Thank you for purchasing a review from me via the review system. I am not a professional copy editor. These are my opinions as a writer, reader, and lover of words. Please take or leave my opinions as you will.
 Overall Impression:
Overall, I felt that this was a classic horror story. The story progressed in a clear manner. While I suspected what was going to happen to Carol did come to pass, your descriptions and the emotions that she feels at the end gives the story a good pay off.
Plot:
You did a good job building up to the time when Carol is captured, explaining her fascination with the mirror and the knowledge that what she saw there was not herself. I did feel the beginning, when she was 5 years old, was a bit long. Perhaps the information could be delivered a different way and start the story when she is a teenager?
Style and Voice:
Your protagonist had a strong voice in her narration. I could follow her thoughts and feelings easily. She was likable and as a reader, I felt sympathy for her plight.
Scene/Setting:
You did a good job in describing the party house and the place behind the mirror. The other locations were more nebulous, but considering that they were not as important in the story, that is acceptable.
Characters:
Your protagonist and supernatural villain are well formed and three dimensional (if you'll forgive the pun). I found the other teens to be not as well defined. I felt that Tristan, Carol's love interest, could have been given more detail to flesh him out.
Dialog:
Your dialog reads like what teenagers would say. I found it to be natural and it aided your story. Your choice of dialog tags hampered the flow of the character's speech on the page. Many times the dialog tags could have been removed in favor of action tags.
"Said" is the most frequently used dialog tag at 14 times, which is good, but you have also used the dialog tag "laughed" 12 times. You need to remove most of those and replace it with either an action tag or change it to "said". There are 30 other dialog tags used, usually just one time. This number is too high. You need to change them to "said" or use an action to describe the emotion or movement.
Grammar and Mechanics:
Your spelling was good and in general your grammar is correct. I've outlined a few issues below via my analytical software to help you strengthen your piece. While the list might look long, you actually were not that bad with passive voice and other issues as compared to people I've worked with in the past. Remember, these are things that all writers need to address and EVERYONE has these issues crop up, whatever their level of writing skill.
Passive voice:
She was helping my cousin get into her expensive shoes and was too preoccupied to pay me much attention.
"Okay, mommy!" I exclaimed. I was so excited. (Capitalize mommy)
I realized that Mary Ann was not her own person, that she was connected irrevocably to me and what I chose to do or not do.
Then, two months before summer vacation was scheduled to begin, I triggered the catastrophe which I had apparently spent my whole life cultivating.
Her black hair was pulled back in a loose pony-tail, and she already looked stunning, makeup or no makeup.
Her eyes were a shade of green which was so dark that it could have been mistaken for brown, and her face was shaped like a slender heart.
Her lips were about the right size, not too thick but not so think that they were unnoticeable, and thanks to years of braces, her teeth were perfectly aligned within her almost-to-large mouth.
Chase just grinned, and fifteen minutes later we were parked in front of a dilapidated house.
It was located miles outside of the city limits and had been abandoned for as long as I could remember.
The walls seemed to bulge outward from the stress of the teenagers packed inside, and the entire structure looked like it was held together by only spider webs and dust.
I looked around for Andrea and Chase, but they had been swallowed by the crowd.
As I wiped away the last smudgy remnants of mascara, I was struck by an overwhelming feeling of deja vu.
I had finally stopped screaming, not because I was no longer afraid, but because I was too scared to open my mouth.
My head turned back to the mirror, and my desperation was replaced with rage.
We rounded the door-frame, just beyond the sight of the mirror, and he was gone.
I wondered how many more times I would be subjected to that, and I laughed at myself; as many times as amuses her.
Once the mirror is gone, I can move freely, and while I am relieved to be free from Mary Ann's torture, a strand of nostalgic longing threads itself through my heart and pulls itself taunt, crushing my heart in the process.
At first, I thought that they were more trapped than I, but now I am not so sure.
Adverbs:
There are 54 adverbs in your story. Every time you use an adverb, it is a lost opportunity to describe your action and allows the reader to distance themselves more from the story. Consider removing around 50 of them.
Most used adverbs:
eventually 2 times
finally 5 times
freely 2 times
only 10 times
probably 3 times
really 3 times
suddenly 4 times
Name Check:
You use the name "Mary Ann" 9 times and "Mary-Ann" 3 times. Pick one form and make sure the name conforms through your entire story.
Punctuation:
There are around 20 sentences that end in an exclamation point. This punctuation mark should be more of an accent, not in regular use. Change most of them to periods. Otherwise it feels like the girl is shouting all the time. I liked its use in the first sentence and when the horror part of the story began, but otherwise you should tone down your sentences to create more contrast in the different parts of your story.
Suggestions:
First take care of those adverbs. You'll find them by doing a "ly" check via the search feature in your word processor. At best, you should have 3 or 4 adverbs in total.
Next, work on the passive voice sentences. I've shown them to you above and highlighted the words you need to correct.
Take care of the Mary Ann issue. Make sure her name is the same throughout your work.
Remove the excessive exclamation points, convert them to periods.
I hope you'll continue to work on your story. Its been a pleasure reading it and I wish you all the best. Take care.
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| (4.5)
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