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Review of Sleeper cell  
Review by sarahmith
Rated: ASR | (1.5)
Hey,

First of all, I really like the idea behind your story. At least what I could grasp. This is what I understood: We have the Adofo who are some kind of godlike creatures and when they arrive on earth they are always tied to some kind of natural disaster. And we have the Karasis who are some form of guides for these Adofo.
Now it gets a bit tricky though. First of all may I as you if you are a native English speaker? Because I found some grammatical errors and sentence structures that suggest you are not. And that's fine, I'm not a native speaker either yet I prefer to write in English. You should keep working on the grammar and maybe find someone who is a native speaker to help you look over your works and point out errors to you.
The next thing is that your explanations are often too fast and seem to stumble over one another. You have to take the readers with, they have to understand what is going on in the story. You have all the settings in your head but you need to bring them to paper so that everyone can see and understand your world. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes and imagine the scene. What do you see, smell, feel and hear? Maybe take notes and work with them. Ask yourself questions like: Who is in this scene? What are they doing? What are their objectives? And where should the scene go? Then make a kind of plan out of these answers.
What kind of writing program do you use? Because your text here is a mess of letters which suggests that whatever you work with doesn't convert additional characters in the right way.

All in all, this is too much to review on here. But if you are looking for a little extra help you could contact me and I could help you with your story via e-mail. Give you a few hints and help you develop thoughts better. As I said I think your story has a lot of potential and I would really like to help you.

Best wishes,


Sarah
2
2
Review by sarahmith
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hey,
So I read your work and overall it is really good. There are a few mistakes though and punctuation errors that I would like to point out to you. Please keep in mind though that I am not a native English speaker and I don't know how a good college application has to look like. I'll just tell you what I would change.

'Stepmom call us downstairs, we run' First of all you should insert a full stop after downstairs and then start a new sentence.

'we run down and find them sitting together on the couch in our living room; we knew this was bad.'
I would change this sentence. Maybe something like that: "We run down to the living room where we find them sitting on the couch. We both know on instinct that this is going to be bad."

' “We wanted you guys to hear this from us, not find out from someone else, but your mom was caught stealing last night and was arrested”. I wasn’t shocked.' You should consider adding an and between us and not and lose the comma then make a full stop after else. Then rearrange the next sentence and maybe add an 'again' to show it wasn't the first time. Add more impact to the sentence. "Last night your mom was arrested for stealing again." Just an idea. Then maybe add "by my father's words" after shocked just to show who had been talking (I'm just assuming it was him and not the stepmom).

It should be accustomed instead of accustom.

'had made in my life' Maybe change it for created or had created. Sounds better.

'and I always wondered why.' Think about making this a new sentence and give it more impact. "All this had made me question why a mother, who had gone through nine months of pregnancy and the pains of childbirth, could abandon her child(ren) so easily."

'seemed to have, she acted' Exchange the comma for a full stop and start a new sentence.

'moms; but not me.' Same here. I would get rid of the semicolon and make 'But not me.' a sentence.

'why; and I still don’t.' I don't really like semicolons and I wouldn't insert one here. Just leave it out and the sentence would work just as well.

'I know what separates her from other “normal” parents: drug use, stealing, and living without caring whether or not you have responsibilities; but the question of why she acts like this is a mystery I haven’t been able to solve, but always wanted to.' Try this "I do know what separates her from 'normal' parents: stealing, drug use and living without caring whether or not you have responsibilities. What I don't know is why she acts that way. Her motives are a mystery I haven't been able to solve even though I'm still trying to find answers.

'innate curiosity of why people do what they do.' Try: ...to find out why people do...

'their bad ideas?' I would add a third question here along the lines of "Why do these people abandon their loved ones so easily in the process?"

'I don’t think I’ll ever know why my mother is the way she is, but that won’t stop me from trying to figure out other people’s reasoning and to help people like me.' Ok, this is tricky. You want to figure out other people but you don't think you can figure out your mother? Maybe that's what you really think and maybe it's true but you should go for a more hopeful approach. "I want to get behind people's reasoning for choosing the "wrong" path in their life and I want to help people like me, people who have been badly affected by the life choices of those people. And maybe, along the way, I will find my own answers.

So this is probably a lot for you and I want you to know that this isn't meant in a bad way. Those are just the things that came to my mind while reading your story. If you have any questions or want to discuss anything that I have suggested feel free to contact me. And I wish you all the best luck with your College Application.
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