Word Count: 1624

Title: Perfect Mistakes

Genre: Romance

Blurb: Lulu Fox and her lucky locket are the key to fame, success, and all that is golden in the streets of New York City; at least, that'd be true if the trinket weren't stolen before her very eyes.

Suddenly alone where dreams are crushed beneath yellow taxis, Lulu turns to Fletcher, the one person who picked her up when being miserable was much more than a status update (she's made quite a habit of that).

Fletcher knows the streets, but what he doesn't know is that he's robbed a small-town girl of her lovestruck heart.

Undoubtedly, racing to the big city was a huge mistake, and abandoning her schooling for fame can be called off as a huge misunderstanding. But now, she's made the most daring mistake of all - falling for the flaunting thief who took away the necklace holding her dreams.

Status: Ongoing

~

Starting Points: 30

Cover: There's nothing wrong with it, if you commonly read romance books. It fits the genre so I won't make a huge fuss over it. Your targeted audience will lap it up. No points lost.

Title: Corny, but expected. Its kind of suspecting that romance writers on wattpad don't opt for a title with meaning, or that isn't "slickly" found in the summary. *Stares into the camera*

Summary: This would actually be half good if their wasn't several tense jumps in the beginning, odd wording and word choice, and grammar issues. Nonetheless, this is decent enough. Its doing its job, says everything that needs to be said, has a clear plot. Alright. I'd opt for a new one, but no points off.

Plot: A coming of age (or should I say fame? Ha) story where a girl falls in love with her thief? Wow. Sounds like a local news headline in Florida. Let's read!

Opening thoughts:

-Excerpt: "Nearly everyone has a comfort zone that determines which situation where you feel most safe or at ease." Ew. Why does this sound like something out of a rom-com movie when the main protagonist starts off their shitty movie in narration? Anyway, this is cliche and isn't my cup of tea, but I've read worse and I'm not internally bleeding, so I call that promising! Still taking away a point though. (-1)

-I've just realized that this chapter is taking the overdone "starting-off-your-book-like-it's-an-extension-of-your-summary" route and the bleeding has begun. That was quick! (-3)

-Yikes, this entire chapter is exposition. All of it is trying to make the audience think the protagonist is Relateable™ by spewing everything we don't care or asked to know about this character. Stop trying to "win" the audience over with your cheap tactics and get on with the story. No one cares that you're antisocial and claustrophobic, Nancy #959078. Keep your non-consented biography to yourself, and go choke on a bagel. (-5)

-The first chapter consisted of an obnoxious amount of exposition, complaining, awkwardly long descriptions of train passengers bumping into each other, and a pretty stale cliffhanger. The only reason I'm still reading is because you still have points left *sighs* (-5)

Characters:

-Lulu Fox. The narrator we have been cursed with, and who apparently is surrounded with people who laugh at a hole in a sweater because they clearly have been living under a rock for the past couple of years where that has been a legitimate popular fashion trend. Unless this book is set in 2010 or something, those girls should have never been mentioned.

-Guy on the train who is CLEARLY going to rob Lulu Fox. That's it. There's nothing much to his character at the moment. He's just some weird dude who smirks at people on the train with Ian "I-have-a-villian's-face-and-I'm-overrated" Somerholder's face, wearing a goddamn trench coat. I can't even laugh. (-2)

-Oh wait, never mind, robber guy may not actually have Ian Somerholder's face after all! In my defense, this could have been easily confused since creepy robber dude was the first male introduced and Lulu thought he was a thief when in the summary it specifically says that the guy she will fall for is an actual thief. That or there's some very questionable wording going on in that summary. Either way, I'm innocent! The real character with Ian Somerholder is far much worse though and I hope he gets Gonorrhea. (-3)

Dialogue:

-It's not good. (-2)

Inconsistencies (if any):

-Excerpt: "At this moment as I'm talking to myself--"

-Uh...I don't think the author understands the concept of narration in writing. If you're going for a breaking the fourth wall thing where the narrator/the protagonist realizes their narrating their own story/doesn't know who they're "talking to"...then okay? This isn't Deadpool, and that type of narration can be hard to pull off...and you did not pull it off (esp. since it doesn't seem very consistent, it's just random lol). It just made me uncomfortable. (-2)

-Okay, so guy who has Ian Somerholder's face guy just asked if Lulu here was "new around here" and she answered yes, which then he replied with a creepy smirk and "Hmm." Somehow her first reaction is that he's going to rob her. Strange, right? My first reaction was that he was going to kidnap and rape her. Either Lulu is naive or I'm being unreasonable.

