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Story title: (3/5)

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about your title. If the title was to be standing by itself, to be honest, I wouldn’t find it that much of an appealing title. Firstly because it’s quite a clichéd title and secondly because of the simplicity of your title.

 In my opinion, there are two types of simplicity to a title. One is the good type of simplicity; though simple, it still shows strength and will spark the readers’ interest. Due to the simplicity of the title, it may leave an impression on the readers or that one simple word will ignite something within the readers that may prompt them to click on it. The other type of simplicity though, is the type where it’s overly simple. I wouldn’t say that it’s bad though…but just a little plain. There’s no wow factor to the title, and it just seems a bit dull.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, your title fits under the second category. When I first saw your title, I wasn’t that interested. It was only when I read the description did It spark an interest in me.

On the other hand though, if I were to link your title with your story, it changed the way I see you title. Though at first I found your title a little boring, after reading your story, it somewhat gave you title meaning and strength. What could I say? Your title compromises with your plot well, and that’s a good thing to see. Despite that, I didn’t give you that high of a mark for this section, because if I look at the title just by itself, then personally, I’m not that big of a fan of it.

Graphics: (9/10)

I love the poster to bits. It’s so beautiful and sad yet kind of badass at the same time, which complements your story perfectly, and I don’t see that happening often in many other fanfics. I think graphics is an important element in leaving a first impression on your readers, and your poster just so happens to leave the impression I’m sure you would want your readers to have upon stumbling across your story.

I had a look at the poster for your sequel ‘come back home’ though, and although the poster isn’t made badly, I truly think it isn’t as appealing as the first. With all my heart, I have no intention of criticizing the poster, because I really do not think that it’s made badly, but I just think that it could’ve been done better. This is all in my opinion though, and since you mentioned that you wanted feedback for the sequel, I decided to mention this even though this technically isn’t relevant in this particular review.

Anyway, aside all that, I noticed that you don’t have a background. Usually, I would recommend people to get one since without a background, the aesthetic aspect of the story wouldn’t be as strong but in your case, I don’t think it’s all that necessary to get a background. You should really thank the person who made your background, because the whole reason a background isn’t necessary in your case is because the poster is so beautiful on itself it’s able to stand on its own. Although you really only do have a poster standing for the whole graphics section, it’s strong enough to pull off this section on its own.  

Anyway, the rest of your graphics is fine, the font is readable and I see no major errors with your graphics. I do have some suggestions in terms of the aesthetic quality of your fonts though. Firstly, I think you should leave a few spaces in between the title ‘Description’ and the actual Description. It’s like a pet peeve of mine, I think the description looks squished up if it’s not given a little space on its own, so that’s something I recommend you do. Secondly, if you want the font to look more appealing, I suggest changing the colour of the font. For your story, I think a light shade of grey will suit it best, so that’s something you can take in consideration too.

Also, I think you should make the separation of the character chart and the description more obvious. Leave a page breaker in between or something, and I suggest placing the names and ages of each character underneath the photo. In my opinion, it’s easier to read the character chart if the writing is underneath the photo, but that’s my personal preference so up to you.

Gawsh…I feel like a nagging ahjumma here telling you to do this and that. I’m really sorry if I come off a bit naggy, but graphics is a section I really concentrate on mainly because I have a huge passion for art and all that. But all in all, great job! Keep it up~

Description and Foreword: (10/10)

Yay! Full marks! *Waves hands in the air and cheer*

Anyway, if I take aside the graphics elements of your foreword, then I see nothing wrong with it! Firstly, your description is awesome. Not only does it provide humour to the audience, it also summarizes your story in an interesting way that will surely lead people into reading your actual story.

For your foreword, I found this tiny grammatical mistake in the authors’ message, and though I believe this is just a typing error, I would just like to point this out:

Original: I hope you guys comment because I really want to you your feedback when I’m writing new chapters!

Yeah…I’m guessing you probably already see the mistake in this now. Although I get what you’re trying to say, the sentence by itself doesn’t make sense. I think you should replace the ‘to’ with ‘read’, because that’s what I’m guessing you were trying to say (?)

Characterization: (10/10)

Yay again for full marks! Your characterization is simply beautiful. Each character has his or her distinctive quality and personality, and that makes the story a whole lot easier to indulge in.

