Final Total: 4.3 (reshelved)

Reader 1:

Grammar & Flow: .5/2   The grammar is fine, although a few random sentences are a bit hard to understand. The first line is a good example. "Steam rose off the bowl of clear soup, brightened with green veggies...." Although the last noun mentioned is soup, this really does sound as if the steam has been brightened with green veggies, or even possibly the bowl itself has a green veggie motif. It's highly ambiguous.

The reveal that Maria is at work was also rather a jolt. The mention of her mother's kitchen and the soothing smells of the food lead us to think she's in a relaxed home environment. Especially then when followed by the topic of "rent"...and then whoop! She's at work in a stressful environment and all of these characters appear and she delves hard-core into "tell" about her boyfriend.  Lulled us there!:-) 

Also, names come zooming at us: Maria, Fedora Guy, Felipe, Greg, Adrian...and then all the unknown (at least to me) names of the food. At the end of the reading section, I was only sure of who Maria and Felipe were -- nobody else. Very confusing.  

Interest: 1.5/2  Oh, I'd like to like this, but I feel totally left out in the cold with the door into the story locked.  All the unknown food names dumped all on me at once makes me feel like the story is saying "you should know all of this stuff already, so I'll just drop shorthand. I mean, I know, so you should too"  Well, um, I'm not up on Filipino cooking, so it's like trying to read a text half written in a foreign language. 

For you this might look like: This är som reading a text in en språk that du inte verstå so well.  

Want to continue reading an entire chapter like that, or did that sentence lose you? I get that you want to include the food as a metaphor, but for me, it's MASSIVE overkill as you have it. Too many dishes, too much ethnicity for a white audience, I guess. (I'm assuming you are writing for a largely white audience, and not an Asian one, here. )

Quality of Prose: 1.5/2 Although the shifts and reveals are a bit jarring and I was confused at the end of the reading section who some of these people were,  the quality of prose is not bad. 

Hook: 1/4 As mentioned above, too confusing, quite honestly. Too many names. Also, Fedora Guy and his waitress ogling is rather a stereotype of the butt-pinching diner customer. We might expect him more traditionally to be wearing a baseball cap, a lumberjack work shirt and have a beer gut. You changed that to be an offensive white liberal, which is a little less stereotype, but with Canada's new "You can be fined thousands of dollars if someone just feels insulted by your behaviour" that type of obvious staring at a POC woman might land that guy in lots of trouble. If she were so inclined. You'd think he'd know that.

There is the introduction of some conflict in the opening, but more in the guise of worrying than actual events. That leads to a lot of tell about the problems, not show. We get told the conflict.  The only "show" we get (pun intended) is her low-cut shirt and flirting with customers to get more tips -- but the shirt is explained away by her planning to attend a concert. So, not her typical clothing. Where is the conflict being shown there?

Given that, this scene --or what happens in it --doesn't seem to be the best place to open the story. The events don't characterise very well, illustrate the plot dynamic, or even move the plot along in a significant way. It *does* give an insight into Maria's life & background, but it's almost like being told the worries of a stranger. TOLD the worries of a stranger, not seeing them play out.  Better might be to find a situation which is actively characterising of Maria's problems, esp with her boyfriend, and open there. 

Total: 4.5 (I've put the book down)

Reader 2:

Grammar & Flow:  1/2 Well, if nothing else, the beginning sure did make me hungry, but boy do you throw a lot of things in the first paragraph. I really thought she was actually trying to placate her landlord with food, rather than at work, waitressing. I am also a little unsure about why her mother's cooking would have anything to do with the landlord. You might want to rethink this part and give a little bit more space for your reader to slip into the story.

Later, you go a little too hard on the description of her movements. She sets the plate - then she sets the bowl (without spilling). Again, you tell us about the tamarind aromas, which you've already done in the first paragraph. You could simplify here, instead telling us more about her - and this thing about flirting with customers for tips, or the money issues, or even the customers themselves. I am also a little confused how many people there are at the table - two or three - because even though you mention the man in black once, you then introduce him again as if anew "A pasty man in a dark t-shirt". If it's the same person, then saying "the man" would make it clearer.

Interest: 1/2 Some parts are great, some not so much. Fedora guy is a bit much, not by his inclusion, because well people can be garbage like that, but by Maria's complete and utter lack of reaction. In fact, she leans in to give him a better look, and I want to throw my laptop out the window a little bit because, damn!, this is sending all kinds of bad messages to all the younger people on this website. I get she's doing that for tips - we've all been in bad situations - but this is just a big no and I feel my skin crawling a bit after reading it. (rant over)

On the other hand, the parts about Adrian, and her mum, are compelling. I don't know how big a part of the rest of the book Greg and Fedora guy will be, although from reading your description, not at all, so I'm wondering why should I care that one is a sleazy bastard and the other looks a bit like Kylo Ren (pasty and black-clad), but you put so much time into them that I'm guessing it's for the sake of showing that Maria is a huge pushover. This might be better achieved by focusing instead on the important parts of what she is thinking about (boyfriend, mother, rent), and trimming the exchange significantly. Unless they are key later, that is.

