Comments
First of all, I want to remind all of you, including the author that I was personally invited twice, once in the Fan Fic Forum at Winglin.com and another time through E-Mails , to review this story. Let me stress that it has been a privilege and an honour to be invited to read her story and to write a review for it the same as it has been a great privilege to add your stories into my site.  Before I even begin, I would like to say that it is rather inappropriate to call this story a fan fiction, though the author made some suggestions as to who should play who, but she never used the actors' real names and thus, it was like reading a work of fiction and I shall review it that way. Moreover, after writing this review, the author E-mailed me and confirmed that this is her first work of fiction.

It is her first attempt and sadly, it shows. I will try to concentrate more on the writing style but perhaps the biggest flaws with this story are;

1. the story itself

2. the way it was told (presentation and narrative style)

3. the fact that it was 30 chapters long and still we have some more to go before it really ends for good

and

4. the interaction between the author and her fans/readers at the beginning and the end of every chapter in the story, except for one where the Author wrote about her feelings on Osama Bin Laden.

Let me take it one by one. Please be reminded, I am not an expert. My stories aren't that good. What I am good at is taking a thing, cutting it into several pieces and tell you why some fits and some don't.  I have been asked to dissect this story and spill the truth. I am an honest person and I review stories the way I review series, whether I enjoyed it or not and whether I laughed when I shouldn't? But I will be more thoughtful in my reviews on stories, after all, we are all amateurs, we don't get paid to write stories nor do the readers pay to read your stories. For your information, I finished reading the whole 30 chapters in 3 hours, amazingly I decided to finish it all in one go. And I confess, I did skipped a little. Let us begin with the story's flaws.

The Story Itself
The moment you read the 1st chapter until the 3oth chapter, you would realise the story has a lot of events. one comes after another, non-stop and you would have no time to breath. That makes the plot action packed with lots and lots of drama and there lies the potential and the disaster. Potential because it would make a good TV series for TVB, and disaster because as a reader I am unable to take in so many events and dramas in one chapter alone. The author jam packed her entire basis of what makes our heroine, Jasmine Ling venture out of her cocoon to discover her whole new world and perhaps towards a self discovery about love, life and joy in  the very 1st chapter. The 1st chapter is very short. Perhaps I should illustrate my point by taking some of the first chapter and let you get a  feel of what I mean;

"Turning away from my aunt, I ran out of the house. I did not know where I was going, nor could I see the road that led me. My tears were like an extreme case of cataracts, preventing me from viewing the road and its path. All of a sudden, I heard a car beep, followed that by the deafening screech of car tires, then, everything went black...."

Rather dramatic  paragraph, and next me know Jasmine is in a hospital, or perhaps not. I'll illustrate this point later. Then we found out more revelations thanks to Aunt Jenny;

"Really? How do I know if he’s not my father? My mother told me she was pregnant with me after she had spent a passionate night with her boyfriend, might very well be this guy.” I argued half jokingly.... Then, it hit me. 

“You mean he is my father?" "

So we know within the next 2 paragraphs she had no father and only then she discovered her father's identity, or so we think, as later on we were told;

“You see, your grandma had a husband before your grandpa and from that marriage she had your mother.” 

My grandpa wasn’t my real grandpa?  

“So your grandpa took both your grandma and your mother in his house, your mother was 16 at the time and was at her peaking age, she was blossoming into a beautiful young woman. Everyone doted on her, her endless boyfriends, her teachers, her friends including myself and especially your grandpa and his son from his previous marriage.” 

What!? I have a step uncle (named Benjamin/Peter)?  

“Yes dear, you have a step uncle” said my aunt upon glancing at me. “He was extremely handsome and kind, your mother took to him immediately. They went everywhere together, discos, school dances even the formal. Everyone thought they made a lovely couple, except your grandma. Your grandma opposed to the thought of them being a couple even though they weren’t even blood related, she claimed that no matter what your mother and him are brothers and sisters by law. But there was nothing she could do to stop them from seeing each other, after all they lived in the same house. Until one night.. Being a conservative Chinese woman, your grandma did not tolerate sex before marriage and certainty not her daughter having sex with an Anglo-Saxon man. She dragged your mother out of bed and locked her in the basement. She then went on to tell your grandpa about the situation, and somehow, your grandpa agreed with your grandma and kicked your uncle out of the house, disowning him from the family. Your mother was punished severely, she received beating from your grandma and was placed into an all girls school. Your father, at least, whom I assume to be your father, disappeared without a trace.” ” 
 

I turned my face back to the hospital pillow. “I’ll cry today”, I thought, “tomorrow, I will leave all these behind me and start with a clean slate.” "

After this paragraph, which is the end of 1st chapter, we know Jasmine was utterly devastated after finding out the truth.

