Title: Deja Vu by 4everSherlocked
Source: ELGANZA, INC. | AWARDS by TheCieloCommunity

Category: Thriller

Mature: Y (blood, death, guns, loss of a loved one, mental health issues, murder, torture)
LGBTQIAP+: N

Status: Ongoing

Special note (judging): I had four books in this category, and the other judges (HavvySnow, prk_hoonieee, TJDW1989) had four books each.
Result: 96/100

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book, or click the link in the inline comments here. → 

*****

Rubric:
- Title: 5
- Book cover: 5
- Description (blurb): 5
- Plot & storytelling: 15
- Character development: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar: 10
- Originality & creativity: 10
- Emotional impact: 10
- Pacing & structure: 5
- Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5
- Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10
Total: 100

*****

Total: 96/100

Title: 5/5
Ah, déjà vu. Such a fun word. If you want to get really fancy, you could put the accents over the "e" and "a," but it's such a pain to find them in the special characters menu, so I'm not bothered that you didn't include them.

Cover: 5/5
I love this cover. Everything goes together so well. My only suggestion would be to bump up the size on your name at the top just a hair, so it's a little easier to read, but otherwise, the imagery, font style, placement, and color are all perfect. Kudos to EstelleKnightrise.

Blurb: 3/5
I'm not a fan of starting blurbs with quotes or story excerpts, because there's very limited space in the blurb preview, so you need to use that space wisely. If you want to keep the quote, I'd move it to the bottom and push the blurb itself to the top. As for the blurb, the content is good, but there's a lot of repetition of "nightmares" which you could easily cut down to make this more concise with a stronger hook. There's also a singular/plural mismatch in the third sentence. Just changing "the realistic nightmares is" to "they're" fixes that, and in the fourth sentence, you can change "that the nightmares" to "they," and there you go. Repetition gone.

Addendum: There's a disclaimer in the author's note that the blurb may not match the story, as you generated it during story conception. I'm sure you already plan on doing this, but I'd recommend reevaluating it after you finish writing the story, and if needed, change it to better reflect the finished product.

Plot & storytelling: 15/15
This is a really interesting concept, and it is not turning out the way I'd expected at all. The sci-fi elements are interesting. I like the way you did Soobin and Yeonjun's perspectives until they finally met, and while I was guessing there was a parallel universe situation before they threw that idea out there, I'm not sure if that's really what's going on yet. The mysteries keep piling on top of each other.

Character development: 10/10
I'm not really familiar with Tomorrow x Together, and while I've read another fanfic including them, I couldn't get a feel for the members' individual personalities at all in that story. You're doing a much better job of making this accessible to people outside of the fandom. I'm not sure how accurate Soobin's character is to the real member, since your character is dealing with grief and loss, but there are glimpses of his past with Yeonjun that make me think he's normally a happy, playful guy. Hueningkai is well-meaning, but his impulsive, off-the-wall ideas are often quite bizarre. Yeonjun seems like a responsible, level-headed guy, although I think Beomgyu is the primary authority figure in the group. As for Taehyun, he's willing to go along with Hueningkai's crazy ideas while telling him how nuts they are. I don't have a full handle on everybody yet, because you're unfolding them like flowers, and I get to know more about them in each chapter. But that makes the characters more believable and realistic. I'm getting to know them the same way I'd get to know a person in real life: over time.

Writing style: 9/10
Overall, you have a great, flowing writing style. It's very descriptive, with vivid imagery and splashes of humor throughout, and it's very engaging. You're really good at pulling the reader into the story through your characters. There are some issues with awkward phrasing here or there, usually related to the order of prepositional phrases in a sentence or excessive wordiness, but the story is clear, regardless. If you're not using an editing tool already, you might want to look into one with style suggestions to help you catch those things. This is an area where I've had to do a lot of work myself, and just seeing the colored underlines pointing out something I could improve has been very helpful for me to recognize where I'm not quite as clear as I'd like and trigger me to start playing around with wording and structure.

Grammar: 9/10
Your grammar is really solid. When I find issues, they're usually one-offs, so I think most of them are just things you overlooked when you were proofreading. You have a tendency to under-use commas, and there are some words here or there that maybe should be hyphenated. Some of your semicolons should probably be commas, and I already mentioned prepositional phrases above, but there are times where I think swapping the actual preposition for another word might be a better choice. You sometimes use multiple phrases that begin with "as" in the same sentence, too. That's another area where you can play with sentence structure.

Originality & creativity: 10/10
Well, I already talked about how this story is nothing like what I expected, and your word choice in your descriptions is just gorgeous. That description of Soobin going out to watch the sunrise was perfection. But you don't just hit the visual details. You include all the senses, making a more immersive experience for the reader and bringing more realism into the story.

Emotional impact: 10/10
For me, the key to this category is character development, which you have down pat. Soobin's grief and depression hits home, as does his friends' concern for him and efforts to help him feel better and get some sleep. So, yes, I chuckle when Hueningkai comes up with a stupid idea, like literally holding Soobin down in bed so he can't move, hoping that will be enough for him to get some sleep, and I feel Yeonjun's pain when he has to watch these friends that aren't exactly his friends, hoping his version of them are still alive somewhere.

Pacing & structure: 5/5
Spot on. Perfect.

Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5/5
Free points. Yay! 🙂

Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10/10
I'm really enjoying this story. For one thing, it's refreshing to find a well-written story without any swearing, and for another, you're a really good writer. I'd probably classify this as sci-fi before thriller, but it has plenty of thriller elements, so I think it fits in this category. And I hope you get back to working on it soon. I want to know what happens next!