You Must Remember This by FranklinBarnes

Reviewer: samantha-writes

Cover: 1/5
— I'm not sure what the cover is supposed to be, and I've asked others for their opinions as well, and nobody has been able to figure it out. It just looks like either a bunch of different pictures were put on top of one another or it used to be one big picture that was clear and became morphed and confusing with heavy editing. I'd love to know where you found this picture or if you made it simply because I'm curious and it truly seems like artwork. However, as a cover it isn't very effective or fitting.
— I can somewhat see a theme in the cover. There is so much going on, and the different segments of the cover have different images, filters, and adjustments made to them. In a way, I can see how it can represent the vastly different characters, but I don't find it to represent any sort of main conflict the story holds, if any.
— The title's text is alright, but it could be more visible. Not bad, though.
— There needs to be a mention of the author's name. Maybe you just forgot to put it or it's there and I missed it, but you need to at least put your username if you're not comfortable with putting your full name and make it easy to read on the cover.

Title: 2/5
— I don't particularly find any correlation between the story's concept and the title. The concept seems to be about Heller High School with a new class of freshman and their teachers dealing with them. Nothing in the title indicates that.
— In a way, the title is a bit ironic because a lot of the content of the story is hard to remember, mainly the characters. But I'll talk about that much more later on, even though I'm sure you've already read comment critiquing it.

Blurb: 4/10
— The blurb tells readers what to expect of the story, which is good. It let's them know what sort of genre it is, and I appreciate that as a reader. But we aren't given any character names/backstories, any mention of the world, nor much introduction to the plot.
— I understand that there are far too many characters to include in the blurb without info-dumping, so I'm not too upset about this. However, if you fix that character issue—which I'll talk more about later—then you might be able to include some important characters in the blurb. Until then, this isn't a significant problem.
— I think the most prominent issue is that you neglect to mention the location of Heller High School in the blurb. Since the story is realistic fiction, bringing up the location is pretty much the only way to world-build even a bit in the blurb. It shouldn't be much more than just stating the school, if any more.
— Similar issue with the plot/main conflict as with the characters. There doesn't seem to be a specified main conflict because it seems that your story is a slice-of-life—which I'll talk more about in the Plot category. The blurb mentions at the end that the story is about the teenager's years in high school and how terrible the system is that they're in. That's a decent start, but there could be more to it. That doesn't really get me interested in reading, it just makes the story sound bland and basic. Provide readers with something that gives the story some more spice. (This means that there may need to be some plot changes, but again I'll talk about that later.)

World: 9/10
— You do a fantastic job of setting the scene of Heller High School! It's genuinely admirable how intimate each detail is! The world-building, although there isn't much to do because it's a realistic fiction story, is in-depth and just amazing.
— That being said, it's a lot to take in all at once. I like how much effort is put into it, but throwing so much information at readers all at once can be overwhelming. You should focus the majority of your world-building at the beginning of your story so that readers aren't confused, yes, but you went a bit overboard. Not so far overboard that I was discouraged from reading, but this seems to be a trend with your writing, so I think it's crucial to bring up.

Plot: 10/20
— The exposition is amazing. Of course, since your world-building is great, that's a nice boost for your exposition, so this isn't surprising.
— The character introductions could be better. They aren't terrible, but almost every single character would be mentioned by only their first name (I would prefer first and last for initial intros).
— There's no real main conflict from what I have seen. It's a slice-of-life, and while I can recognize these as being forms of literature that I certainly can appreciate, they aren't valid as fiction stories because they're lacking a main conflict. Of course, this ideology of mine is debatable, but think of it this way: novels, books, or just stories in general are made into movies, but slice-of-life "stories" are more like TV shows with new sub-conflicts every chapter/episode. TV shows and movies are not the same thing, but they're both a form of entertainment. Similarly, stories and slice-of-life's are not the same, but they're different forms of literature. By this logic, I don't consider them to be stories, but this only means you'll lose points in this one category. You won't lose overall points, so don't worry.