Did you see what is wrong with this very first chapter? I don't mean to ridicule the very first effort of the author but when I read the 1st chapter, I was laughing like a hyena. It was funny, not because Jasmine was such a tragic character but because the events and the revelations were  so tragic and way too many that it became a comedy for me. Let us see what makes it so funny...

One second she was in an accident, next she was told she had a father who was a gwailo, next she found out her parents ' relationship was forbidden in the old times since they were step brothers and sisters, then we knew mother was pregnant and daddy was kicked out of the house, then we know grandma hated mother and then we thought we know but actually the father, Benjamin may not be her father after all, as Jasmine later discovered. When I read this first chapter, I was imagining Sandra Ng and her many funny rubbery expressions and in my mind, I thought I was reading a Stephen Chow script. As I write this review, I am still laughing.

Of course I am not laughing at the author's narrative style but I was laughing at her attempt to make an out of this world revelation, to shock us in the very first chapter and frankly, I was shocked, shocked at how extreme her style was. And believe me, later into the chapters, her style became more extreme and at times, sadistic.

Later on, we are introduced to one jerk who is not charming at all, like Tony and then more jerks to come in the likes of Troy and Vincent. And poor Jasmine was like a ping pong ball in her emotions and you have got to imagine the emotional swings this character goes through each chapter and it was really funny. 

First she hated Tony and yet she was attracted to Tony, I  believe sexually. She slept with Tony, became pregnant and discovered Benjamin was Tony and Troy's daddy and so they were half brothers and sisters. BUT WAIT! He is not her dad as she later discovered but mommy was raped by step grand daddy, Grant which was why grandma hated our Jasmine and yet she didn't, as she later revealed in her will. And before that, Jasmine was disgusted with Troy and yet she had no problems falling for him, kissing him and sleeping with him. Then she met a nice guy like Will but alas, she never loved him until the very end, when Will was about to die, she realised and cursed that why she had to love Will too. A lot of men seems to fall for Jasmine way too easily, no explanation given. And before that, something terribly bad happened to Tony and in just a few paragraphs, she stopped mourning for his supposed death and fell immediately for Troy. And did Troy mourn for his dead brother? Nope! he quickly ran to the woman and jumped into bed with her! And then Tony came back and guess what? He changed and became a sadistic jerk. Well, not such a big change from his first appearance. And then we discovered she was pregnant with Troy's child and then on the day she gave birth to her daughter, she found out Troy was dying from some gun shot wounds, and Will who was conveniently there to save jasmine from the evil clutches of the bad mean Vincent, Will was hurt terribly and for love was willing to give up his life to give his heart to Troy, all because he knew Jasmine loved Troy. Before that Chapter 30, we also got some pretty shocking revelations, like Aunt Jenny wasn't a nice lady after all, and so was Chantal and Tanya.

Did you see the flaw of this story? It seems that the author was bent on making everybody  and everybody has some sort of a vendetta, love or  connection with Jasmine Ling, like the whole world is out to get her and only her. If I was Jasmine Ling, by chapter 5 I would have died of extreme case of stress!! 

The story reminds me of a runaway train, not stopping at places that it should have stopped and going on a high speed chase towards nowhere, except towards self destruction.

The very moment this story began, it was fatally flawed. It shouldn't be called A Girl's Life but it should be called The Book Of revelations, because everything in here is about revelations, in dramatic dose and nothing more.