Quality of Prose: 1/2 It is a little all over the place. As I said above, you introduce so many things so quickly that I am feeling at a bit of a loss as to what is actually happening. The breaks between the conversation are quite long, and I found myself having to go back up to the previous bit of dialogue to refresh my memory as to what has been said, and what was being answered. Then the conversation between Greg and his fedora friend is strange and stilted, and they really don't seem like friends at all. The writing isn't bad, but I feel like you didn't really know what you wanted to say in the first chapter, instead running headlong into saying everything.

Hook: 2/4 The portrayal of Maria's character is quite well done. However, she seems to have a lot of thoughts going on in all kinds of different directions - her mother, her landlord, her boyfriend and his band, how her friend is Caucasian and she's sick of strangers' assumptions about her upbringing, and then, at the end, excitement for possible engagement? And that's all in a handful of paragraphs. On top of that, blatantly stereotypical, casually-racist, fedora-wielding man, and how she graciously doesn't let his words get to her, because, well, she has a cleavage so she's used to men being pigs all over her. I understand you're trying to *hook* your readers, but it might just be a bit of an overkill. Simplify, just a little bit. Leave us something to learn about her.

Total: 5 (I've put the book down)

Reader 3:

Grammar & Flow:.5/2 That first sentence is ambiguous: the steam, the bowl, and the soup could all be brightened by those green veggies and purple eggplant. Maybe give the second image of the veggies their own verb. 'Steam rose off a bowl of clear soup, the broth brightened by green veggies and purple eggplant.' Or something like, 'Steam rose off a bowl of clear soup, bright green veggies and purple eggplant adding a pretty pop of color against the white china.' That's just an example, I'm sure you can do better.

'Beside the soup sat lechon kawali, a tender, fried pork*-*belly dish she imagined melting in her mouth' should go up in that first paragraph rather than at the end of the second. The thought that her mother's cooking wouldn't keep a roof over her head is stuck in the middle of the description of the food and makes it confusing. Unless you would rather have her hunger be the beginning thought instead of her impending homelessness... which might actually tie your first few paragraphs together a little better. If you touched on the thought that the food is meant for someone else before you pop us in the face with the fact that she's a waitress, it might not come as so much of a surprise later ;)

Overall the flow is fair, but a lot of your nouns are sporting two, even three adjectives. 'mint green vinyl booths.' 'famished stomach's growl.' 'Fedora-wearing man.' This makes your writing have a repetitive rhythm, at times. Try: 'the chatter of Filipino and Canadian clients drowned out the growl of her stomach.' ('the growl of her stomach' would get away from that awkward possessive phrase, 'stomach's growl.')

(Sidenote: I thought tamarind was sour... so maybe, 'Sweet-and-sour aromas of tamarind...'? This is a repeat of the 'tamarind and sharp fish sauce aroma' at the beginning, though, so it's a bit redundant to bring it up again.)

'A pasty man in a dark T-shirt across from Fedora chuckled' is awkward. The T-shirt could be what is chuckling, or what is sitting across from Fedora. You could just say, 'The man sitting across from Fedora chuckled.' We don't actually have to know what he's wearing. The fact that he's there is enough, since he's not really a main player.

'Fedora's continued leer... didn't outweigh the risk of eviction' is bordering on repetitive info-dump, but it's also in the wrong place, logically. You split up Fedora's lines with it, and it would flow more naturally below the next paragraph.

'Fedora sniggered...' through 'Are you going to the show tonight?' is fine, but then we're right back to info-dump about Adrian again, and everything slogs to a standstill. Most of this could be show rather than tell without any trouble at all. Just save it for later or condense it into snippets of internal monologue.

Interest:0/2 I've already read farther than this, but to be totally honest, as of the end of the opening snippet, I haven't been pulled in quite yet.

Quality of Prose: 1/2 The quality of the prose is still vivid and colorful; and it's still a bit overloaded with info. Mainly, all the 'flashbacks' she has. First about her mother, then about Adrian, and with each one there's an info-dump. Remembering her moment on stage with Adrian is poignant and relates to the scene well. But going even farther back into remembering when he wrote it begins to drag the reader out of the scene too far.

The paragraph beginning with 'They needed a getaway together...' is a LOT of tell and deadens the scene into info-dump.

I would recommend going through this with an eye toward cutting things that can be shown better somewhere else.

Hook: 2/4 Unfortunately, due to the info-dumping, what could be a very well-written and interesting beginning devolves into emotional melodrama, and I'm having a hard time seeing this as a successful hook. It might be for some, but overall, I'd say it could be better. We don't have to know EVERYTHING about her relationship with Adrian up front. It chops up the action of the scene, which gives it a disjointed, almost brainless feel, and leaves the reader with the impression that Maria is just wandering around, spacing out, worrying about paying the rent. Let her be weary. Let her be emotionally wrung out. That is all understandable. But a visceral reaction to the knowledge that Adrian is going to be disappointed would work just as well as – or even better than – repeatedly dragging the reader off down memory lane.

Total: 3.5 (I've put the book down)