I especially like Hwang Eun Ah’s sassy and bright attitude. She doesn’t really listen to orders and isn’t your typical nice girl. She’s a whole lot stronger than people think, yet despite her brazen front, she’s also a whole lot weaker than what she acts out.

This weak part of her was especially brought out in the sequel where the first few chapters were basically about her struggle against life’s harsh reality, and if I were to comment on this, I found the first few chapters of the sequel a little bit draggy as it was almost all fully focused on her inner struggles. Don’t get me wrong, It was very deep and meaningful, but it was a little bit too much for me. But I was still kept interested because Kris came in soon after, so I was all like “oohhh, what’s going to happen now?” Anyway, completely irrelevant again, but just my thoughts on the start of your sequel.

I’m sure you don’t need me to give you a full-on analysis of each and every one of your characters, so I’m just going to stop at Hwang Eun Ah. I don’t really have anything else to comment about in this section, so let’s just move on to the next section~

Plot: (40/40)

Your plot is superb. Not original, but written in such a way that this clichéd idea of an arranged marriage involving gangs is moulded into a story that is so uniquely different from the others. I think this is an art many authors strive to achieve, and in this particular fanfic, you mastered it to its perfection.

I was hooked from the first chapter, and I rarely ever get hooked right from the beginning. There were many times where I grew interest in a story by its description, or slowly fall in love with a story after reading a few chapters, but there were only ever three times where I was hooked right from the beginning. Congratulations to you, because ‘Home’ is one of the three stories which let me dive into the story straight from the beginning.

The reason why I liked your story so much right from the first chapter was because I could sense the closeness of the halmoni and Eun Ah. I actually laughed in the section where they were teasing each other about their love lives, and I could imagine the scene in my head perfectly. It made the close relationship of the halmoni and Eun Ah that you speak of in the story real, and I really appreciate that.

There were also those times when I felt warm and cuddly when reading your story. I usually feel like that in the scenes where Eun Ah and Yongguk play around in their room. I don’t know why, but just the fact that they’re so comfortable with each other they can tackle each other on the bed or hug each other to sleep is something so heart-warming to me. I guess that’s because the playful yet sweet nature of Eun Ah and Yongguk’s relationship is something I wish for in my future relationship. I think you did an excellent job in describing these scenes, because even now when I think back at those scenes, I tend to feel all mushy inside.

Not only is your plot sweet and humorous at times, it also contained dramatic and badass scenes too. After all, this is a gang involved story we’re talking about here, so obviously it would have its own dose of action in it. Your dramatic scenes though, were pretty intense. If I remember clearly, Eun Ah were kidnapped twice (or maybe even more than twice), and this story had its fair share of semi-grotesque scenes where you actually described how people die. I guess it adds to the dramatic effect, but for a gore-hater like me, I just pretty disgusted at the description even though yours weren’t the goriest. Hey, I got nightmares watching Sherlock holmes so don’t judge me haha.

Anyway yeah, I managed to write five paragraphs complimenting your plot, so that must prove your plot really is awesome. I shall stop now and move on.

Consistency: (4/5)

In terms of consistency as in the flow of events, I would’ve given you full marks because each event moved at its own perfect pace and nothing was too rushed or too slow. The reason for giving you one mark less is because you gave me too much detail. There were times where you wrote nearly a whole chapter discussing one characters’ inner thoughts, and that turned out to be a bit draggy for me.

Sometimes, I skip through these lines even though they were written well, and just skip straight to the events because after all, you do have 67 chapters so that’s a lot of reading to get through. I ended up hoping for the end towards the rear of your fanfic because since I was so swallowed up in your story I was starting to feel tired and tense along with the characters. I even had thoughts of skipping straight to the ending because I felt like it was taking a long time to get to the ending, so I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing that I actually felt mentally tired from reading your fanfic.

Anyway, maybe you could lessen the tension a bit for your sequel. Still keep that tension there though, but for ‘Home’, I found it a bit intense, especially during the time I was reading ‘Home’, I was really deprived of sleep and I’m sure many of the readers out there are sleep deprived too…hmm. I don’t know, this is just my suggestion, so you may or may not take it into consideration.

Reader’s Response: (5/5)

What can I say about this? Your readers love your story like crazy. ‘nuff said, moving on.

