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Review by Sunshine: Disastrously Tangled

Title: Disastrously Tangled

Author: Scintillahx

Summary: 3.5/5

Kind of a typical bad-boy romance summary. I like how you introduce the two characters separately, as well as a brief snapshot of who they are and what they will bring to the story. I do like the use of rhetorical question – however, make sure you don't use too many. Also, to make the summary more cohesive and related to the story, you could perhaps mention how Hazel meets Ethan.

Also, your tenses keep shifting from past to present. You say that she has her whole life planned out (present). A letter came from Toronto (past). She's a selfless, kind-hearted girl (present). It keeps changing every sentence – keep it to one tense so that it's consistent. Additionally, the sentence about how she's selfless and kind-hearted feels a bit out of place; that's something that isn't required in the summary, and doesn't connect to anything else in said summary.

Additionally, instead of:

What happens when she encounters

Ethan Rivers?

Try keeping that all in one sentence:

What happens when she encounters Ethan Rivers? 

Grammar: 2.5/5

Okay, so while you didn't really make a broad range of mistakes, the mistakes you did make were rather consistent throughout your chapters. Hence, I thought it would be apt to systematically go through them with you.

First of all, let's talk about dialogue. I noticed you tended to avoid verbal dialogue tags, and I couldn't help but wonder whether it was because you weren't sure how to punctuate them. But, before we jump into that, let's dive into a bigger issue – paragraphing with dialogue.

Basically, whenever a new character is speaking, the new speaker's dialogue should be in a new paragraph. For example:

Emma interrupted my thoughts, asking. "Are you going to school, Hazey? Why can't you stay with us?" I kneeled down, caressing her chocolate brown hair and putting on a fake smile to reassure the little girl in front of me. "Well... This school is different. They teach us about unicorns and rainbows there so I have to go and learn, that way I can bring you a unicorn when I come back." I winked at her as I whispered the last phrase.

First of all, why would they not have properly explained to Emma that she was going to college before the day she went to college? That aside, back to grammar, it should be:

Emma interrupted my thoughts, asking, "Are you going to school, Hazey? Why can't you stay with us?"

I kneeled down, caressing her chocolate brown hair and putting on a fake smile to reassure the little girl in front of me. "Well... This school is different. They teach us about unicorns and rainbows there, so I have to go and learn. That way, I can bring you a unicorn when I come back." I winked at her as I whispered the last phrase.

Now, let's talk about dialogue tags. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Oh... So you are safe." I mumbled.

It should be

"Oh... So you are safe," I mumbled.