Title: All She Knows

Author: jes_uba123

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 3.5/5

I do like your summary a lot, and it's a very kickass way to introduce Noellia – especially with the rhetorical questions about chaos and beauty. I also love how polished it is, and love that it's pitched sort of like a move trailer – with the final quotation to finish it off. Well done!

The only issue is that it feels like a very surface-level summary that doesn't actually dig deep on what the reader will be reading about. Like, what exactly is the conflict? What threats are there against her and her family? Who are these enemies and what does she do to expose them? What will be reading about, what are the stakes, and why should we want her to succeed?

Once you scratch that little bit deeper, it'll feel like a more captivating summary – and one that really marks what makes your story distinct. 

Grammar: 3/5

Okay, so overall, your story was pretty polished and easy to read. Nonetheless, I found some recurring errors that could use some polishing. Here are some examples:

"I'll let you leave like this." He mumbled.

So, what's incorrect about the example above? The punctuation. When dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they 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 an exclamation mark for an exclamation). So, the above example should be:

"I'll let you leave like this," he mumbled.

Another example:

"...wanted you to come with me," he sat down.

Since the words following the dialogue are no longer a dialogue tag, it should be:

"...wanted you to come with me." He sat down.

Additionally, you need to make sure your tenses are consistent throughout your sentences. Here's an example:

Ignored it, I went back to my thoughts – wishing to be alone and thought things through.

Wishing and thought are in two different tenses even though they are not separated by punctuation, and the 'ignored it' is not a subordinate clause, so it doesn't quite fit right. Consider:

Ignoring it, I went back to my thoughts – wishing to be alone and thinking things through.

Also, you have missing full-stops within your chapters and incorrect capitalisation of some letters, so I recommend going back and checking for those. 

Characterisation: 3/5

Okay, so I love the way Noellia stands up for herself – like the way we saw her stand up against Becca outside the auditorium with wit and pride. I also found the way she interacted with people such as her brother quite entertaining to read – like her sentence to her rother about cutting off his manhood and selling it to animals had me sold. She's very quirky and likeable, so well done on that part!

Obviously, I'm not the biggest fan of Michael – especially with the way he insisted on touching her, and how rough he was at the park. However, the main issue I had with characterisation throughout your story was the way you got quite telling instead of showing.

For example:

The room was quiet and it was scaring the hell out of me.

Okay, but how about, to make your character more immersive as a person, you describe what that fear is like instead of blatantly telling us she's scared? What does fear feel like to her? Clammy hands? Cold sweat? What would we feel if we were in her shoes? Additionally, what does the silence in the room feel like – if you compare that silence to something, it'll be easier to live and breathe your characters in the moment.

And first impressions matter a lot, so when you introduce characters, you must ensure you're taking the time to flesh them out and make the readers connect with them. Here is how you introduced her brother, in the first chapter, when we're getting to know her still:

Heading downstairs, I spotted my brother at the hall with my box of cereal. I flared up in anger and screamed out his name. He knew and quickly shouted back that he'd replace it.

First impressions matter, so this first impression doesn't really show us what we want to see from the characters. Why not extend the moment, show us some direct dialogue of what they say, describe the moment, and show the reader how they interact? That will make the characters feel more real, and help solidify the reader's understanding of the moment. 

Writing Style: 3/5

I already mentioned showing instead of telling, so I won't bring it up again in too much detail, but once again, I really encourage you to flesh out the moments within your story to really take the reader there. In that last chapter, when someone is holding her hand tightly and another pressed the handkerchief to her nose – what does that feel like? The fear? The claustrophobia perhaps? And before you go with the classic 'everything turns black' – what does it feel like to lose consciousness and pass out?

Additionally, be careful of redundancy. Repeating words in a sentence can make the reading jarring and awkward, as it loses that fluency. For example:

My mind unconsciously studying the delicate red and white design of the flower sculptures and just like the golden waves wrapped around the flowers, my mind stayed afloat.

That repetition makes the sentence lose a bit of rhythm. Speaking of fluency, you need to try making sure that most of your sentence shift in sentence structure patterns. When all sentences begin the same way, it becomes repetitive and robotic. For example:

I stared back at my...

I returned to the phone...

I texted her to knock...

All three sentences, that were presented in a row, start with I [verb] [the rest]. I recommend switching it up so that it doesn't become to repetitive and noticeable to the readers.

And finally, a small presentation thing – when you're writing numbers smaller than one hundred, it's writing standard to spell it out instead of write it. For example:

I could swear that it had been 5 minutes for like 30 minutes.

It should be:

I could swear that it had been five minutes for like thirty minutes. 

Plot + Originality: 3.5/5

I can I just say that I love, love, loved your start. It was so interesting but heartbreaking, with the death of the leader and the image of the river washing away her blood. After that, the story took a sudden shift in tone – it's lighter now, but it leaves me waiting for something urgent and drastic to occur, so I think that prologue was a fantastic way to reel the reader in.

The ending captivated me thus far, with Noellia being dragged into the room and that killer plot twist – Hannah also being there amongst the five girls and five boys. I'm really excited to see where you take the story from here, especially now that it's in that climactic stage.

However, with those intense moments, you need to make sure you dramatize it a bit – not just to make the reader more hooked, but also to add that layer of realism. I know that Noellia is a humorous character, but if she's been dragged and gagged and then brought to an unfamiliar place, her reaction being "Ew a sock" just quite doesn't match the intensity of the situation, and doesn't make it feel as terrifying as it should be for the reader.

Humour is great – but it must be used in a way that doesn't influence the realism of the story, or hinder the strength of the stakes. 

OVERALL SCORE: 16/25

Overall, an interesting story with lots of gripping moments. Make sure you work on punctuating dialogue and maintaining realism, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!