Youth - c0smic
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Author: c0smic
Reviewed By: KaihleeLo
Requested Date: 9/11/16
Review Completion: 9/11/16
Story Link: Link
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Review
Title: 9/10
Logical: 3/3
So far Youth has play a role in the story, and Yoongi sort of represented Youth itself.
Eye-catching: 2.5/3
Due to the title being so simple and straightforward, I'd had expected it to be about youth. So personally I wouldn't find it much of an eye-catcher.
Original: 3.5/4
I feel like you could do more with the title. The story itself is written beautifully with the description of a variety of colors, so maybe something like "Colorful Youth" or "A Youth of Colors". Whatever it is, I just know you can do more with the title and make it catchy and unique. Though I must admit, it's a simple title and it works, plus it's also original due to its simplicity.
Description/Foreword: 9/10
Summary: 5/5
Clearly from the three chapters published, the summary on the front page is yet to come into play. So I can't say much about the summary other than having to guess that they belong to the characters Jisoo and Yoongi.
Appearance: 4/5
The summary itself was in blue and smaller fonts. I suggest enlarging the text to make it match the other body paragraphs. I only suggest making the character's photos smaller, or at least keep them all in the same or similar size.
Character Development/Showcasing: 9/10
Development: 4/5
In this point of the story I feel like the characters are, I assume, fully developed characters. We as readers are being pulled into their developed ongoing lives and given a gist of how they are as a person. Characters are (or should be) the drive for every story, so I'm going to focus on each and mainly the main characters.
First off we have Jisoo, she's a miserable housewife who showed signs of depression due to the way she's being treated at home, because of the idea that she could not expect. A common conclusion women come down to when her husband wants children and she cannot conceive. And because she is a housewife, who'd normally be running errands and raising children, she had no need to do much of either. Especially due to the fact that there's no children and her husband is almost never home or otherwise would be in his office till midnight. So it shows that she has no other concerns other than how her husband, the only other person in the house, treats her. And because she came to the conclusion herself that she's useless and a nobody to him, she had never tried to confront her husband, hence lived believing so. Thus when another man treat her indifferently, she couldn't resist despite her being a loyal spouse or not. Jisoo also have a drinking problem so I'm curious just how much of the time is she really sober? I also wish to see more of her artisit side :D.
Secondly there's Yoongi. I feel like Yoongi is the closest to being the lead male compare to Jisoo's husband, just because of how well described he is. We know Yoongi is a flirt, a very cheesy one at that. However, whether or not he's a womanizer no one truly knows as of now. Other than Yoongi being a very dangerous single man making every move on Jisoo, we don't know much of his background story. Like why is he into teaching or even into older women? If he's a student teacher then he must be older than the student he teaches or is about the same age? So is age just a number? Are women just the opposite gender he's interested in? Is he teaching for the reason that he can 'see pretty girls at school'? What subject is he teaching? Is it one he's personally interested in or would it be tie to another person being the reason he's interested in that subject matter? Whatever the answer is, I'm sure you will fill us in in the next seven chapters.
Lastly we have Seokjin, Jisoo's husband. As readers we don't know much of what truly goes on with Seokjin. We get an idea that he may be cheating and that he's a jerk through the eyes of Jisoo, who like I said showed signs of depression. So we don't really know if he may or may not be cheating because she may be a little bit over-exaggerating. (Not that depression is all about exaggerating, it indeed is a very serious cause). I'll like to assume that Seokjin isn't cheating, that the lipstick may be from a hug, and so on. I mean he works in a place where women wear make-up, I suppose. Also I feel that Seokjin has always been the sensitive and emotional kind, seeing how he used to cry and whatnot. And the mention of him talking about work to Jisoo sort of click for me. There were no mention of Jisoo ever working before (as far as I remember? Correct me if I'm wrong or may have missed it), so she may not have understood where his concerns were coming from. Thus Seokjin seeked comfort and understanding elsewhere, which drifted their relationship. Then again, maybe I'm giving Seokjin too much credit because I can relate more to him that way than Jisoo (xD).
Finally, I'm curious as to why the guys had so many different hair colors. Is pink Namjoon's favorite color? And why does Jimin have orange hair...? How come Jisoo isn't questioning this..? Is it normal for them to have so many different hair color? Is this group of friends just like that? Sorry I nitpick at the most strangest things.
