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ooooooooooooookayyyyyyyyyy Why am I the first?

Not that I'm complaining.

Just wondering.

On to the review?

(Why Cat? Seriously, why? Why not Dog or Llama or Pig? Mouse, fly, spider? *Sigh*)

Skinsy, this was not my favourite chapter. It felt off to me, completely off, and I don't recall EVER saying something like that about your writing.

My first issue was with Zoey's interpretation of Charlie's tight lips. Why would she assume he's trying not to smile? Tight lipped is usually upset, mad or something to that effect.

I don't understand why Alan's hanging around when he thinks Zoey's so weird.

Lindsey opened her bright red lips to say something, but had no choice but to close them again when Charlie turned to me and began speaking

Speaking.........about what? What did he say?

While Charlie continued speaking to me, I felt myself grinning.

Although I loved what happened before, I'm stil confused about how he went to sleeping on his desk, appearing horrified by Lindsey, then turning to speak with Zo. How in the world did he go from one to the other like that, and why isn't she relating his talk to us?

“So,” Lindsey’s sugar-coated voice interrupted our conversation before it had even started. S

What do you mean? What conversation? HE was the only one talking. She didn't think of it before, just said he was talking. What brilliant insight was she going to add? (not making sense? It did in my head. Maybe it will in yours too)

Charlie glanced at her and nodded. “Did you earn a scholarship here, or did you pay for it?”

I know our school systems aren't the same, but are you sure this sentence is correct? Shouldn't it have been, "Did you earn a scholarship here or are you paying your admittance/tuition?" Because, he can't pay for his scholarship, right?

“He had a singing audition,” Adam said, butting in. “I was there at the same time.”

This was so completely random. Why is Adam butting in? Unless he wanted to bash Charlie's audition, why didn't he shut up? I wanted to smack the little weasel. Maybe he just wanted to get her attention?

“If You Don’t Wanna Love Me by James Morrison.” Charlie’s answer was rather emotionless and frank.

You don't need to put the artist in italics, only the titles.

“Charlie, I don’t have Alzheimer’s. I don’t even think that’s possible at my age.” I shrugged, still with a smile on my face. “I’ve already done my History GCSEs, so I’m starting my A-Level for it early.”

I'm feeling really really dumb right now but: huh? Why is Zoey defending herself? Why is she randomly coming out with this info when it was obvious Charlie was mocking Lindsey? Why was it important for her to share this now?

When it came to Charlie though, it was different. I didn’t think he had a clue about who I was, who my sister was, or what had happened to her. My guess was that he didn’t live locally, so he hadn’t heard about it. The police had strived to keep it as low key as possible at the request of my parents, and so far, they’d done an impressive job. As for Charlie, he seemed clueless about the whole incident.

Yes, well, you've already mentioned that Charlie was clueless. Why repeat it?

Okay, that was it for the nitpicks. I'm feeling very jittery right now - too much caffeine, I think. Maybe I'm not making much sense, I'm not let, let me know and I'll reexplain after my coffee high.

I liked Charlie in this and I would have preferred it from his POV. After all, all Zo did was assume she understood his reactions, which means that the next chapter will be him explaining all these scenes again. We don't necessarily want to go through them, since we've seen them already.

This Zoey chapter was very un-Zoey like. Except for staying in the corner without any explaination (I mean, really? She cleans her locker, we know why. She arranges her bookshelf in her room, we know why. Everything she does has a reason, but not staying late after class?) She doesn't have any thought about him arriving late to school and his weird wear except to describe it. I thought for sure she'd have something funny to say but nope. Blank.

I think that was pretty much it for this chapter. I'm sorry I don't have many good things to say - I normally do. But I'm being honest. I liked the Charlie-parts in here, and that's about it. Let me know if this was helpful,

Lots of loff,

Tanya

Wowsies! Even though I've procrastinated reviewing this, I'm still the first! This is an historic moment. EDIT: Nevermind. Tanya has shattered my historic moment. Thanks, Tanya.

Anyhow. I'm not actually sure that there's much to say about this section since it's really just a continuation of the last one and therefore has a lot of the same elements that I discussed in my review of 4.1. This novel has made a lot of big changes while you're writing it--but I'm not going to talk about that either, since we've already discussed that.

