The Leaden Desolation

Reviewer: dhaatk
Review for: yeolwho05

Requested on: 02/01/2015
Finished On: 02/12/2015

NOTE: One-Shot (Spoiler Alert)

(10/10) Title: The chosen title is beyond great and play of words is perfect. Not only is your title extremely original, it is accurate as well. Moreover, such originality in title captures readers attention even more, putting a charm even before starting to read. What is even greater,  you managed to put a sense of upcoming death into the title without using such direct words as “death” or “suicide”.

(8/10) Character: One of the things that I liked the most was that the protagonist didn't actually have a name. I see it as a great mean when referring to a group people (in this situation – sasaeng fans). However, it wasn't easy and at times possible to fully understand the girl and her real character. I will expand a little bit more on this issue in storyline section.

(10/10) Originality: The originality of this story is indefinable. The idea itself (an insane fan of a famous person committing suicide) is not something unlikely to happen in real life, but this topic is rather avoided in literature. Also, the way you presented everything that happened and the narration of suicide is original, as well was refreshing is some sort of way.

(37/40) Storyline/Plot: The plot was quick and the story didn't last long, but the length seemed proper. I'm not sure it would have had the same effect if it was longer. But though the narration was so short, the storyline had some flaws and was confusing at times. Just before I jump into details, I want to let you know that I think this happened because of the chosen point of view. Actually, it is awesome to read about such issue through the true victim's thoughts, and I think good job was done describing things from this point of view. The story is written in first person, so everything that happens is biased, thus making it almost impossible to know the true story (the protagonist being mentally ill adds to it). For example, even after finishing reading I still could not understand the first scene. The protagonist is reading articles about her relationship with Park Chanyeol, being self-aware of them being false, but origin of those articles stays undeveloped. Is she reading articles about Park Chanyeol being in relationship with some girl, but the protagonist imagines that she's that girl? Or maybe they are actually written about a girl (again, the protagonist) stealing a gun from a shop? Confusion appears already in the first paragraph and that's not good. It continues, when the girl gets her hoodie stained with coffee. Did she do that herself or some stranger bumped into her? A few more questions pop up as the reader goes through the story and at times it doesn't make sense at all. It's tough to improve such story, because it is written from first person's point of view. On the other hand, if you rewrote it from third person's point of view, it also would have its perks and lacks. Also, you asked if the story was realistic. That's a really difficult question to answer. The protagonist is not actually living in real world, considering how she sees the it, right? But again, that's how crazy people (fans) actually think, so I'd say that fiction and reality clashes throughout the story nicely.

(24/25) Grammar/Errors: Grammar skills of yours are almost perfect. Yet some mistakes occurred. Though I'm sure they wouldn't have, if the story was proofread more carefully. For example, in sentence “I had met [him] on their concert”, it should be “at” instead of “on”. Or “I fangirled right in front of me” should end not with “me” but with “him”. What is more, your style of writing is rather rare, but that is not a bad thing, considering that you most probably address readers, able to consume heavy texts.

(4/5) Overall Enjoyment:  In the end, I liked the story a lot, but it was a bit too hard for me. That's basically the main reason why it took me so long to review it, too. While trying to ground my opinion and providence, sometimes I got caught in web of my thoughts. Therefore, I got stuck in expressing those thoughts several times. (I swear I read the story more than ten times while writing the review)

(93/100) Points Total

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