Grammar and writing style: (9/10)

True to the fact that English is your first language, you have minimal to no grammatical mistakes. The grammatical mistakes I found and will be pointing out later is most likely just a case of careless mistakes or typing errors. Anyway, let’s get straight into them. I will only be pointing out the mistakes I found for chapter one:

Original: “Ani, I’m almost done here and I hardly want to keep you any longer it’s already midnight, are you sure you want to walk home? I can always call my grandson and he can drive you home.” She said while taking off her glasses and setting them on the table and looked at Eun Ah with a concerned glint in her eyes.

Revised: “Ani, I’m almost done here and I hardly want to keep you any longer. It’s already midnight, are you sure you want to walk home? I can always call my grandson and he can drive you home.” She said, taking off her glasses and setting them on the table as she looked at Eun Ah with a concerned glint in her eyes.

There should be something between ‘hardly want to keep you anger longer’ and ‘it’s already midnight,’ to join them together, or separate them. I don’t think these two phrases can form a sentence on its on, so in my opinion, you either add in something in between like ‘since’ or ‘because’ or just simply add a full stop like what I did there. Also, your sentence after the speech was a little bit long-winded. You used ‘and’ twice in the same sentence, and that made the sentence sounded awkward so I revised it a little.

Original: That’s when she realized that she was not welcome in that household and that although she never vocalized it, her aunt had secretly expected her to move out when she was considered a legal adult.

Revised: That was when she realized that she was not welcome in that household, and although she never vocalized it, her aunt had secretly expected her to move out when she was considered a legal adult.

Once again, I deleted some words and simplified the sentence a little. I only made minimal changes here though.

Original: She shifted uncomfortably as she saw the alley way she usually passes by come closer. She had to admit that, that was something that always freaked her out. It was always dark expect for one flickering lamp post. And no matter what the weather was that alleyway always looked wet. She was abot a 100 feet when she heard a jumble of sounds. She couldn’t really figure out what the sounds were. She took a few steps closer when she heard the sickening crunching sound of a bone breaking followed by a string of pained groans and curses. Her eyes widened when she realized what must have been going on.

Revised: She shifted uncomfortably as she drew closer towards the alleyway she usually passes by. She had to admit that walking pass the alleyway was something that always freaked her out. It was always dark expect for that one flickering lamp post, and no matter what the weather was that day, the alleyway always looked wet. She was about a hundred feet away when she heard a jumble of sounds. She couldn’t really figure out what the sounds were so she took a few steps closer when she heard the sickening crunching sound of a bone breaking followed by a string of pained groans and curses. Her eyes widened when she realized what must have been going on.

I altered this paragraph a bit by deleting some words, adding in some words, joining some phrases together and the such. I just think there were some parts in there that didn’t flow well, so I altered it a bit. I changed the part when ‘she saw the alley way she usually passes by come closer’ to ‘she drew closer towards the alleyway she usually passes by’ because I don’t know an alleyway could ‘come closer’ to anyone. It’s something that doesn’t move, so it should be the opposite way around, the person is moving closer to the alleyway instead of the alleyway moving closer to the person. Also, I suggest that when you type numbers in a story, you use the literal form instead of writing it down in its numerical form. Even if you were to write it down in the numerical form, it should be ‘100 feet’ instead of ‘a 100 feet’.

So yeah…these are the few grammatical errors I found in your first chapter. I think your only grammatical error is the phrasing of sentences. Some of them don’t flow that well, so maybe you can go through them again and edit it a little. The rest is fine, so I don’t think this is a section you need to worry much about.

There’s nothing to worry about your writing style too, one of the biggest reasons why your story is so popular and why your plot is so superb is because of your strong writing style. You have a very convincing writing style that easily opens a gate for the readers to enter this little world you created, so if you don’t give up on literature and keep writing, one day, you’ll develop your own unique writing style and it will hugely benefit your stories.

Overall enjoyment: (5/5)

I love your story. It’s so beautiful and perfect and I thoroughly enjoyed it. To be honest, I’ve already read your story even before I became a reviewer, so it came across as a surprise when I saw your review on the pending list. I feel like it’s an honour for me to be able to review your story, and I truly hope that this review was helpful to you in any way. Good luck for your sequel and keep writing amazing stories like ‘Home’! Fighting!

Reviewer’s note: Sorry for the ultra-late review. I was getting a bit lazy with holidays just starting and I was busy with holiday homework and church stuff. Hope this review was hopeful, and I’m sorry if there were any mistakes in the review, I’m dead tired right now and don’t have the mental capability to edit it.

♠ TOTAL SCORE: 95/100