Title: Lost and Found

Genre: Romance

Author: marshmelow_you 

Rating: Mature

# of Chapters: 19 (Ongoing)

# of Chapters I've read: 2

Summary/Blurb: 

He dreamt of her even though he knew that she did not exist.

She waited for him even after knowing that he's gone, forever.

Chris havens having a dreamy personality every girl dreams of, is himself lost in a dream. A dream he keeps dreaming ever since he remembers. Afraid of revealing his cliché dreams, would he actually find a solution?

Cindy Greene had to face a terrible incident at the age of 17 just when she thought she was gonna have her happily ever after. Would she ever move on or be stuck forever?

Get lost in the amazing stories of Chris and Cindy as the secrets unfold.

Review: 

Cover: 

I like the simplicity of your cover and its warm colour scheme.

It's a noticeable trend in Romance stories to show both protagonists on the cover, usually in provocative poses. This basically implies that a Romance novel has to contain smut to draw in potential readers, which is 100% false, and creates unrealistic expectations for writers/readers.

You gravitate away from that by placing your characters in a lovely wheat field (kind of down-to-earth/rustic) and showing affection for one another without having to be half-naked. This already tells me a lot about the story; I'm expecting the setting to be some kind of small town/suburban neighbourhood, and puppy love between the main characters. Overall, nice job.

Blurb:

I'm not given enough information in the blurb to make me want to read the story, in fact, I'm unsure about what the plot is meant to be. From what I understand, Chris has a recurring dream about this girl he's never met, while Cindy has gotten into some kind of car accident, and the trauma from it makes it hard for her to move on with her life and live like a 'normal teenage girl'.

These are the two individual characters, but there seem to be no parallels drawn between—so is Chris having dreams about Cindy? Or is it some other girl? How does Cindy meet Chris? Do they go to the same school? Are they friends? These questions (and more) shouldn't be surfacing this early in the game. I haven't even read the first chapter! Don't rely on rhetorical questions (e.g. "Would she ever move on or be stuck forever?" / "Afraid of revealing his cliché dreams, would he actually find a solution?") to capture the attention of the reader, because if anything, these wards them off. 

Remember, the blurb is the second thing potential readers look at (the first being the cover). Even if the cover might be awesome, if the blurb isn't as good, a lot of people will click on the skip the work and move onto the next one. So work on making this blurb more eye-catching—I like the premises, but you have to sell it to the reader. 

Now, for the story!

First Impression: 

The beginning was so sweet, it almost gave me diabetes. It was like a scene out of a Romance movie, where everything is so beautiful and the characters are so in love and—bleh. You know what? I might actually go to the doctor and get a blood test or something, I can already feel my pancreas failing. (I've never heard of the nickname 'sweet candy' *shudders*) 

The first chapter was a little short for my taste; a lot more could have been added into it. Two things could be expanded upon are the setting and the introduction of the main character.

The dream to me seemed real, but I would've liked the meadow to be described using sensory details. All the reader knows is this: "The place where we are lying right now, is a huge field of daffodils. The sun is glistening bright and I have the most beautiful girl in my arms." Basically, I'm being told what the scene is, and then a picture is added to illustrate this. 

Don't rely on multimedia to do the describing for you—the image is supposed to enhance your writing, not serve as a crutch for it. So when describing the meadow, ask yourself this: What do I see, smell, hear, taste, hear? Make a list of these things, and then incorporate this into your writing. 

Writing Style: 

There are a lot of elementary grammatical and punctuational errors which could be fixed with a simple once-over (don't get an editor until you fix as much as grammar as you can yourself). Although this didn't interrupt the flow of the writing, it did make me wince. A couple of examples are:

a) "I" wasn't capitalised.

b) Issues with tenses; there is a tendency for the writing to fluctuate between past and present tense. Stick to one tense and one tense only. 

c) Sometimes you forgot to capitalize the first word of a new sentence.  

d) Misspelt some words, mostly homophones. 

The scenes are also very dialogue-heavy, and I was under the impression that at times you were trying too hard to make Chris and his friends behave like 'guys', which made them almost comical (even though that wasn't your intention). 

Characters: 

Chris— He's twenty years old, but is still in high school (It says that he goes to college, but it's called Boston High[school] so I'm torn). He's a virgin, wears leather jackets, and is captain of the football team. His social status and physical appearance are a paper-mâché  of different Teenfic clichés, but he seems like a genuinely nice guy, who just wants to know who the hell is that girl he keeps dreaming—I mean, wet-dreaming about. It's clear to me that he just needs to get laid. 

Adam— That homophobic younger brother, who at 16, and still going through puberty, is only now starting to explore his own sexuality. He's supposed to be smart, but he actually came across as ignorant. I guess it's 'homo' to hug your own brother. 

Sebastian—I like his name. He's a lot more experienced in that area and isn't afraid to talk about it. Is Chris' dudefriend. He's a POC, so I'm hoping that he won't be a walking a stereotype—if you need information on how to write POC characters, I suggest you check out Writing POC 101, here, on Wattpad. It has a lot of good resources to help writers write characters from pretty much everywhere in the world. Check it out if you're in a rut. 

Olivia—I hate her. She's that preppy, pretty girl who tries too hard in being flirtatious and sexy, instead ending up being a major pain in the butt. I mean, how thirsty can you be? Chris should giver her a bottle of water, maybe that will make her stop.

Diamond rating ♢ (1—10): 6

I was initially going to rate this a five—because of the faults in the sections other than the cover—but I like the premises of this story, and it has a lot of potential. 

It was a pleasure to read this, and good luck with the rest of it!