Erysimum

Reviewer: dhaatk
Review for:  _wallflower_

Requested on: 03/17/2015
Finished On: 04/07/2015

NOTE: 9 Chapters (Spoiler Alert)

(10/10) Title: The title is accurate and fulfills its significant meaning in the story. Also, I think the title is original. In terms of naming stories after flowers, it has been done many times before. But commonly people choose roses, daisies, or just word “flower”. Thus, picking erysimum is very original!

(9/10) Character: The major problem I have with your characters is their age. I think 15 is not enough for portraying such feelings and experience. I think adding at least one year for each, especially Mei, Sehun, and Kai would be acceptable. You may think that there is no big difference between age of 15 and 16, but it is significant. On the other hand, as you want to show the life of different grade students, it is good that some of them are freshmen, while the others – seniors or have already graduated high school. It is a really wise choice! Also, just a small notice, but I liked how Mei was not perfect at her vocal exam. Sometimes writers portray loners as masters of all activities, but it is not how things are in real life, right? So also kudos for that, since you want to keep your story realistic.

(8/10) Originality: The concept of a lonely kid in new school is nothing new. Art school setting does not really help the situation either. However, throughout these first nine chapters I have developed a feeling like something big and unexpected is coming and it will turn the tables drastically. So, score of eight on originality can be viewed as an investment into the future chapters!

(37/40) Storyline/Plot: Storyline is good, it keeps the reader going, but it is not truly gripping. What I enjoyed the most, were Mei's letters/diary entries. Also, a thought of her friend Shui being dead keeps bugging me. I mean, he never writes Mei back and when she calls him he never answers. Oh, and small remark. Those entries could be in different font, so even more significance would be put onto them. What was lacking though, was Mei's as a loner's portrait. I think you emphasized it too much with her locker being in the corner or the class seat being in front. Plus, she was not that lonely. She became friends with Tao rather quickly. Then she met Tao's friends and later a new friend, named Haneul, came into the picture. The last thing I want to mention is that mission. It really did not make sense and I cannot imagine something like that happening in school. And remember: you want to keep your story realistic, don't you?

(22/25) Grammar/Errors: At first, I did not stumble upon a lot of errors. But later it became a bit irritating. There are quite many mistakes of tenses and vocabulary. Sometimes usage of words was incorrect. For example, “students kept their silence” should be simply “students kept silent” or “do you want me to die hungry?” would sound more natural, if you said “do you want me to die from hunger?” However, there were no spelling mistakes. And surprisingly, the amount of mistakes was not that distracting. I normally would give way less points for grammar, if there were such mistakes, but this situation was different.

(4/5) Overall Enjoyment: What I can say is that these nine chapters were quite entertaining for me personally. The grammar mistakes really made me frown at times, but it was bearable. Also, the story has some sort of depth, which could be elaborated more. Good luck!

(90/100) Points Total

Feel free to give any further questions.

Please don't forget to credit our shop's logo in your Foreword.