Relation/Cast: 5/5
I liked the relationship between the characters. There were depth. Jisoo and Namjoon were more than just best friends. Especially when they see one another so often being in their mid-30s. (Seeing how adults don't normally meet up with old friends). It also showed how much they care for one another and how they're still not there yet, where they would take one another for granted. But at the same time it also give off a distant feeling between the two, like between two new friends kind of deal where you'd want to be nice to your new friend.
So far the story had shown more than half of the BTS members in the whole cast. Each character had their role, though some more important than the others, (which of course is totally normal). And with seven more chapters to go, it's still unclear as to how tight the cast would get.
Behind the Author's Mind: 39/40
Logical: 10/10
I can definitely see this happening to someone in real life. It's highly possible for a married person to go out for some drinks and end up sleeping with a stranger.
Original: 10/10
Is the story idea original so far? Not so much, but as far as it goes, you're definitely making it your own. The small quirks of 'oh one of the lead is a student teacher' and the husband is a member of board directors is nice and refreshing.
Tone: 5/5
The tone of the story is great, though it heavily leans toward the sad and more depressed side of life. Which is logical as the story is mainly about that. The story is well expressed due to the chosen tone. Kudos to you on that.
Narration: 5/5
I'm not a big fan of second person point of view when telling or reading a story, but yours was doable. Despite my personal taste I still find it a very fitting point of view.
Storyline: 9/10
We're only three chapters in but we've already seen how Jisoo and Yoonji met and how the two even slept together twice. At times the story felt slow, due to the heavy detail description, but overall the pace is fine since there aren't much repetition when it came down to description. The chapters themself are quite long as well so it really balanced out the pace of the story.
The plot of the story I feel will come when Seokjin and Yoonji finally meet one another, and it would be up to Jisoo to pick whoever she chooses. Thus we could either lead to a divorce and new marriage or same marriage and hopefully a new friendship. I really can't predict the direction of where the story is heading, so that's a good thing, but whatever it is I hope it stays on the path it is now in.
Proper Use of the English Language: 23,5/25
Proper Grammar/Punctuation: 9.5/10
I spotted some minor errors I thought I should just point out. Most can be fixed with proof-reading, since it's little common mistakes like 'you' instead of 'your' and so on. Chapter two is the chapter I suggest some proofreading on, I noticed you wrote an A/N on how you wrote it super late or in this case super early in the morning. So it's little errors like that that authors go through when writing so late/early.
So here's one from the first chapter:
Original: ...your back to pull your closer to himself. He traced the your bottom lip lazily with the tip of his tongue,.. (I'm sure you know what's wrong with the text in red :)) As for the 'himself' I thought maybe you'd rather put 'him', but I wouldn't see a problem with 'himself'. Just thought I'd point that out.
Termonology: 5/5
In chapter one, Yoonji's hair is referred to as blonde. The sentence itself it awkward as blonde/blondie tends to be used for a person with blond hair. Other than that I don't think the rest of the termonologies used were any problem.
Language Barrier: 9/10
The story was doing swell until I spotted 'hyung' and 'noona'. As a reviewer it's only part of my job to point it out, that the story that has Korean characters and located in Korea has no need for Korean expressions. It surely sounds better when you use 'hyung' instead of 'big brother' or 'respective brother' but it's like, for example, having Spanish characters and using 'si' instead of 'yes'. Sure everyone knows what si means but because it was so random it's like 'si? Oh yes...". Our mind does that to us, even if it's for a brief moment. So that could ruin the mood of what the story was trying to put the readers in.
In the back of readers mind they would have been reading the English words with Korean expression (as long as they know the correct expression I believe) so it could throw them off to suddenly see a Korean word, even when they've been reading it with Koreans in mind. I'd assume it'd be like one reading a full English text and then all of a sudden there's a big term they do not understand. It would stop them from either continuing or carrying on in hope they'd get what the word meant. It's sort of like that, one way or another.
General Enjoyment/Last Comment: 4/5
I chose to complete this review instead of doing my homework and I'll have to say it was worth the trade. I learn a thing or two by reading your story, writing style wise. I can't say how impressed I am with the word choices and how well constructed each sentence were, but you definitely killed it!
As far as the storyline goes, I'm yet to love it. So far I like it, where it's heading and how it's going. But I'm not a big fan of drinkers or drinking myself so I couldn't get over it and relate to the characters and story.
Either way I hope you find this review a little helpful. You may have wanted more critique than rambling but as far as I'm concern the story is unfolding just fine.
Total Points: 93.5/100
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