Title: What Lies Within
Author: ayyreaa
Reviewer: Addison-AJ
Summary: 3.9/5
Your summary is pretty captivating. I love how you start it off with an excerpt from the book. This was a great hook for the reader and transitioned into the rest of your description. You tie it all together with a descriptive paragraph about what lies within their characteristic. I also liked how you related that paragraph to the title. Well done with that!
The only thing is that there could have been more questions. Talk about the stakes and what the conflict is. You did a marvelous job of describing the characters, but there's so much more you could add. What happens if they do fall in love? Will it connect to anyone else?
And even building off the characters, you can include more about how they're practically opposites. In addition, you mentioned in a sentence that nobody knows who Hayden is. I suggest making it flow more smoothly in that particular paragraph. This is because you wrote about three sentences related to his personality and character. Then, you talk about how his identity is different? I would recommend revising that part a little.
Another paragraph that had the same issue was the one before it. This was the one that described Rhea's life and personality. This structure of this part was perfectly executed, other than one minor mistake. In the first sentence, you switched from her being a regular college girl to a not-so-regular one. In my opinion, this altered the pace of that. If you'd like to use it, I would suggest that you do it in two separate sentences.
To explain this, I will come up with two examples for you. Try not to switch from one idea to another in a matter of words. That makes it feel more rushed or forced than usual. Perhaps you could even it out by splitting up the two different ideas? Here is an example that I decided to make to explain this better:
Before Editing: Rhea Bayer is your regular 20 years old college girl but if you look closely she is not even in the neighborhood of regular.
After Editing (example): Rhea Bayer is your regular 20 year old college girl. She's the type of person who looks innocent and friendly on the outside. But if you take a closer look, you'll notice she's not even in the neighborhood.
This is something you can do with Hayden's as well. Even out the information with Rhea's, and add more to Hayden's. Moving on, there was one grammatical error that I found in your summary. When you talk about Rhea and Hayden, I believe the word 'years' wasn't supposed to be plural. It should have been 'Rhea Bayer is your regular 20 year old college girl.' But otherwise, your summary was wonderful!
Character Building: 3.8/5
Your characters are very easy to follow since the book is written from different perspectives. I love how Hayden and Rhea have the same voice and thoughts, but just different perspectives most of the time. I was thinking about how it was going to be easy to understand with the different points of view, but you pulled it off. That's probably because of the interactions between the characters.
I have a few pointers that might help. I'll start off with the one that I think is the most important. This is introducing too many characters at once. At first, there were about seven characters you told the reader about. This was before the book even started because you had a chapter for the main characters. While this was helpful after I came back to it after I finished the book, it was very confusing at the beginning.
Instead of talking about all the main characters in that chapter itself, I encourage you to describe them in the story. When they show up, maybe include a few sentences about their aspects and attributes. This will help the reader remember them more. Rhea and Hayden are more like the main characters. They appeared several times so it was easy to remember them.
One other thing I wanted to mention was about showing vs. telling. Now when it comes to writing, these always cross the border at points. When I read through what you wrote, there were times that you could have shown more. In chapter one, you talk about Emma and Rhea. Since they're best friends, maybe you can talk more about that. Do they both know what to expect from each other? Tell the reader more about that!
Also, the dialogue in your book was awesome. It was engaging and intriguing without being confusing at all. I loved how you used such easy-to-follow words when the characters were talking to each other. It didn't disrupt the flow of your story and I was able to read through it and understand it. Great job with the dialogue. It also matches the internal voice of each and every one of the characters. None of it is incorrect when you look at the word choice used.
Going back to their personalities, I thought the diversity between everyone was amazing. Rhea and Hayden are so different from each other that it's nicely put together. Even with their differences, you managed to make it easy to understand. They were perfect and fantastic as the main characters!
Grammar: 3.4/5
Okay, so your work can be polished and edited more. There were many minor errors throughout your story. This includes run-on sentences, switching the tense, missing punctuation, and errors with dialogue. Most of all, the main problem was the punctuation with the dialogue you used. Since that was the most common mistake, I'll be starting off with it.
Your dialogue was written in different formats scattered in your story. While it was still very realistic and put together well, it's the grammar part of it that needs work. Make sure there's no extra space when you write it. It should always look like this:
One: "Dialogue," dialogue tag.
Two: "Dialogue." Dialogue tag in the form of a full sentence.
Three: "Dialogue," add dialogue tag. "More dialogue."