We are hit one event after another, and yet in the end you would feel like you really didn't care about the characters, nor do you hate them or like them. If I am supposed to feel pity for Jasmine, I was laughing at her predicament and her every response to all the dramas going on around her. I felt nothing for Troy, I felt little for Tony and frankly that bit about Aunt Jenny, Benjamin, Grant and Grandma were overblown. And frankly, I see Jasmine as some sort of a slut. Who does she love? We have no clue even at Chapter 30. Did Troy and Tony loved her? The only person who understood love was Will and yet Jasmine didn't love him. You just have this feeling if Jasmine were to be a real person, you would just love to slap her for her indecisions, her very low moral integrity. She sleeps around, thinking she loves each man , falls for jerks when a nice guy like Will is not desirable to her but the truth is, I feel she didn't love anybody, she loved the men for sex and sex only.

The problem with this story comes down to one word;

Overdone.

Presentation & Narrative Style
You will see a certain distinct style in this author's presentation of the story and this is a compliment.

She is very bold in expressing herself and her words. For example, the love scenes. Plenty of them in here.

"Tony slowly picked me up and carefully placed me onto the queen-sized bed, his lips never leaving mine. He raised his face from mine and asked me a question that placed all doubts in the back of my mine.

“Are you sure you want to do this? I’m not going to pressure you into anything. Say no if you want to.”

... Bit by bit, he lowered my towel down to my feet and finally throwing it on the floor. He began kissing me from head to toe, leaving small kisses everywhere on my body. ... 

I began taking off his clothes, seductively to pull off his tie, unbuttoning his shirt and finally unzipping his pants...

Both naked under the bed sheet ... he kissed it (her fingers) once more before he moved on top of me.

I felt his hardness grew as his balanced on top of me. ....Slowly and carefully, he entered me. I gasped at the intensity of our lovemaking, the pain I endured seconds earlier was replaced with a fervent pleasure. He moved slow at first, then increased his speed as the intensity between us grew. With each of his thrust, my pleasure level increased dramatically, I opened my mouth to let out a moan, no longer could I hold in the passion of our lovemaking...he drew a deep thrust into me, exploding me with his passion. ... like my entire been (correction : being) was going to explode with his last thrust."

I admire the author for her boldness and she could be the next Jackie Collins but she spoilt the whole mood by putting; 

".....Beginning of explicit sex scene....End of explicit sex scene.." 

every time she begins and ends a love scene. First of all, the sex scenes are not explicit enough and secondly, whilst I admire her boldness for writing such stuff into her story to give some realism to the plot, however unrealistic the characters reached the bed, I was totally disappointed at her almost apologetic approach for including such stuff. She should seriously consider removing these notices. Unlike reviews or even movies, stories are often uncensored and could be more morally liberating or morally extreme. You don't censure a certain part of the book. You either publish all or you don't. Why practise self censorship? Your story is your story. If the readers dislike sex scenes, then they could well skip. But why should we be so accommodating and contradict ourselves by writing boldly and yet censor ourselves?

The one consistent trend you see in her story and her style as I have said above is boldness of words and sometimes, extremity of words. For example, you have a feeling this author likes big big events and big big description when she wrote;

"My tears were like an extreme case of cataracts"

"Why must you torture me like this?” I screamed at the ceiling, “what did I do wrong to deserve this punishment?"

"How cruel had Fate been to him, shooting my arrow towards Troy whilst shooting Will’s arrow towards me."

"I felt a tiny tear zigzagging on my face"

I have many more but I can't seem to find them in my thick notes. But you would know what I mean. Extreme case of cataracts? That's pretty extreme.

In writing a story, you can cross the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not but when describing events, the more extreme words you use the funnier it becomes and in the end people will probably laugh instead of feeling shocked, unless you are writing a comedy.

And one final point in the author's style.

Ever noticed, when you read the story you would feel inconsistencies everywhere? When after Jasmine met with an accident, her Aunt Jenny told her about her origins and...

"the older I get the more pain this truth will cause!” I fumed. Turning away from my aunt, I ran out of the house. "

And few paragraphs later, 

"I turned my face back to the hospital pillow. “I’ll cry today”, I thought, “tomorrow, I will leave all these behind me and start with a clean slate.” "

First she ran out of a house. Then she was back to a hospital. So my question is, where is Jasmine actually? Hospital or house? You might not notice such small details but I just don't like inconsistencies. It just shows that the author herself wasn't paying attention to her story, and how could she expect us to do the same?

