Skeleton Reviews

Just Love Me| -Lila-Mina

Skeleton: Lila-Mina
Client: @Tracisek
Book title: Just Love Me
Chapters read: Intro to 5

Cover: I like the picture you chose. We get a sense of emotional conflict, of pain, and sadness. It's a good match for the title. I would recommend changing maybe the color of the the title and/or your name to make them stand out better against the black/white background.

Summary/blurb: It's very short, but quite to the point and effective. I suggest adding a bit more, though. What you wrote can stay, but could be the hook, and then you add a few lines introducing your characters in more details.

Title: It's a powerful title, we can sense the emotional trauma, the despaired call for affection that abuse victims experience and try to express, and often lock them in terrible dynamics. But it also reflects what the survivors want and search for afterwards.

Description/scenery: Your descriptions of what is happening are vivid, we are taken right into (awful) action. You could add maybe a bit more descriptions of the environment your characters move in: color of the furniture, state of the room (messy, reeking of alcohol, maybe dirty curtains or cushions), etc. Knowing what characters hear, smell, see is always a big plus.

Use of literary devices:  Appropriate.

Sentence flow/pacing: Your sentences flow nicely. Try to add some variations to their structure and maybe rephrase some to avoid too many cases of "I (verb)..." Try to identify every time you use weak verbs like "I felt, I saw, I thought, I asked" and see if you can cut them off. Likewise, check whenever you use two verbs in a row.

For example: "I asked peeling my tired body off the hospital bed (...). --- Suggestion: "I peeled my tired body off (...).
"I turned my head towards the nurse who had a bright smile on her face." -- Suggestion: "The nurse said, a bright smile on her face."

Originality:  I can't say the plot is 100% original, because it's about a young woman helped/rescued by a rich, slightly older guy, but the approach is indeed special because not only do we get to see the male lead's POV, but we see right away that he's been hurt, too. So it feels like two kindred people meeting each other, with common emotional grounds, rather than the usual white-knight savior trope.

Characters:
protagonist: Emily comes off as a strong, resilient young woman. We get a good sense of her struggles, her emotional state and her hopes, but also the deep wounds insider her that generate her self-doubt.
Jake is also likeable (which is not often the case in stories like this), but I was a bit put off by his snobbish attitude when they get to formally know each other ('You can call me Jake, which is a privilege'). It's contradictory with what he tries to do, that is, helping a total stranger because it feels wrong to let her down. Why not have him say "Please call me Jack" and later on show people in his entourage react, shocked, by her calling him like this?
sides: Up to what I've read, I haven't met notable side characters yet. I imagine that Jake's siblings are going to pop up now and then.

Grammar: Your grammar is good overall, but I found a couple of typos ('a little to quiet') and a few tense switches (you write in the past tense, but sometimes use present tense outside dialogues).
Please mind the dialogue tags (uppercase should be lowercase) and some missing punctuation here and there, as it disturbs the reading flow and sometimes creates misunderstandings. Also, cutting long sentences into smaller ones helps create a sense of urgency and provides a change of pace.
Example for dialogue tags: "Pick it up!" He screamed. -- Suggestion: he screamed.
"Out!" She yells. -- Suggestion: she yells.
Examples for missed punctuation (especially commas): "My father hated when we cried he would beat me and my mom harder." -- Suggestion: "My father hated when we cried; he would beat me and mom harder."
"As I was passing one of the abandoned buildings a tall burly man came out from the alley way taking me off guard and grabbed me." -- Suggestion: "As I was passing one of the abandoned buildings, a tall, burly man came out of the alley. Taking me off guard, he grabbed me."

Realism: Some would argue that Jake's proposal to welcome her at his place isn't so realistic, but let's say it's the romantic 'fairy-tale' aspect of your story and that there's something in her that tugs at him.
I find it a little unbelievable that Emily is deadly certain her social worker would dump her and blame her for being late at their meeting because she was assaulted. Maybe this is her conviction, but maybe later chapters will show that it wouldn't have been true. Also, I found her fear of being sent 'back' to foster care or homeless shelter against her will to be odd, given you explained earlier that she was now free, having turned 18.