overall, this is where you probably need the most work. Don't worry, though, I'll go through the basic rules with you, and besides, the technical stuff is arguably the easiest to fix.

First of all, when you have punctuation – whether it be a full-stop, comma, colon, or any alternate forms of punctuation – there must be a space after the punctuation. For example:

... then I saw him.Aaron Miles walking towards...

You need a space after the full-stop. It should look like:

... then I saw him. Aaron Miles walking towards...

Next, let's talk about dialogue and punctuation. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she 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 exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Hey it will be alright " Nikki says.

First of all, you don't need the space before the closing inverted commas. Next, you must have punctuation before the closing inverted commas. It should look like:

"Hey, it will be alright," Nikki says.

Another example:

"What" I didn't agree to this ........ Why did even agree to listen to him?

There are several errors in the example above. First of all, you're missing punctuation before the closing inverted commas. Then, your ellipsis has about eight periods (........) when it should only have three (...). Finally, you're also missing the word 'I' for the question to make sense. It should be:

What?" I didn't agree to this... Why did I even agree to listen to him?

Since we are still on dialogue, another thing you need to be aware of is that each character should have a separate paragraph for their dialogue. Whenever a new character speaks, their dialogue should begin in a new paragraph. For example:

" I am here to see my girlfriend " he says. "Your what now ?" I exclaim in surprise.

Apart from all the unnecessary spacing and lack of puctuation, you also have two characters speaking in one paragraph. It should be:

"I am here to see my girlfriend," he says.

"Your what now?" I exclaim in surprise.

Now, let's move on to tense. You tend to fluctuate from past to present tense, when really, you need to stick to one. For example:

"Oh really?" he says. [says = present tense]

Then, putting a smirk on my face, I said just one word. [said = past tense]

You need to make sure your tenses are consistent. You also need to make sure you aren't mixing up words that sound the same but have different definitions. They're, there, and there is a good example. 'Their' is the possessive of they, 'they're' is a contraction of 'they are', and 'there' indicates a place. So, for example:

He just stands their looking like he won the lottery.

It should be:

He just stands there, looking like he won the lottery.

Overall, you're getting a lot of the basics incorrect – especially in the latter chapters. You are missing capital letters at the start of sentences and proper nouns, you are missing full-stops, you are missing punctuation, and your questions are missing question marks. You also have moments where there are typos prevalent, such as:

Suddenly, the cafeteria goes quiet. , there is no sound at all...

Why is there a random comma in the middle, after the full stop? It should be:

Suddenly, the cafeteria goes quiet. There is no sound at all. 

Characterisation: 3/5

What I particularly liked about Theresa is that she felt very human. She can be a little stupid and impulsive, and demonstrates pride – as we can see when Aaron manipulates her sense of pride to get her into kissing him. It's also great to see some character development! We see her get over her past, fall in love, find a new best friend, and allow herself to be happy. The character development was cohesive and smooth, so well done!

Aaron was the typical, slightly egotistical bad boy, which we often see in stories like these, and he shows a sweet side by checking up on Theresa when she doesn't come to school. His banter with Theresa was quite sweet, and it was amusing seeing her feelings develop for him; the first time she thinks he's cute, she literally is trying to convince herself that it's the fever talking. I find that quirkiness adorable, so good work.

I actually found Harden's characterisation super interesting. At one point, the reader is geared to feel mad at him for being the disturbance in Theresa and Aaron's relationship, but I really enjoyed his maturity at the end of the book – he knew Theresa didn't love him as much as she loved Aaron, and so he did what he had to do to make her happy.

However, if I'm completely honest, I didn't feel the characters. Even though it was in first person, there were so many moments that were glossed over that I didn't live and breathe the characters. For example, when Nikki and Theresa see the dress from Rachel, and Theresa starts crying, we don't feel it. We don't feel her sadness, nor do we see the thought process behind the tears. We don't feel the pain in her heart or the itch in her throat. She sees the dress, wipes her tears, and moves on. Moments like these can be super intimate and great for development, as it allows us to see Theresa growing stronger. Try not to gloss over them.

Another example: Aaron walking out when Theresa confesses that she kissed Harden. The line is literally just, "Then he walked out". To really help us feel for these characters, milk out the moment – show us the fury on his face, or the hurt in his eyes. Flesh out the moment. That will make your characters much more engaging. 

Writing Style: 2/5

Okay, first of all, in the first chapter, you info-dumped the physical appearance of Theresa and Rachel. Then, throughout the rest of the story, there was very little description. There was no setting at all, so the story wasn't immersive, and, as mentioned above, many moments were glossed over in a way that made the scenes lose tension and impact.

So, I'll keep this part simple. Flesh out your writing. Discuss your setting. Take the reader into the moment. If the phone rings, don't write:

*ring* *ring* *ring*

Describe it for us. Make us feel how annoying that ring is by showing us how shrill it is.

Additionally, some of your sentences felt like a ramble because you repeated words or you kept them going on for too long without much of a purpose. For example:

I am not a nerd, I mean yeah I get good grades and stuff, but that doesn't mean I am studying 24/7 like the geeks who stay in that class at the end of the school all day doing nothing but studying like maniacs for an exam that's not going to happen until next year.

That is one long sentence, and due to the lack of punctuation and purpose, it feels like a ramble. I recommend reading your entire story aloud to search for redundancies in your writing. Additionally, reading the story aloud will help you pinpoint any moments that lack fluency and cohesion. 

Plot + Originality: 3/5

Overall, it's a pretty standard story. We have our protagonist with a tragic past fall in love with the bad boy (who has a sweet side), there is a love triangle, but she reunites with the bad boy. I'm glad the story wasn't all smooth-sailing, as we have the kiss with Harden, and it was good to see the conflict between Theresa and Aaron prevail in those last few chapters.

I also like how we start at the end of the story, then backtrack to the beginning to show how we reached that end. That's a clever play on the structure of the story. While your beginning, middle, and end is very clear, I recommend you go back and slow down the story and flesh out each moment to highlight the climax and milk out the tension.

OVERALL SCORE: 13/25

Overall, a pretty sweet story about young love. I recommend polishing your grammar and punctuation, as well as slowing down your story, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!