11 Lives

Reviewer: dhaatk
Review for: FeeBear88

Requested on: 04/04/2015
Finished On: 04/11/2015

NOTE: 4 Chapters (Spoiler Alert)

(10/10) Title: The selected title is original. No other story under such name can be found on AFF. Also, it is accurate, because in the story, the protagonist does go through eleven lives.

(9/10) Character: The protagonist's personality is revealed already from the first four chapters. Kai is kind and caring person, who gives all his twenty-four hours to people he had never met before. He is a lovable character which makes readers wonder how could one stay so pure, stuck in such terrible fate. The real issue appears with secondary characters. So far, there have been Sehun, Minseok, Luhan, and Baekhyun. These four guys are all devoted fighters, no matter if they are in a battle field, ancient arena, nearly empty inn, or hospital bed. The thing is, if those people's names were removed, it would seem as if Kai meets the same person just in different setting every time. More thought should be put into how to distinguish the future characters. Some of them could be total bastards.

(10/10) Originality: Story's main idea can be considered authentic. Of course, there are other stories about multiple lifetimes the protagonist has to go through. However, this story has its own perspective. There are some details that make that happen. For example, Kai has to live exactly one hundred years. Or the story focus on the protagonist's last eleven days. Speaking of which, it is highly suggested to put a meaning to that number eleven. It is understandable, that there is a need to include all EXO members, therefore, one of them meets the remaining eleven. However, this idea is too vague for a story with such a great idea.

(34/40) Storyline/Plot: The plot is really haunting. Those totally random places and times, where Kai appears, grip the reader. Especially, that happens in chapter with Luhan. Real emotions are provoked in reader, they start to feel sympathy towards poor kid. Usually this is hard to achieve for writers, so really, nice job! However, some misunderstandings arise and questions are provoked in the back of reader's head. For example, in second chapter, the action is set in ancient Rome and two East Asian men meet. But was there really any wars 200 BC, in which men from Rome and East Asia were involved? Many people know the eastern region of Asia as rather isolated land for Europeans back in ancient times. Also, a small remark about the latter chapter with Baekhyun. Not many people are aware of the fact that “onni-chan” means “older brother” in Japanese, so they are left dumbfounded throughout the chapter. It would be preferable if such sentence was included: “ “Onni-chan...” the boy in hospital bed addressed Kai in Japanese.” ” And lastly, one last comment regarding the storyline. Probably the biggest plot hole is the lack of information on details. Why does Kai live for one hundred years? Who is above all that? Who decides what life Kai lives for a day? How does it all actually work? Does Kai possess the bodies? If those people do not die in the end of the day, what happens to them after Kai leaves their bodies? All of these are just a few questions that pop up in reader's mind. They should be answered slowly, one or two per chapter. If every little detail is revealed in the last chapter, reader has to face amount of information, which is simply too big for one go.

(22/25) Grammar/Errors: The choice of words is good, but structure of sentences is a bit awkward. Here are suggestions how to fix some of them:
“it didn't take him long to leave behind the corpses” would sound better “leave the corpses behind”;
“That he was sure.” – “of that, he was sure” or “he was sure of that”;
“It wasn’t to say that” – this is either a fancy expression that I, as a non-native English speaker, cannot understand or actually a mistake;
“had took” – purely a grammar mistakes; should be “had taken”;
“someone cursing endlessly under his breath” – also a grammar error; has to be “their breath”.

(5/5) Overall Enjoyment:  I might have expressed a decent amount of criticism, but I actually love the story so far. It was a bit awkward to read, since a story I am currently working on myself has a protagonist, who has had multiple lifetimes, too. But I am not implying anything, because essentially, our stories are very different. You should totally finish this story. But I think you must keep it somewhere safe afterward and open it once again after at least ten or fifteen years, if not later. This is a story with complicated plot, which requires a lot of depth. An author must have  a lot of life experience and put a lot of hard work to make every little detail fall into its place, so the story would turn out perfect. Good luck!

(90/100) Points Total

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