Book Title: Rip Current

Author:  WasatchWriter

Review:

1. Cover- The cover was surprisingly interesting, it consisted of the major theme which is the sea/ ocean background. There were however some discrepancies since you missed out on a few of the major elements of a cover. The author's name/ username was missing, also a short tagline of sorts will help attract the readers. One more thing, I suggest the addition of elements like an injured mermaid/ merman in the cover to increase the number of things it represents. Other than this, the color combinations and text style were very good.

2. Description- The summary covered all the things, it was written exceptionally well. Though the introduction of Irian at first makes him seem like an awful person considering his line of work, but I hope you will provide a proper background to cover up that part about his life. I noticed the absence of a hyphen in the term, 'head-on' which you used in the third paragraph. Its proper usage will ensure that the compound word you used makes sense, so be sure to add that. In the last paragraph, I think you meant to write 'in a frenzy', so you missed a determiner there. Also, in the second line of the same paragraph, you used the wrong form of the word 'care'. 'Does' will not go with 'cares', so I suggest you use the base form of the word. That is; "who does he care about more..."

Then, the last question seems a bit odd. It expresses how the character is standing at crossroads wondering whether he should care about those close to him or those he barely knows just for the sense of justice. While this does create a hero type aura for Irian, it kind of clashes with his personality. I'm not gonna dictate how you represent your character through this question, but I would suggest a change in the terminology of the same.

3. Grammar- I will focus on the first paragraph of the 1st chapter here and give you a point by point description and suggestions. For the rest, I'll be pointing out the major errors I found throughout the story.

Irian had known that coming to a coast city was going to be a jarring experience. But, he hadn't expected it to be this jarring(a).The street thug looked up at him, his bottom on the ground and(b) a bruise developing on his face. Irian's own(c) bruise stung, but he gritted his teeth against the pain. "I ain't gonna let someone like you shove me around," he said to the thug. The man looked not too much older than him, is(d) his early twenties maybe."Why you stupid idjit(e)," the thug said. "I'm gonna punch you in the nose so hard your eyeballs ill' come out of your ears. (f)"

(a) Usage of the word 'jarring' twice in the same para, and that also in subsequent lines puts of the beauty of words. I'd suggest using something like, exasperating, or vexing. Or you can use simpler words like, annoying or irritating.

(b) Here, you missed a comma before the "and", this acts as a serial comma which is used after the last object of a series and the coordinating conjunction.

(c) Using 'own' after mentioning the fact that it's Irian's bruise creates a tautology, that is subsequent usage of similar words that express the same information twice. So, I'd suggest the removal of "own" form here.

(d) I think you meant "in his twenties" or "probably in his twenties".

(e) Incorrect spelling of "idiot", also I'd suggest using a bit more colorful word to describe this emotion of the thug if you get what I mean.

(f) The sentence structure is in itself faultless, but it doesn't seem like something a thug would say, it's also a bit cringy. I'd suggest going through some violent scenes in books to get a proper understanding of these kinds of threats. My favorite is a dialogue from the movie Dabangg (Actor Salman Khan), which goes something like, "Hum tum mein itne ched karenge, ki confuse ho jaoge ke saans kahan se le aur paade kahan se." This roughly translates to, "I'll riddle you with so many holes, that you'll be confused... From where to breathe and from where to fart." *fangirl moment*

Besides these, I think the major grammatical discrepancies lie in the fact that a bit editing is required, so my only suggestion would be going through the whole story word by word, cutting out extra descriptions, flowery imagery, and some things like that.

4. Character Building- Can I just say that Irian's character is awesome? I mean, at first, I was prejudiced against him considering his line of work, but the way his character developed from that to someone sensitive is like really great. I admire the fact that you were able to bend his character traits in such a manner. Tarn's character was sweet, I liked his nature, he gave off a humanist vibe, so that was a plus. Mr. Derkin, though most probably hated, was an ambiguous character. He reminded me of Long John Silver from the movie 'The treasure planet', somebody who does terrible things, but probably has a touchy reason for the same, or a convincing personality to balance out his wrongs. No other words are required, the character building of your book was excellent.

5. Plot- The plot in itself is very interesting, I was absorbed into the lives of the characters right from the first chapter. I felt that the pacing of the plot was also well managed and topics like changing clothes, baseless conversations were avoided. I have nothing to add on to this as I felt that it balanced out everything quite well. Also, the story was something out f the blue, so you gained extra points in the originality section.

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~theloner