Characters: 7/10
— I've mentioned it repeatedly before: there are far too many characters thrown at readers. I didn't bother counting the exact number, but there are definitely more than 20, probably even more than 30, named. That's far too many when readers are just starting the story. I lost track of so many of them, mainly the teacher. I had to go back to the first chapter a few times to recall who the characters were sometimes. Please reduce the number of characters, and if they aren't very important, don't mention their names at all. Or take them out altogether, which I know can be hard to do, but it might be necessary. Also, if a character isn't important to the story for a while or doesn't even interact with any of the others for a while, don't even bring them up until they are important later on. That way, readers can get used to the important characters' names and traits before having to keep track of any more.
— That being said, I remember a lot more characters than I expected to going into it because their personalities are so distinct. And other traits about them too, not just their personalities. That incredible writing ability of yours didn't completely make up for the intense amount of characters, but it was enough to allow me to remember the majority of them.
— Us readers love to imagine every scene and every character. You have the scene descriptions down, so now it's time to get into those character appearance descriptions. There are some descriptions, for example, about John when I think Regina—see that's an example of the too-many-characters problem—fell in love with him at first sight, but there needs to be more. Again, with less characters, this will be easier to fit in without readers being even more overwhelmed.

Chapters & Content: 2/10
— You have a unique style with your chapters and paragraphs being so long, but I don't think it fits the target audience. Since the story is a teen fiction story and all the characters (aside from the teachers) are in high school, the chapters and paragraphs should be short to adhere to the target audience's shorter attention span. Having lengthy chapters and paragraphs is a style that would appeal to an older audience, but that's not what this story will be projected towards, so you should probably fix that.
— The chapters don't feel progressive. Every new chapter is like a new day, but they just drag on. Class period after class period. Homework assignment after homework assignment. I hate to say it, but that kind of content is boring. If there isn't anything interesting happening, readers won't want to continue reading.

Grammar/Spelling: 10/10
— I literally found no mistakes. Holy heck! (I try not to curse in these reviews lol.) How is your grammar so flawless!? For me, getting a 10/10 is really difficult, and it's even harder to have not a single complaint. Sure, there were maybe 1 or 2 sentences that I saw and thought, "Hmm, is that a grammar mistake or am I just stupid?" Answer: I'm not fully educated with grammar or reviewing in general, so I'm not stupid but I'm still learning, and your grammar is to the point that it's above my review capabilities. So great job! Truly fantastic! I'm impressed!

Writing Style: 9/10
— I love your detailed writing. Your varied vocabulary kept me drawn in, and the attention to little details is enticing. I really admire how descriptive your writing is.
— That being said, it's not fitted to the target audience. It's not too far off, but teens reading it might be thrown off a bit, especially because you linger on little details for so long, which can be slow and lose readers' interest.
— I'd like more variety with speaker tag placement. Speaker tags are sentences that indicate the speaker, for example: "He said." They can come before, in between, or after dialogue, but as most writers tend to do, your speaker tags only seem to fall after dialogue. Make sure you have some variety so that the dialogue doesn't all feel the same.

Enjoyment: 5/10
— I didn't find the story in particular to be engaging because there isn't a main conflict and the chapters drag on.
— However, your writing kept me hooked, and I certainly appreciated the perfect grammar! As a grammar freak, it's nice to read stories that have clearly been proofread.

Overall: 59/100
Your story needs far less characters and info-dumping so readers aren't scared off with the copious information provided at the very beginning. Then, it's up to you to decide if you'd like to leave your story as a slice-of-life or make it into a novel, but to make that change you need to come up with a main conflict and develop the plot, which will take lots of work. The cover, title, and blurb could all be updated as well. The world-building, grammar, and writing style are all incredibly admirable, though, and I think that having those skills make the story special. Good luck editing/writing!

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