And then we found out Jasmine's dad was an Anglo Saxon. Grandma didn't like gwailos having sex with her daughter, being a conservative Chinese woman. I can take that, and it is true. But then we were told this Anglo Saxon is grandpa's son. Now tell me, didn't grandma married an Anglo Saxon herself? Didn't grandma slept with Anglo Saxon grandpa or was their relationship sexless? And this grandpa would kick his only son out of the house because grandma didn't like Anglo Saxons? Why then grandpa didn't kick himself out? This is an inconsistency in the story and frankly, in real life grandma is one hypocrite in my opinion.

And then the author tried to show a more human side of the cold grandma with a letter from an attorney. I will not venture to dispute the fact that the letter by grandma was written in a way that no old people would write, I will talk about the attorney's letter.

"To Miss Ling,

.........

Sincerely,
Benson Andrews
Family Law Attorney"

Look at the highlighted word. No lawyer would write that in his/her official letters. They would perhaps write their name and with their firm's name as a letterhead. This is a very fatal flaw in the story. It makes the story into less of a credible story because of these small inconsistencies. Since she is an amateur writer, these mistakes can be condoned but hopefully there will be no such inconsistencies in the next story.

Overall, I shall summarize the weaknesses in the author's style. 

Frankly, she has no distinct style. Everything and anything will do. Which is why I am going to question what does she wants to do with this story? It seems she is more concerned with shocking people than with telling a good story. Frankly, the story itself was extremely weak and the narrative style, though bold but was inadequate.

The Chapters and Paragraphing
However let me say this.

The basic structure of the story is pretty exciting. In my own words...

"One young girl discovers the real truth about her past and decides to run away from reality only to be hit with tragic circumstances that forces her to re-evaluate her very core as a person, a daughter, a lover and a friend. Betrayals were plenty but can she rise above such crippling acts of betrayals to finally find her own world of utter bliss?"

Like my friend, Mary C's stories, I see many similarities between these two authors. Basically, their stories concept/basic structures are good, as they are rather dramatic and could fill quite a number of chapters. They're both good at dividing the chapters and allocating paragraphs, so each chapter is not too long in content.

But, their stories could easily end in about 15-20 chapters but both writers draaaaaaag their stories to 30, 40 sometimes even 50 chapters.

As a writer, the very basic skill in my opinion that you must have is knowing when to end a story. If you don't, anything thereafter would have lost its meaning and purpose.

This story being 30 chapters long is too long. And the author knows it and yet she loves her story so much she refuses to end it. Well, all good things must end my friend. Her stories content as I have said is a lot of events. In fact I may be contradicting myself with what I have written earlier. How can you squeeze so many events into so few chapters?

Like I have always complained about myself in my reviews, I always wished I could express something in lesser words. Instead of ten words to say how you love and admire someone, you can simply say it in  3 words. The key is your grasp of the English (or whatever) language, combined with the power of description, building the atmosphere for the ultimate 3 words to be spoken.  The art is to say the least words and yet readers will still get your meaning.

Both Mary C, this author and myself fails utterly in this department. Perhaps practice will make perfect. Of course I am also ignoring the fact that this author makes a lot of grammatical mistakes and used the wrong words but since my standard of English isn't great and I do realise my review here also has some fatal flaws, I'll ignore the standard of English in this story.

But I must talk about the dialogues. 

When you write a story, would you speak the way your characters speak? If not, then why would you write so unrealistically? This author writes rather unrealistically when it comes to conversation. I have read a good one in my site itself when it comes to dialogues, I shall not name the story since I wouldn't want to start comparing styles but if you must know, I added the story the same day I added this review.

As I have said above about Mary C and the author's styles and chapters and what nots, if you have read my first review in this site you will know what I am talking about.

