story review shop [[ discontinued ]]

6/10: LENNY LANCE and the Curse of the Substitute Teacher

LENNY LANCE and the Curse of the Substitute Teacher by @LawrenceAbbott

Two weird things happened that day at Westmore Middle School: an awesome young substitute teacher took over Math class, and a frightening old sub took over English class. Lenny Lance - sixth grader extraordinaire - and his group of friends soon discover strange things afoot, things that can't be explained with normal logic. Could their English sub be a true-life monster? Can their Math sub help save the day? It's a grand and ghoulish mystery they have to solve before it explodes to supernatural proportions - on Halloween Night!

COVER: The cover reminds me of a book I would see on top of the shelves in my elementary school library. Judging by the title and the description, I'm assuming that's the demographic you're going for, however I would still recommend something a little brighter and with larger text. Big bold words and colors would attract that audience a little bit more, I think. Based on the cover alone, I wouldn't have been very interested in reading this story -- and I went through my fair share of books back in the day.

GRAMMAR: In your first chapter, you have a comma splice: "When I took my seat, she launched into how happy and honored she was to be our teacher for the next few weeks, and how much fun we'd have learning math together." The second comma should be removed. I saw a few more but I'm not sure if they were intentional, so I won't cite them specifically. I'm no expert, but I think that when you're adding a part to a sentence that is a dependent clause but not totally relevant to that sentence, it's done with a long dash (or in my case, two short ones -- ). I could be wrong.

When you name someone to specify who they are, their name goes between a set of commas. "i.e. My mom, Lucy, and I were walking to school." The sentences may sound as if there are no pauses, and there needn't be any, but the commas are just grammatically correct.

You switch tenses quite a bit. It seemed like it happened whenever Lenny was thinking to himself, so it may be his way of reflecting, but I'd be careful. Speaking in perspectives, I'd recommend keeping it uniform -- at least in that one sentence. "...and second, what possible value does it have for me, or any student, to stand up in front of your friends and expose yourself to silent ridicule..." I think "our" and "ourselves" may fit a little bit and create a smoother transition rather than something so abrupt.

The comma splices reappear in chapter five.

CONTENT: "Lance. Lenny Lance." He had a little James Bond moment there, didn't he? I don't have much to say about the first chapter. The flow of the sentences matched what I remember a preteen book to be: sort of choppy, sort of kiddy, and simple. I like how the plot progressed quickly, again matching the genre, and already in the first chapter a problem is introduced. It's a little odd that Greg is watching the news that late at night, but I don't know Greg. Odd but not unbelievable.

Chapter two is about the same. Lenny seems like an unfocused teenage boy. I like that. I noticed that Lenny breaks the fourth wall, referring to the reader as "you." Again, typical of a preteen book. I noticed you have some people reviewing your work in the comments. There was one person who said you haven't described the characters? I disagree. I really don't think a preteen boy is going to take a look at all the minor, specific details aside from hair color and body shape and possibly eye color -- which you already provided. They also said that you should talk more about the Math class but again, why? The important part of that class was the prettiness of Ms. Penny, so I also wouldn't explain her lesson on fractions if nothing special happened.

I didn't notice anything significant in chapter three. I see the first suspect has been seen. The kids are gonna look into it, probably find out he's fixing his house or something, and then it'll be Ms. Penny if this story goes as I think it will. It feels very Scooby-Doo to me. I like the pace of the plot, I like the amount of description, I like how the story is being told. I like it all just fine.

Choppy, choppy, choppy. Not my cup of tea (not anymore, anyway) but fitting for the story. I really don't have much to say. Operation Car Keys sounds like it'll be a mess.

I'm at the end of chapter five and that's an interesting development. So the kids got caught: predictable. It's fine. The story itself is fine. I hope they find out who the mysterious kidnapping artist is.

NOTES: I took one look and I knew this would be a long one. Also, rating this was tough because it was an enjoyable read, but not something I would read again or continue reading. I've outgrown this kind of genre, I think, but for the demographic that it is intended for, I think it fits well. I'm not totally sure why you requested a review from me for this story as our writing styles vary greatly, and I'm afraid I don't have much to say, but thank you anyway. Thank you and sorry for not being more helpful.

OVERALL: Fine. It's just fine. The story is fine, the grammar is fine (albeit a little bit off), the plot is fine, the characters are fine. It's all a little cliche, but for a preteen book it's not bad. I had to tell myself that the whole time as I was reading. It's not for me. I liked it just fine, but it really is not for me. My rating is based on originality, interest, and all-around opinion: it's fine.

RATING: 6/10

I'm sorry I couldn't be any more help. Thank you so much for requesting! and thank you as well for all the feedback you gave me, it really helped me out <3