The REALM OF CRITIQUES

Life Goes On

Author:

@zoe_xoxo13

Cover:

The cover is nice, it reminds me of books I used to read in the school library, but it does not stand out a lot. It gives me mixed feelings of calm (when I look at the colours/girl) then despair(when I look at the house).

Blurb:

The blurb is just interesting enough to make me think about reading, though it could be a bit more attention-grabbing.

Chapter1:

The story begins with a conversation between mother and daughter. The dialogue moves a bit too quickly for me and there is little detail about what else is going on(surroundings, feelings, etc.). It is like a whirlwind. I am not a big fan of stories starting off with a swift conversation with sparse detail. Take some time to work on this more, expand it. With some editing I am sure this can be easily fixed.

The mother sounds like an excited teenager, she is very keen on sending her daughter away to camp and I feel sorry for the kid....but not enough. I am under the impression that the mother is a bubbly, friendly sort of parent (due to the actions you have shown us), but right after the girl's thought, she states that her mother can make her do whatever she wants because of her death-stares and blackmailing. This jolted me out of my belief that the mum was what you portrayed her to be before. It confused me for you have not stated anywhere that this woman can be cruel (I would have loved to see some foreshadowing/backstory on the mum's death-stare and blackmailing skills. What has she done in the past to make her daughter say that?).

I like the idea of pixies and ghosts in a story, but the mention of them is abrupt with little to back it up, so it feels like it's simply been tossed in.

The idea behind this story in general is lovely, there are some great things about it (a secret of the camp, the ghosts, the pixies) but it needs work and details. Don't rush through things.

The last three paragraphs had nice descriptions to them. I could see the camp here, so that was fantastic.

Good luck, darkling!