Title: His Target

Author: lolaalvilivi

Summary: 4.5/5

This felt like a very sleek and professionally written summary. You introduce the main character, the stakes, the side characters, and the overall conflict – and I like the way you tie it into Maya's entire life being a lie. It felt very clever, and I'm very excited to continue reading, which is a good indication that your summary is great. I loved the use of rhetorical question, and overall, I don't have much to critique.

However, one quick note: if you're going to include an excerpt, please make sure the excerpt is grammatically correct. I'll talk more about what the problem is in the grammar section, but basically, you wrote:

"You knew I'd come back for you, sweetie." the intruder said with an evil grin.

And it should be:

"You knew I'd come back for you, sweetie," the intruder said with an evil grin. 

Grammar: 2.5/5

Your story, overall, definitely needs some polishing. It's pretty easy to follow, however, you have a lot of typos, a lot of spelling errors, and there are some grammatical errors that you are consistently making. But that's okay – let's go through them.

First of all, in your summary, I changed a full-stop before the closing inverted commas into a comma. That's because: 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:

"Tell her to do such a thing again and I'll shoot her right infront of you, you pathetic bitch." The silvery eyed man said.

Since 'he said' directly refers to the dialogue, it should be:

"Tell her to do such a thing again and I'll shoot her right in front of you, you pathetic bitch," the silvery eyed man said.

Additionally, you'll notice that I changed 'infront' to 'in front'. That is because 'infront' isn't a word. Similarly, 'everytime' is not a word – it should be 'every time'.

Let's go through another example of the dialogue and punctuation rule:

"Get of my girl, Jack." Mr Nicolls called out.

It should be:

"Get off my girl, Jack," Mr Nicolls called out.

Again, another change I made was that 'of' became 'off', since you referring to the one that means 'as to remove or distance'. Also make sure you know the difference between losing and loosing, and watch out for typos. You had a lot of them, and while it was pretty easy to work out what you were tyring to say, I do recommend polishing it. Here are some examples:

"Why don't we do come cooking?"

I think you meant 'some' instead of 'come'. Again:

... not as bug as Shawn."

Big, instead of bug, I believe you were trying to say.

Derek stared pacing around the room.

I think you meant 'started' instead of 'stared'.

There were plenty of other ones to look out for, but I'll move onto quotation marks. Sometimes, you were inconsistent with them. For example:

... or 'you'll find out when you're older."

You need to either use the (') or the (") and keep it consistent.

Another thing is to watch out for contractions. For example:

What if its some sort of 50 Shades of Grey shit?

Since you were trying to say, 'what if it is some sort of...', the word "its" should actually be the contraction form, which is "it's". It should be:

What if it's some sort of 50 Shades of Grey shit?

And, finally, tense. Make sure you consistently stick to one tense only. For example, you wrote:

I ran to the door. [ran = past tense]

I genuinely cannot tell... [cannot = present tense]

Make sure you stick to one tense. 

Characterisation: 4/5

I like that your characters were always surprising us, which Tanner not being an enemy, and Maya almost feeling like an unreliable narrator by not always disclosing to the reader her plans. I really like that sort of trope, so great work!

First, let's talk about Maya. From the start, she's a tough girl – even when she's twelve, she stands up for her mother when Jack comes in with a gun in his hand. However, you do need to add a sense of realism to it – I want to see this twelve-year-old momentarily feel her breath get knocked out of her as she sees the gun. I want to feel her fear in the form of sweaty hands and a madly pounding heart. I found that there was a lack of that sort of realism within your characters, and I think it's mostly because you didn't show some moments and you told them instead. But we'll talk about that more in the writing style section. But, in short, I want to like her even more by feeling the fear she has to overcome, so that her courage feels even more impactful.

