REVIEW DONE BY: AimForTheTop

Summary:

So we have Emma, our average teen if I may say, she is a senior and has a group of friends. She obviously enjoys their company since her life isn't that easy and she feels comfortable around them. However her life is bound to change once Noah joins her school and seems to be one of her acquaintances from her former school. Anyway this guy has a crush on her and she surely isn't glad to learn that because of the past they shared together.

Chap 1:

The beginning of this chapter is average. And by that I mean, you described the sunlight waking up a girl ; the main protagonist and it's her first day of school, I couldn't help but notice the repetition of ideas you have in only the first paragraph and the hardships you faced to put up with finding the right words.

For example :

We first have the issue of waking up, you said the sun rays woke up our charming protagonist, she blinks and turns her back to the sun just as her alarm goes off. But the girl was originally asleep right ? So how do you blink while being asleep, I can understand that you slightly open your eyes as the sunlight fills them, but blinking means your eyes were already open which implies you weren't asleep, which is not the case here.

You also said she'll be late for school and that this task is not her « priority list » which I'm pretty sure isn't a thing people have, you can have a wish list or a list that states your goals in life, so I think you just expressed yourself in a wrong way since « priority list » doesn't really fit in the sentence, and it weakens the meaning.

You did describe the clothes which is good, but there is no description of the girl herself, as in no facial features were described ( color of the eyes, the hair, maybe her height...) instead there is a photo, that states you being weak at the description of looks. Might wanna get back on that and maybe say she looked at herself in the mirror she was a mess and get to describing her.

We can see Emma's relationship with her dad ain't that good, and we then discover she has a brother. Little comment on that, if her father is drowned down in work and her mother is no longer a part of this world, then that means as the only girl in the family Emma should care for her brother and maybe look after him no matter his age which we didn't learn yet.

Also the father said « we'll be staying here » is he a mafia boss, maybe an ambassador or something like why do they keep moving around a lot ? That's been bothering me a little while reading.

Okay I gotta be honest the sentence « dying a death » doesn't make any sense. How do you die a death, you could die in pain or drown down in sorrow but as far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as « dying a death » you might wanna change that into a more accurate expression.

There is the fact that we learned nothing about Emma's brother. I mean it is her brother a goodbye before heading to school wouldn't hurt right ? Or at least his name...

The second part of this chapter starts out in a cliche way, people at school, I can't blame you for that, like what else than class can happen at school, however there are some mistakes you made while building the sentences and I'm having a hard time figuring out what you mean for example when you said « i met my other best friends merely in passing » that's grammatically wrong. I figured you met she barely had the time to any of them but that's not the right way to express it, you could say « i barely had the time to meet my besties i just glanced at them while passing through the hallways » you can also replace « among the lectures » by « between the lectures »

I really like that we got a description of Zach and Hailey's relationship, attraction is important when you wanna make a couple shine.

I like how you said in the form it's not LQBTQ+ but that Brandon is a guy, had a boyfriend and they broke up XD

Sarcasm aside now, to sum up all about this chapter, I'm gonna start with the weak points, I can see you're not the best at character development you need to work more on their personalities since it's a big group of friends you gotta give a slice of everyone's personal touch in the story, if you can't then lessen the people in their group of friends. I will also add that you need to work more on the characters' description, I still can't think of anyone's looks and am still interested in Emma's brother's identity.

A weird element I have noticed. Trevor is bugged that his sister didn't call him earlier so he was worried, just like any other brother would be, but why didn't he call her to check on her ? It is your storyline and you are the one to decide the actions but it only makes sense that Trevor at least tries calling. And it would be more interesting if we got his POV of this whole situation, instead of staying on Emma's POV for the whole chapter.

