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Author: naahrotta
Reviewed By: KaihleeLo

Requested Date: 12/29/16

Review Completion: 12/30/16
Story Link: Link
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Bonus: (Your questions and focuses for us here):
The plot development: under behind the author's mind. 

Title: 9/10

Logical: 3/3

The title fits the story, it goes along well with it. 
Eye-catching: 2/3
I wouldn't say it's an eye-catcher as it doesn't give away anything about the story's plot. One would have to read the story's summary and story to get the story's title. 
Original: 4/4
I wouldn't say it's original, but I won't dock off any points as I think it's pretty original for this kind of story concept.  

Description/Foreword: 9/10

Summary: 4/5

The story's summary did it's job as a decent story summary. The only issue I can think of is the story's description is in past tense (normally it's better to write present tense with summaries, etc.) meanwhile, the plot given were written in present tense. The plot did made the story more interesting, though a lot were revealed. I'm iffy on whether you should keep it or cut some information out, because though I think it's exciting at the same time it's like, well I suppose I can predict the rest of the story without any interesting clues jumping out at me. Example is I'm debating whether you should include Jinki being Taemin's father assistant or not. But I suppose that's up to you. I'm sure readers will still have the same reaction of 'OH Jinki is Taemin's father assistant and the latter isn't home when Taemin crossdresses!' your readers will just have to get it through the story's summary or within the story. 

Original: Taemin crossdress when his father is not at home - with the help of his mother, who supports his choices, he dresses in fluffy skirts and wear makeup with a marked eyeliner, looking like a girl, named Mina.[This is a run on sentence, one that could make reading better if it was written as separate sentences or shorten down. I also see that you’ve included a dash, in certain statements an opening and ending dash would be necessary. In this case here’s how I’d go about this sentence.]

Suggestion: Taemin crossdresses with the help of his supportive mother—when his father is not at home—he dresses in fluffy skirts and wears eyeliner to look more like a girl named Mina.

or

When Taemin crossdresses with the help of his supportive mother—his father not at home—he becomes a girl name Mina; dressed in fluffy skirts and eyeliner.

Original: He attends ballet classes, his father thinking that he does some fight classes. It's all done very hidden from his father's figure. What will happen when Jinki, his father's work assistant, eventually discover that Mina's long hair belongs, in fact, to Lee Taemin's wig?[The only suggestion I have for this part is rewording certain parts and shortening it like the one above.]

Suggestion: He attends ballet classes when his father thought he was taking fighting classes. It’s all done hidden from his father’s figure. What will happen when Jinki, his father’s work assistant, eventually discovers that Mina’s long hair, in fact is Lee Taemin’s wig? 

Appearance: 5/5

The story's layout was simple and easy to follow. The font style and size used works with the story's background and poster. It's well put together. 

Character Development/Showcasing: 7/10

Development: 4/5

The characters were slightly confusing. I'm not sure if they were really thought out or just acted as the story progresses. Here's my take on most of the characters. 

Taemin/Mina: Taemin is a third year college student and 21. Strangely Taemin doesn't act like a college student, he doesn't seem to be attending classes, we don't know much about his studies (homework, projects, etc) other than that he attends ballet classes (and perhaps the one time he was doing homework when Jinki came to see him. But there were no sense of urgency in wanting to get the homework done). What I'm uncertain about is does he attend ballet courses outside of school (his univerisity doesn't offer ballet courses)? If so why is he attending one where they teaches children and adults together..? Taemin also relies on his mother a lot. Does she work the same schedule or is she a stay a home mom? Seems like she always around. Another thing is, Taemin has been crossdressing for seven years, he claimed it was during his last year of elementary. But if we do the math 21 - 7, he must have been 14. 5th/6th graders aren't exactly 14 (that's more of the middle classes 8th/9th graders).... Unless he was 14 as a 5th/6th grader then it'll probably explains his lack of interest and slow paced in school. Taemin also chose Jinki over ballet near the end when he's been skipping, just to go back when Jinki suggested so. I'm not sure if I can really feel Taemin's admiration for ballet. 

Jinki: He's 25 and basically started working for Taemin's dad when he was 20 but for someone who's an assistant and in his mid-20s, he has a lot of free time on his hands. I'm surprised he doesn't get calls from work and such or that work isn't hard enough for him to worry about it. Jinki is slow, perhaps he appeared to be slow in everything, so I'd assume he's slow at work too. Jinki gets certain days to leave work earlier for his niece, but it doesn't sound like his career is one where he can leave and has nothing to worry about until he goes back in. Other than his poor work ethnic, I could feel that Jinki cared for Taemin. He really liked the guy, otherwise he wouldn't have went on about the lad for two whole weeks after the incident. Along with the fact that he was willing to listen to Taemin's train of reasons, it just says a lot about Jinki's feelings toward the other. I think you did very well in stablizing Jinki's character as a slow, over-worried character, and it played through when he was debating whether or not Taemin and Mina were really different. It's cute that he actually thought Taemin had a split personality, likes, and interest as a man and a woman. The issue of Taemin being his boss's son, stuck with Jinki but he was able to overcome it and loved Taemin. That's some development for Jinki. 