Back to Maya, she's incredibly selfless from the very start, with how she wants Connor and Ocean saved – even if it meant her getting hurt. Even when she's terrified, she doesn't want Derek to shoot Jack in fear of him having a criminal record. Additionally, she has amazing bits of sarcasm and internal monologue that is hilarious. I genuinely laughed when she called herself a horny bastard for stepping into a car with an attractive stranger. She also had gorgeous moments of intimacy with the side characters – from the way she and Connor consoled each other over Ocean's death, to the teasing and banter between the rather big cast.

I found the tension between her and Derek very intense throughout the story, especially considering the way she sent him running in the past. He definitely has a soft spot for her, and I like that he was flawed and almost reckless with his decisions (oops when he knocked out Jacob and punched Connor!). I also liked the recurring humour of his sexy arms as dialogue.

As for Jacob, I found his initial flirting very amusing, though I was just as confused as Maya when it came to him (like, telling her to get out when he had just let her in the car). But what I especially liked was that he and Derek start off as rivals in a way, and then we see that Derek only trusts Jacob momentarily because he's the only one who has been entirely honest with him. Jacob feels a bit like a voice of reason towards the end, reminding Derek that Maya was always in a rather difficult predicament. I like they way they pretty much balanced each other out.

Anyways, as I was saying, I think you need to show more rather than tell, which will be discussing more in writing style. This is because it adds a sense of realism to the characters. For example, when Maya kicks people, what does she feel in her own body as her body collides with them? When they're playing truth and dare and she says, "The drinks from before were really hitting me know" – describe it for us. Show us the wooziness, or the dizziness, the lightness, or whatever she would feel in that moment. 

Writing Style: 3/5

Okay, so as I mentioned, you do a bit too much telling and not enough showing. Showing vs telling is never easy to do, so it might be simpler to pick out examples and try to expand on it. So, here's an example:

I felt fear.

You need to try expanding on it. Imagine when you are scared, and imagine how you felt. Did your palms get clammy? Maybe you start sweating? Does your blood turn cold, or does your stomach churn? Does the heart race? I suggest thinking about all of these factors to expand on the fear, and really help immerse your readers.

Also, you don't have a lot of setting in your writing. Setting is a great device, as it can help build the mood within the story. Do you want the mood to feel light and relaxing? Describe the setting in a way that will achieve that. Do you want it to feel darker and more tense? Scare the reader by maybe showing us how the room smells like blood, or how there was no light, or how everything seemed to creak when the character wanted it to be completely silent. Additionally, without setting, it is difficult for the reader to be immersed.

Be careful of some awkward phrasing. For example:

He walked obviously.

What does that mean? How do you walk 'obviously'? If you meant that it was obvious that someone was meant to follow them, then clarify that for the reader.

Also, let's look at the following example:

"I dare you- to stri- *hiccup* strip in front of everyone."

For the sake of professionalism, avoid doing the *hiccup* and consider actually narrating that. Also, I found it rather amusing that you sometimes censored the word 'shit', but sometimes you didn't even censor 'fucking'? Maybe reconsider whether or not you're censoring it and keep it consistent. That's just something I found rather amusing. 

Plot + Originality: 4/5

Overall, I really like how twisty the story is. The entire story leaves the reader questioning what is a coincidence and what is a dangerous truth, there is constantly more unravelling of the past, and I absolutely loved how the first forty chapters were a build-up to the first few paragraphs that we saw in chapter one. I love the cyclical writing, and there were some clever moments of discovery – such as Derek finding the pills that were prescribed to Martinn Roberts instead of Tanner, or how Maya found the gun she had used to send Derek away.

There were some filler chapters, which is fine – the breathers can be good to counterbalance the action. However, even in those filler chapters, it's important to not completely detach it from the story and to leave a slight reminder of the stakes at hand, or the revenge plot in mind. Again, such as the truth or dare scene, all you need is one sentence as a reminder to the reader to make sure they aren't completely alienated.

Overall, I think the structure is pretty cool, and I love the constant fill of plot twists. I do, however, think you need to work on the writing style to execute the twists with impact. 

OVERALL SCORE: 18/25

Overall, you've got a pretty badass story with lots of twists. I recommend going back and polishing your grammar and punctuation, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!