These aren't all of the formats, but they were the ones I saw most in the story. Try to keep to this when you write dialogue. That should help with the grammar a little, too. Now for the punctuation for the same concept. I noticed that you often didn't use punctuation after sentences. For example:
Before Editing: I chuckle at that and say "It's okay but just so you know I'm blaming you both when we don't reach the office on time."
There should be some more punctuation here. First of all, a comma should be placed after the word 'say.' This should always happen when there are words in front of dialogue. Secondly, there's also supposed to be a comma in between the words 'know' and 'I'm.'
After Editing: I chuckle at that and say, "It's okay but just so you know, I'm blaming you both when we don't reach the office on time."
In chapter one, I found an almost run-on sentence and a tense switch. I encourage you to shorten the sentence and stick to one tense. If you'd like to keep some parts from the sentence, then you can change it to more than one sentence. Here is where I found both mistakes:
Before Editing: "This or that" I said to my phone which is currently propped up against my toothbrush holder and you can see a very sleep deprived Emma helping me choose what to wear for work.
'I said to my phone' | said = past tense
'which is currently' | is = present tense
To fix this, you can change the word 'said' to 'say.' The rest of your story was written in present tense, so I would keep it like that. To change it so it isn't a run-on sentence anymore, you can split up into different sentences. After that, it might look something like this:
After Editing: "This or that" I said to my phone. It's currently propped up against my toothbrush holder. You can also see a very sleep deprived Emma helping me choose what to wear for work.
Moving on, you can also work on your ellipses (...). If you use one, the first word after it should always be capitalized. Just think of it as a brand new sentence. Plus, make sure you capitalize the letter 'I' in every sentence. I found a couple of mistakes that didn't follow this, so I recommend you check your work when you edit it. Also, you can keep this in mind for future chapters and it would be very helpful!
To go over some of the points I mentioned, I found a paragraph that applied to most of them. Here is the paragraph from chapter three:
Before Editing: "Ahh okay ai get it, let me take Emma on call too so she gets to know what happened today. And also for the fact that I won't have to repeat things twice"
After Editing: "Ahh! Okay. I get it. Let me take Emma on call too so she gets to know what happened today. And also for the fact that I won't have to repeat things twice."
I encourage you to take some time to read your book aloud and fix any mistakes that you might find. If you need additional assistance, I have a few resources that I recommend. You can use Grammarly, which underlines regular spelling and grammar mistakes in red. It's an extension, and the other one is Hemingway Editor. This will highlight hard-to-read sentences, too many adverbs, and more things like that. Your grammar may need some more work, but I'm sure you can do it!
Writing Style: 4/5
Your writing style was pretty great. You describe the characters in a wonderful way. It's as if I'm right there with Rhea, and I can imagine exactly what it's like for her. That's amazing, and I also love the variety of perspectives you used. There were a few things that could have made it better, though. The first one I would like to focus on is cliffhangers.
Your cliffhangers were well-planned and were steady with the plot. However, I think there could have been more to them. Even if you give a very dramatic scene or flashback for the ending of a chapter, it would have a large impact on the reader. That also helps with keeping them interested, since there are probably exciting parts often.
One part that I did love was when Hayden requested to be friends with Rhea on Instagram. You did that part perfectly. It was amazing how the events from before built up to that. In my opinion, it probably wasn't a full-on cliffhanger just yet. But I did love it nonetheless.
Another thing is the descriptions. Even if it's written from Rhea's perspective, that doesn't mean there's less room for detail. You did include some descriptions, but there's always room for more. Wherever they go, there can be more powerful imagery to captivate the reader. The use of literary devices and figurative language can be spread throughout the book as well.
Even the use of extensive word choice or more powerful vocabulary plays a huge role in this. It doesn't necessarily have to be complicated or chunky, but a larger variety. The writing style could be improved, but I still enjoyed it!
Plot + Originality: 5/5
At first glance, I thought the concept was already really popular. When I kept reading your book though, I found out just how many twists and turns you included. It made it much more interesting and intriguing to read. I loved everything about it, especially Rhea and Hayden's past. I can't wait to find out more about that. I've wondered about Hayden's dad and who he really is.
As for the plot, it's outstanding. Their secrets, the conflict, and how two very different people end up becoming more like friends. Your chapters are fantastic and connect back to the plot clearly. All the paragraphs take some part in the plot, and I love it all! Great job here!
OVERALL SCORE: 20.1/25
Overall, a great story so far! You've done a great job with the plot and characters. Try to work on the grammar and edit your book some more. Other than that, I'm amazed by your story! You have a talent for writing, and I enjoyed reading your story. Hope this review was able to help you!