-Excerpt: "I think he's my type." Mind you, this is what Lulu says inside of her head when she backs into some hot guy on the train, and I'm wheezing. You either know or you don't, Lulu. Obvious filling in the word count is obvious. (-1)

-Excerpt: "Suddenly, there was a hand. His hand on my chin, closing my mouth slowly.

Embarrassing! I didn't know my mouth was open.

I opened my mouth to apologize for staring, but he closed it. Again.

"Keep it closed, darling, there are a lot of perverts thinking of things to do with it."

-????¿????¿¿? What the fuck?¿¿ And you know what she did after that?? She B LU S H E D AND CHECKED TO SEE IF SHE WAS D R O O L I N G!

..............

(-764394545899807059940593674478970948589372897853985)

Likes/Dislikes:

-"This wasn't enjoyable, and I liked nothing!"--the nicest things I can say.

Grammar/Punctuation issues (if any, or if they're noticeable to me):

-Invest in a better editor because I'm catching a whole lot of silly errors. In other words, your editor isn't doing a good job. Fire them right now. You're going to have to find another way to pay the bills, Jill. (-3)

My Takeaway:

-This is another cliche-filled romance story, that lacks any sense of realism...or life that is. Everything that I read was void of substance. It wasn't necessarily hard to read compared to others--it just seemed pointless. There wasn't anything for me to grasp onto that I hadn't already read before, or anything for me to profusely hate on (besides the point where I ended my reading ha) because it was just so eh. There are thousands, maybe millions, of books on wattpad that are like this and it makes me wonder how people can actually find it fun to write about such overdone formulas or read them. I kind of envy them in my own sad, pathetic way because at least they don't have to suffer through text like these (Holy, I sound super pretentious. Quick! Someone through a boulder at my head! Hard!). Really, this isn't an insult on the writer but more of a, "harsh" if you will, critique on writers or the stages of writers go through on a whole. I would know, I'm not above it and I went through it. Still am, actually. I'm currently in the: "I'm better at the thing but now what" stage. So think of this "drag" as a self critique within a self critique...of the self-critique. Ha.

-Amateur writers write these cliched...things because of their own exposure to writings of this sort, so they aren't solely at fault for following this formula (not necessarily true though since some people follow formulas to get a desired result out of something, usually recognition or reads. Also everyone has freewill, or so they say--never mind I'm not getting into the whole philosophical discussion about that...). My issue with it is that it needs to end, and in my dreams, I would love to see that it happens. Don't know if it it'll ever happen though because why would it? Its like the film industry spewing out "passable" movies because they're simpler to write and usually bring people to the theaters. No one will stop since it brings in results, so this makes my ranting seem just as pointless as the two chapters I read. Hey, its like a full circle!

-I know this is the only the start of you writing creatively, but I don't know. It just seems that this type is swarmed on sites like wattpad, and I'm tired of you all writing caricatures of the last book you read, then leading someone to do the same to yours, and the cycle repeats itself in a torturous loop. Kill it with fire. However, it's a disturbing watch that is here to stay, so it seems.

Why/When I stopped reading: I died, plus you lost all of the rest of your points thanks to that horrendous scene between Lulu and guy with Ian Somerhalder's face. *Fart noise*

*Drum rolls*

BHR'S VERY FIRST DUST STORM GIF!!!! How fancy!

....

Enjoy!

*Goes to sleep because it's 4 am and I have a full day of procrastination to get to*