I like the realization that William is Will. That took me completely by surprise and for a moment I didn't believe it was true. When he said "He's my brother" I honestly thought he was making a wild excuse. I guess I should have remembered that Will went to this school, but the truth is that the beginning of the novel feels like something separate from this in my mind, so I completely forgot. I was thinking William would turn out to be one of the kids that was with Aimee when she died, and that he had recognized Charlie from then, and... yeah. I realize now that that doesn't really make much sense, but it's what went through this sorry little head of mine. Also, didn't William mention that he has a sister in the last section? Is it just me or did Charlie and Will not have a sister? I honestly don't remember anything about a Black sister... It's just me? Okay, just checking.

I'm actually having trouble thinking of things to say about this. It's hard for me to critique it based on the previous chapters/sections, because everything is changing so much, and it's hard for me to critique it on its own because... come on... it's part of a novel; I can't just pretend it's a short story of something!

I'm really sorry to say this, because I know you the last thing you need is discouragement, but I am going to be perfectly honest and say that I'm feeling less enthusiastic about this novel than I was in the beginning. I think it might just be that this whole change of scene from crime to preppy highschool kind of loses me. It just feels kind of silly, with all the kids running around being kids. Now, I have a feeling you're probably capturing the school experience pretty well (I wouldn't know), but I still just find it rather boring. I also know it's probably just a phase and the novel is going to get gritty again. ^_~ But I think the part that's losing me the most is that as the setting starts to feel more superficial, so are the characters. I said I wouldn't talk about how your characters are changing... but I'm going to anyway.

See, I think your problem with your character inconsistencies comes from you getting carried away with what you're writing. If you want to create an image, then you exaggerate certain aspects of it to fit with your description. Everyone does that. I know I do that in my short stories! But it's hard to pull that off with a novel because there are certain things (i.e. characters) which should stay consistent throughout. I can only imagine how hard it must be to write a novel, and I have tremendous respect for you for doing it so well thus far, and I know it's a work in progress and your characters are still being created... but I can't help but be rather disappointed in how they're changing.

You asked me if I thought Charlie was too cocky. Yes, I do. He feels so much more... normal now. He feels like a caricature--a paradigm almost, of the messily attractive, cocky teenage male character that I've seen in so many novels and movies. He doesn't feel like Charlie anymore! I know he's still evolving, but he seems to be losing his originality, and I'm a bit disappointed in that. I mean, that commend about the bra color? It just feels like he's (or maybe you're) trying too hard. Anyway, I'll leave Charlie alone, since I know you two are having issues right now.

Anyhow, I'm still excited to see where this goes. I know you've got something good up your sleeve, and I have faith in you that you'll do it well. ^_~ I'm sorry if this is the least helpful review since sliced bread, but I honestly don't know what I can say without repeating myself. As always, I eagerly await thy next installment, good sir.

a

Hey Skins!

I read this a couple of days ago but didn't have time to review, so I'm back now, but sadly I don't really have anything constructive to say :/ I didn't catch any mistakes that haven't already been caught and I don't really have much advice for you.

I do agree with Azila about William though. I thought it was a good twist at first, having Zoey's stalker as Charlie's brother, but then I remembered that you'd mentioned William having a sister - the whole thing with him accidently insulting Zoey - and I couldn't remember you mentioning that Charlie had a sister. It's easy to fix though - you could either change up the exchange between Zoey and William in part 4.1, or you could give Charlie another sibling. The first would be a lot easier. You could however, be planning to introduce Charlie's sister later on - if that's so you can just ignore the paragraph I've just written

I'm still hooked to this story and I'd really like to see where you take this next. I like Adam's Character - the way you have Charlie insult him and the way he's trying to make friends with both Charlie and Zoey.

I did notice that in the earlier parts, Charlie is a lot more timid and shy - probably due to the huge secret he's keeping - but in this part, he suddenly seems like the guy all the girls fancy and I don't know if I'd imagined him being like that. I kind of thought he'd be more suited to being the class clown of sorts - I do like the way you write humour into the piece

Keep writing! I can't wait to read on

xDudettex