Taemin's parents: With the way Taemin's mother is, I'm not surprised that he's sort of living in his own fairytale. She spoils him and is willing to support whatever he's doing or wants to do. But she's the least of my concerns as Taemin's father is a very odd guy. In the story he was against Taemin wearing heels as a five year old, he appeared strict and very closed-minded. Normally fathers would laugh when their sons at that age put on something that silly. However, in Taemin's case his father demanded that he would not wear heels and wear 'mans' shoes instead. It's odd that he used the term 'man' instead of boys first of all. Secondly the guy cannot differentiate ballet moves from Taekwondo. The postures and stance in all are two very different things. Especially when you listed one of ballet's signature move as something Taemin's father mistook for Taekwondo. I can't read his father's true personality, but did he grow soft over the years? I mean he's kissing the 21-year-old Taemin on the forehead..?

Jonghyun & friends: He's a friend of Jinki, the one who played a major role in convincing Jinki to meet up with Taemin and talk things through. Other than him being in a relationship with another man, Kibum. We don't know much about how close Jinki and his friends are. The way they want him to stick to one person despite being at the age where relationships may come and go, and were so keen on having Jinki being with Taemin (who they knew nothing about unless they were Jinki's fellow co-workers and has met the boy before, but obviously that wasn't the case as Jinki had to remind them Taemin is his boss's son). I wish I knew why Jinki went to Jonghyun with his problems, has Jonghyun given good advice before? Or..?

Relation/Cast: 3/5
I believe I've made some points about the cast relationships in the section above. I felt like their relationships just happens with no background history. I'm super curious as to why Taemin's father was against him being anywhere close to feminine. Why is his mother calling him a daughter when Taemin considered himself a boy/man/son. I mean I'd understand if she referred to him as a pretty son but calling him a daughter because he was dressed up like a girl...? 

As for Taemin and Jinki, their relationship happened but I didn't feel a spark. Like why was Taemin attracted to Jinki? Why was he willing to open himself up to Jinki, knowing who he was? 

Jinki, being an assistant who Taemin's mother claimed was loved by both her and Taemin's father doesn't appear to have a lot to do with Taemin's father. It sounded like the lad knew Taemin's father rather than actually working under the fellow. It would be more belivable if from time to time we hear something at work about Taemin's father. I mean if Jinki is seeing Taemin, doesn't he find it awkward to be hiding things from his boss? 

I know you didn't ask for any main focus on characters, but I'm a character-driven kind of reader and reviewer. I do apologize for going on and on about some of the characters, but I hope you filled in some of those questions I had. In my reading I may have missed it, but I'm sure some weren't addressed. 

Behind the Author's Mind: 35/40

Logical: 9/10

At first it was "why does he have to dress up? Obviously there are men in ballet too". But it came down to it being that he liked dressing up and wearing make up. I'm not sure why Taemin felt the need to create a whole new identity though.... I mean he could have pulled off ballet wearing women's wear. Unless his class were only for women? But there were no mentioning of that.  
Original: 10/10
I haven't come across a story like yours so I'd say it's pretty original. The idea of a ballet dancer falling in love with his father's subordinate is quite a story. 
Tone: 5/5
The tone of the story was well delivered as you tend to use exclamation marks and whatnot to make your point. 

Narration: 4/5

At times when Taemin becomes Mina, the narration changes from 'him' to 'her'. It's third person point of view till the end but strangely the main's character gender sort of switches depending on when he's him or dressed up as Mina. 
Storyline: 7/10
I liked the idea of the story's plot. It's fresh and strangely interesting. By it being strangly interesting, it switches as I said its narration. When Taemin is himself, the story keeps it him, when he becomes Mina the story changes to 'her'. It's convincing and at times it's easy to fall into the moment that Mina really is a girl and no longer Taemin. The storytelling makes it sound and seem like Taemin and Mina are two different person, or has split personalities. But that's not the case as the only differences is Mina is the crossdressed version of Taemin. Honestly I wished you'd keep it 'him' as different persons doesn't seem to be the goal here. 

As for the story's plot, there were obstacles set for the leads to overcome and fix through together. But the pace of the story was too fast and too slow at times, or perhaps not much of their personalities were shown through the supposedly hardships. There were times when they didn't contact or call one another. But that was about it. It was just about them and them being in this dreamlike where nothing else really affected them. There's no interaction with any one else but only the few people that mattered, thus it didn't feel realistic. 

Proper Use of the English Language: 18/25

Proper Grammar/Punctuation: 6/10

Most of your improper usage of the English language is due to the poor understanding of punctuation and what they do. When you used ellipses, (...) you tend to have every last word followed by an uppercase. The three periods does not necessarily end your sentence. It's more of a long pause or trailed off sort of thing. Or it voids out and replaces unneccesaily information.

Along with ellipses, semicolons were used as commas. They're both meant to be a pause, but semicolons tend to occur in-between two main clauses, often at times a subject and predicate. Predicate that has to do with stating a thing or containing an action word (via verb) about the subject. But in the story you used it to list things and as previously stated like the purpose of a comma. I'd suggest not using semicolons, most of the time they're not affective in stories. 

