Title: When a Boy Meets Girl (Originally known as Death of  Bachelor)

Author: 

description: 

"I seriously think you need to consider glasses. What's your vision?" 

He throws his hands up in the air in defeat, facing the opposite direction. "And you need to go back to middle school. Now we're on the same page." 

"Funny." I laugh. 

"I'm known to be a comedian." He asserts, throwing his bag on the floor. 

*** 

When new kid Finley joins Buckingham High, Amelie can't help but feel drawn by him, but not in a good way. It all starts with a little bit of paint, a canvas, and some arguments.

title/cover:

title: i have to say, "Death of  a Bachelor" sounds sooo interesting and unique, and i'm curious as to why you changed it! the current title sounds a little off. I feel like it should read, "When a Boy Meets a Girl" or "When Boy Meets Girl" because it sounds more natural that way? but also, i feel like it's pretty generic. i loved the old title, though. it would get a 5/5 from me

score: 2.5/5

cover:

i love it! it has really old-school vibes and i love the sketchy feel of covers. this one is adorable, and when i see it, i'm reminded of a friend group in high school. 

score: 5/5

total: 7.5/10

summary/hook:

summary: 

i think excerpts as the blurb can be very effective. they give the reader a sneak-peak of what the story will be like, and if done correctly, they can hook readers right away.

the excerpt that the writer provides here conveys that the story contains humor, and who doesn't enjoy humor? the back and forth bickering between the characters is sweet and dynamic, and makes me want to learn more about where their friendship/relationship will go!

there are some criticisms i have of the last line:

+ instead of writing:

"... Amelie can't help but feel drawn by him..."

i'd suggest:

"...Amelie can't help but feel drawn to him..."

this makes the sentence flow better and make more sense. 

+ i also suggest perhaps adding another sentence to the end. the information the author provides is interesting, but it needs that extra detail to really draw the reader in! maybe a sentence beginning:

"And it ends with..." 

not in a way that would give away the ending of course, but something very vague that convinces the reader to click the "read" button!

score: 3/5

hook:

"'Good morning class.' Mrs. Henson our teacher exclaims, taking a sip of her coffee. She places it back on the table, the strong smell making it's way to my nose. It reeks, she likes it black. Nothing to go with it. Just black coffee. Since I'm in front of the class, her spit flies everywhere and always land on me. It also lands on this guy named Jeremiah who sits right in front of me."

right away, i notice some errors. here are some suggestions to improving this paragraph, since it's easily the most important paragraph in the book. here, the reader will decide whether or not they want to read on. 

+ punctuation (i'll go more in depth with this in the grammar section):

the first sentence is properly written this way:

"'Good Morning class,' Mrs. Henson, our teacher, exclaims, taking a sip of her coffee."

instead of the period after the dialogue, there should be a comma. this is because the information following describes the dialogue and the way that Mrs. Henson spoke. there are also commas missing before and after "our teacher" because this segment is sort of an interruption in the sentence and should be isolated with commas. 

+ "it reeks, she likes it black" is an improper use of the comma. it can be rewritten as:

"it reeks; she likes it black" or as two separate sentences.

+ "it's" is a contraction of the words "it" and "is". the way that it is written in this is:

"... the strong smell making it's way to my nose..."

this in the incorrect word. the correct word here is "its". this is the possessive form.

a good way to distinguish between the two is: if you replace "it's" with "it is" and the sentence makes sense, then this is the right usage. if it doesn't, then "its" is the way to go. 

for example, here :

"the strong smell making it is way to my nose" doesn't make sense, so the correct one is "its".

+ "land" should be "lands" since spit is singular

+ aside from technical errors, this is a good start to the story. not as strong as it can be, but it takes us right into the high school setting and the teacher who spits too much, which many of us can relate to, and to be able to connect with readers is a huge plus. 

i really recommend cleaning this paragraph up. a lot of readers are likely turned off by the abundance of mistakes, and no matter how interesting the story is, they will stop reading!

score: 2.5/5

total: 5.5/10

grammar/flow:

i really am enjoying this story, but the abundance of grammatical errors is an issue. 

+ there are inconsistencies in tense.sometimes, the author uses past tense, and other times it's written in present tense. 

+ the flow of the story is pretty good. transitions are smooth, and the scenes are all captivating.

+ the punctuation is also inconsistent. the author should be careful about how they end the dialogue. there's a difference between when it should be a comma and when it should end with a period. 

for example, if the dialogue is followed by any variation of "said", then it should be followed by a comma. examples:

"Yeah," he shouts back

"No, it's not," she continues

"I spoke to her yesterday," I admit

if the dialogue is followed by an action, then a period is appropriate.

+ i also noticed a lot of run-ons and sentence fragments. a lot of times, sentence fragments are a stylistic choice and they are effective; however, one should be careful about their usage. it's easy to tell when they're intended and when they're not. 

score: 4/10

plot:

 the plot is one that i really enjoyed. it keeps the reader captivated and interested in what happens between the characters. the author lays out a very realistic and easily visualized setting. the humor in the story makes it enjoyable, and there are some laugh-out-loud moments. but like i've said before, they're many times overshadowed by technical mistakes. 

i don't want to spoil the story for others, so the easiest way to put it is that the plot is actually very engaging! i found myself easily reading a lot in one sitting, and the author does a great job of keeping things interesting. that being said, there are some places where the author should add more description. there is a lot of dialogue, but we also want to know what the characters look like and their body language says a lot more than dialogue sometimes.

score: 8/10

characters:

the characters in this story are lovable. they're all ones we can connect to and the dynamics between them keep us wanting to read on. the friendships portrayed in this story make the characters come to life, and the interactions between students and teachers are realistic and took me back to my high school days. that being said, i feel like there could be more depth added to the characters. perhaps flaws that make them come alive more.

the author asked me to focused on the characters and whether or not the their motives are reasonable, and i didn't see an issue with them! i understood where the MC was coming from.

score: 9/10 

all in all, When a Boy Meets Girl is an interesting and engaging story full of humor! it's been a while since i've read a funny story on here full of characters i can actually love. i highly recommend either hiring an editor or doing some editing on your own. it would really improve the quality of the story! the writer is talented for sure and they have a strong voice, but there are just some inconsistencies that need to be taken care of. most of the points that were lost here were because of technical mistakes, so don't feel discouraged, please! these are things that can be fixed with some time and attention. keep writing because you're very talented, and a little bit of humor makes everything better!