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Review by Lina: June's Blues

Isabel has a struggle that we can sympathize with even if we haven't struggled with it ourselves, and her love of music makes her really likeable. She's very bitter and down on everything around her, very judgmental, but the reader can understand why and it makes us hope that she'll learn how to connect with people in a different way. The moment in ch. 4 where she talks about knowing all the lyrics to songs but not being able to sing them was absolutely heartbreaking. It definitely endeared her to me.

Even though Isabel is such a strong character, the score was lower for this section because a lot of the character motivations in this are really unclear, both from Isabel and from the other characters. You make out Isabel to be so hateful toward everyone around her, so the moments where she agrees to spend time with both William and Ian feel completely unearned. I've given some notes in the plot section of this review to that effect. Her relationship with Ian in particular is really hard to track. Sometimes he upsets her, sometimes she ignores him, but then she goes to the game to watch him even though they don't interact. Then she gets really upset about running into him at the electronics store even though nothing happened. It's all really unclear. What's his motivation? Even if you want it to be a mystery, it's hard for a reader to keep buying into this premise without even a hint as to the reasons why. William's a little easier to understand, but he's fairly one-note. The only thing he seems to care about is being friends with Isabel, which is hard to believe. He's a teenage boy, he must have other interests and things on his mind. Maybe you could sprinkle some of that in to make him seem like more of a real character.

I would love to have seen more about the band mates. Do they ever practice? It seems like they should. Especially if they play multiple genres, that's really hard to do. I'd think they'd have to practice together. I'd love to know how Isabel even met them. She considers Alexa her best friend but they never seem to text or hang out outside of Thursday night. I want to know so much more about their friendship and see them have scenes together just the two of them (apart from the cafe). Other than Alexa and Caiden, the other band members tend to blend together and it's hard to tell them apart. Try to be really specific about the kinds of characters they are so that the reader will not mix them up. 

Writing Style: 2.5/5

The writing was okay to read. It did flow for the most part and there were lots of attempts to expand the vocabulary and use fun similes and metaphors. However, overall the writing seemed to be trying way too hard. Simple sentences that could have been succinct and effective are drawn out and made more complicated by the use of confusing words to describe simple things. It made reading kind of a chore as opposed to an effortless endeavor. Although it's great to set your writing apart by adding in some different phrases, unique words, more vocab, etc., doing it too much just slows the read down. You don't want your readers to have to work hard to understand what's being said. Sometimes simple and direct is the most effective way, particularly in a teen fiction novel.

You would often refer to people by their identity rather than their name, and it got a bit confusing. When you used "the teenager" or "the German" or what-have-you, there were many times where I didn't know who you were talking about for too long. It's fine every now and then to sprinkle in some other ways to refer to people, but overall just sticking to their name is fine. It's clear and effective, instead of confusing and awkward. It's how the MC would mostly be thinking of them anyway - by their name. And it avoids any confusion. I would recommend just referring to everyone by their name almost always. One of the more confusing examples of this is in Chapter 13, where Ian grabs her headphones but it's not stated that it's him until four or five paragraphs later. I thought it probably was him, but I wasn't entirely sure. You don't want to make more work for your readers, having to guess who is doing what or what's going on. The clearer, the better.