Remember that person who had read many great literatures? I asked her what makes a good story? I once gave her read a similar style (with this author's) in storytelling which was Mary C's story and she came back to me and said "This was what I meant as not good enough". I couldn't understand because I was writing my first story and Mary C said I should include more emotional stuff like throwing of chairs and etc. This learned person told me not to do that. Told me to hold back. Once you go on that way, the whole story is about descriptions and nothing in depth. It would be like a documentary, with facts after facts after facts but with so much facts, you will learn something but it becomes impersonal, detached and your story becomes all about Maths, throw chairs + scream = anger + frustration. However I retorted Maths has many possibilities but what she meant was the  1+1=2 part.

And there I was confused as hell. How can it be detached? I am angry so I throw chairs. I write throwing chairs to show how angry I am. But to her, this is not the way. Why so much drama in actions when you could do more with words? Like acting, you can scream your heart out in a frustrated role but wouldn't you admire a more subtle approach? Frankly I didn't understand what she meant but like she said, you may not be able tow rite that way you will know one when you see one.

I read this story and this story is, frankly not the one.

For example, when Jasmine refuses to leave with Tony, what did Tony do? Without even a question about his conflicting emotions or insane sadistic part of him,  he took out a knife. The author skipped the emotional part and quickly jumped the gun to action. I realise the author likes drama, but totally forgotten about reasons, the way to the drama and the emotions leading to the drama. One minute she gave birth, then she heard about Troy and then she left Tony. All happened way too fast.

The greatest success of a story is when you're able to draw the readers into your own literary world, make them feel for your characters, cheer, scream, kick and curse. That everytime they finished one chapter, they will put the book down and feel they can't stop and must go to the next because you're concerned about the character. I don't feel that with this story. I feel the author should consider reading Kane And Abel and see why, when both talked about dramatic events, Jeffrey Archer could do so much more with so few emotional and hysterical outbursts. Of course he is a successful writer but then what makes him so successful? He knows how to grab your attention, bring you to great heights, make you care for the characters, make you turn each page and never wanting to stop. But frankly, that takes an incredible talent and knowing what people expected of you.

The Author's Personal Messages
The author certainly knows what people expected of her. She begins each chapter with a HI! and ends each with messages about what she might do next, asking for more and more comments.

And yet she did not stop when she should. I wonder why?

My problem with this author is she is too eager for comments. I am eager for comments too but not with how my story goes but how is my presentation. After a while you would think she is far more eager to please than to tell her story. 

I hope I am not making a personal attack here as I have promised myself to review her story, not the author. But somehow, those messages have blended into the story and into my senses and I feel this only further undermines her very effort of being a storyteller. 

And I just have this feeling that she writes one day at a time, never really mapping out the stole story in her mind. The one thing I hate being a writer is having the story in my mind, and even having an ending for it and then I had to fill in all the blanks and write it all down. By the time I write it, all the fun was gone. But this process I feel is essential. Only then will you be consistent . Mary C loves to write down notes, map out her whole story. She has consistency but too dramatic in her approach. This author had neither consistency nor a clear story to begin with.

Like her story, this author expects too much. I would hope she holds back a bit and not try to do too much. Try not to be too eager and too dramatic. Try a more subtle approach to drama unless you're writing a comedy. I was told she is planning a sequel. I hope not. Because it's time to move on before this story of hers becomes too tiring. Always remember;

"Know when to stop".

A good point to illustrate this is HZGG series. They didn't know when to stop and gave us crap for HZGG II.

Perhaps a new story might salvage this author's effort of being a storyteller, if that is what she wants to be, amateur or professional.

Jasmine pulls the plug, Will dies, Troy is saved, but she is arrested for murder, goes to jail, Troy takes care of her baby and when she is released, only then will the sadistic part of the story ends and finally Jasmine, the clueless Jasmine will find eternal happiness. 

or better yet..

Jasmine kills herself, her heart goes to Troy, Troy is saved, takes care of the baby girl who is his daughter anyway, and when she grows up, she meets Tony's son and thus we have a sequel, and perhaps a more extreme one, this time with real issues of incest but perhaps maybe not because Troy is not Tony's real brother. 

When you make your story so extreme, anything is possible.

I hope not this way though I would expect her to end this way.

Take my advice; wait for her next story. When you begin at such a weak starting point, I believe you can only get better the next time since you already have a basis for what should be and should not be done. This story of hers will be such a basis.

I'll wait for her next story.