Another problem with punctuation deals with character dialogues. In certain exchanges you left out a mark and capitalized the following word. The proper ways for a dialogue would be:

Chapter One:

Original: “Ahn ... It’s okay if you don’t want to have a coffee with me ...” Jinki scratched his neck with one hand while the other held the niece’s, clearly embarrassed “I guess I shouldn’t have asked so suddenly”

1.) "Ahn...it's okay if you don't want to have coffee with me...," Jinki scratched his neck with one hand while the other held his niece, clearly embarassed, "I guess I shouldn't have asked so suddently." 

2.) "Ahn.... It's okay if you don't want to have coffee with me...," Jinki scratched his neck with one hand while the other held his niece, clearly embarassed, "I guess I shouldn't have asked so suddenly."

3.) "Ahn.... It's okay if you don't want to have coffee with me," Jinki scratched his neck with one hand while the other held his niece, clearly embarassed, "...I guess I shouldn't have asked so suddenly."

4.) "Ahn.... It's okay if you don't want to have coffee with me...," Jinki scratched his neck with one hand while the other held his niece, clearly embarassed, "I guess I shouldn't have asked so suddenly,"

As you can see there's various ways to go about it. Now here's one with the structure of capitalizing unncessarily. 

Original: “No!!” Jinki's eyes widened, and as fast as the answer came, were the girl’s hands in covering her own mouth for the second spontaneous shout “I-I mean, I ...” She swallowed hard “I'd love to have a coffee with you. I just ... I need ... To tell my mother ...” 

1.) "No!" Jinki's eyes widened, and as fast as [her/his] answer came were the girl's hands, in covering her own mouth for the second spontaneous shout, "I-I mean, I...," she swallowed hard, "I'd love to have coffee with you. I just...I just need...to tell my mother...," 

2.) "No!" Jinki's eyes widened, and as fast as [her/his] answer came were the girl's hands, in covering her own mouth for the second spontaneous shout, "I-I mean, I...," she swallowed hard. "I'd love to have coffee with you. I just...I just need...to tell my mother...." 

Chapter One:

Original: While most of the classrooms were modern, bare, of acute vertices, plain walls and with no particularities, that one had high ceilings, adorned with a simplified detail in white plaster on its edges and poky floral details of the same color in its vertices; walls in a gentle pastel tone, like the first rays of sunlight being seen from afar; on each edge of the junction of the walls, there was an imitation of a Greek column embedded in cement, also white; and just like the ceiling was the baseboard, also with simple final touch in plaster. [This may look like a paragraph but it’s one long run on sentence. Here’s my suggestion on how to separate these statements. I won’t point out all run on sentences as I’m sure most can be fixed with editing and rereading.]

Suggestion: While most of the classrooms were modern, bare of acute vertices, plain walls and with no particularities. One had high ceilings and was adorned with a simplified detail in white plaster on its edges and poky floral details of the same color in its vertices; walls in a gentle pastel tone, like the first rays of sunlight being seen from afar. At each edge of the walls junction there were an imitation of a Greek column embedded in cement, also white, and just like the ceiling with the baseboard, with a simple final touch of plaster.

Termonology: 4/5
I'm positive Kimono is a Japanese term for traditional robes within Japan's culture. Taekwondo uniform sounds more accurate than Taekwondo kimono. 

I strongly recommend getting yourself a beta reader. At most they can help you fix minor errors. 

Language Barrier: 8/10
Certain terms used were French, as you did warn it had to do with where you're from and whatnot. But the words could easily be translated into English. Especially when the story is written for mainly English readers. I'd suggest changing Elevé to 'Up/High' in English.  I mean Eleve isn't necessarily a ballet term, so if you want readers to know the intructor is French then mentioning them being in French and her speaking the language would do the work. I had to pause and search up the word's meaning as I thought it was a name or something. I mean as a writer it's in the writer's best interest if his/her reader doesn't pull away from reading.

As a writer I do have stories where I included Korean terms such as unnie, oppa, etc but as a reviewer I'd have to take a point off, because again the story is written for English reader as it's written in English. I'm not against the idea if you do choose to keep such terms, but again I'd have to dock off a point in consideration for those who may not know what unnie, etc is. 

General Enjoyment/Last Comment: 4/5
Honestly I wanted to ask you endless questions, but many of my questions were answered in chapter two or three so I could only leave you with a few (if we want to consider them a few...). I enjoyed the story, it was a little too fluffy for me to handle as I'm more of a 'get straight to the point' and 'stop being so dramatic' reader xD But I get it and being too fluffy isn't a bad thing. It just felt dragged out for me, which bored me at certain times. Otherwise I liked it, chapter one and two was more of the emotional rollercoaster and three was more about their relationship and Jinki getting used to Taemin being Taemin. 

Overall I hope my review helped you to a certain extent. Thank you for requesting! I hope I've covered everything I wanted and everything you may have wanted. It was truly an interesting read as I do like the story idea! For first timer, I believe if you consider some of my points, a sequel or another genre similar to this will result in a better read :D Happy New Year to you too!

Total Points: 82/100