Now there are some grammatical errors here, you repeated "call" many times in the same sentence, repetition can be a bother to the readers, also when you say "i decided against telling him about Noah" what's the point of calling him then ? Plus the sentence doesn't make that much sense, when we use the word "against" it is more in the concept of battle or contrary, but here "against" doesn't fit in the sentence so i suggest replacing it by "I decided not to tell him about Noah" or adding a twist to the sentence would give it more flavor like you can say "I decided I will keep the Noah affair a secret for now and won't bother Trevor with it" that could also work.

Okay so you cannot use "just" and "at least" in the same sentence they practically mean the same thing so you're basically just making your sentence longer and could cause boredom to the readers including me. You can simply say "next time at least think of leaving a message".

Chap 4:

This chapter is by far the best one in this story... I finally see a plot twist, something that'll change the story's normal high school events. Something that will get the readers to hang in to the story. I gotta give it to you, this chapter had a good description plus a good theory proven. We know Noah has something to do with Emma's past but we have yet to know what and that is intriguing it does make the plot better plus it made me personally want to read what comes next.

Chap 5:

I wanna say good job ! You finally shared with us Noah's POV in all this. We know he loves Emma, and has something to do with her past, however we still do not know what that is. I really like the fact that you worked harder on this chapter it is noticeable even the dialogue is more fluet it feels like i can see the scene happen in front of me, i really do like Noah and Madeline's sibling relationship and honestly am impressed you made me like the relation they have in less than three lines. I gotta give it to you the 4th and 5th chapters are by far better than the first three chapters.

Conflicts:

Well I did point out some of the flaws in each chapter, I can say there is a good plot twist I wouldn't expect it in Romance book but what can I say ? You did it and you nailed it. There is a mystery, there is an unknown past leading to reader's curiosity.

Plot:

Since the moment Noah joined the school the plot has been slightly revealed. By the end of chapter 1 we did see that Noah seemed familiar to Emma and that issue was discussed later in chapter 4 which makes the plot develop slowly making it enjoyable to read. The plot definitely is promising, it is good and can make the story a success if you don't blow it on cliche romance that is. So I would suggest you carefully draft the upcoming chapters.

Pacing:

There are lots of repetitions somewhere along Emma and her friends being at the library. Repetition is clearly visible in many sentences, so a check up to change and fix this would be an option. In addition to all this, I would also like to point out that the scenes are fast, the actions happen quickly that is very good and the sentences were perfect for them.

Tension:

There is tension created along these chapters, starting with the chapter 4 the twist is thrown in the book, so it is the good kind of tension that makes you wanna keep up with the book's updates.

Setting and Locales:

I did say the description was good, but it depends on what you were describing. The description of the actions is good, yet we didn't get to see much of Emma's surroundings, for example when she's home we didn't get an idea about what her room looks like, at school we only got a glimpse at the lockers, you must make the description more vaste.

POV:

We saw two different POVs in these 5 chapters there was Emma's point of view along with Noah's both were well done. You get into character pretty well, there were some details to fix in the first two chapters but then starting from chapter 3 til the end it got better and that means you improved. So I so suggest you edit your first chapters to make them a better experience to all readers.

However we got a simple glimpse of the feelings here that is quite disturbing it is a love story, thoughts have to be messed up, the heart needs to find its way. I didn't see the obsession the madness the "love" in any of these chapters, I mainly noticed Emma being bothered or a little down and Noah being embarrassed by his feelings of jealousy.

Finally I would like to discuss the title. "Encounter with the past" doesn't give off the vibe you're trying to send. You should go with something like "chasing past" or "unpleasant encounter" maybe even "Past mistakes" all these go with the flow of the plot.

Overview:

And now the moment you've been waiting for, my opinion on this book. Generally speaking I am not into romance books, but you somehow managed to get me into this story, the plot holds mystery and a past kept from everyone, uncovering it might be hard and is a road full of hardships. So the book is a good one, promising to say the least ! However besides the catchy plot there are some repetitions, and other problems among the character development that need to be fixed. We barely know anything about the personality of any character and missing those details could ruin this book.