Diary Of A Recovering Bulimic

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Title [9/10]

I can’t think of a better title that would suit your story. From first glance, it was clear what the direction of the story would be, and I was glad to find that your story indeed followed through the notion given out by the title. The thing I especially liked about your title was the word “recovering”, it provided a contrast between itself and the word “Bulimic”. It almost felt like that silver lining in the cloud, or the morning that would come after a dark, lonely night. And I guess, that in a sense, this is exactly the life of Haneul: despite her helplessness, and the darkness that was swallowing her up – but in the end, there was still hope. She still had people who cared about her, people who was willing to be the silver lining in her dark cloud. Another thing was I liked how you made it into a “diary”, it just made the whole story seem more personal and more close to the heart. Anyway, good job on a fitting title, one that was able to portray not only the general direction of the story, but also able to represent the more metaphorical side of your plot.

Description and Foreword [8/10]

There is no problem in your description, in fact, I quite liked it. Straight from the get-go, I can see just how dark this story was going to be, and what made me excited to read your story was the fact that your writing was quite sophisticated. There was depth in the content of your description, which made me anticipate that there will also be depth in your plot, hence pushing me forwards to read your story.

The thing that I would suggest you improve, however, is the visual aspect of your description/foreword. Technically speaking, the visual element of a story won’t necessary influence whether a reader chooses to read your story or not, but having good aesthetics in a story definitely can help a reader not only give your story a try, but also help the reader delve into your story more.

Right now, you aren’t lacking aesthetics in your story, but I think there are some minor changes that you could make to make it appeal better. Firstly, though your background isn’t bad, but I would prefer a simpler background. One with a pattern perhaps, or one with darker colours. I’m not saying that purple is a bad choice of colour, but for such a dark story like yours, I feel like a colour like black or grey would suit better. Something along the likes of these:

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=black+wallpaper+pattern&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=662&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin6cva38bRAhUEUrwKHf0_BGYQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=_

Another thing; I think it would be better if you separate your “poster and background” section with your “reviewed by” section a bit more. Just simply add more space between these two sections will do, or perhaps add a dividing line if you want to. Because right now, your credits seemed a little squished up together, and visually that makes me a little uncomfortable.

Just remember that your graphics and all is perfectly fine right now, I’m just providing my own suggestions on what I, personally, think you can do to improve on it. It’s perfectly fine if you don’t agree with me, but do take whatever advice you deem worthy.

Plot [12/15]

Your plot is very heavy, and drips with overwhelming darkness and helplessness. To be honest with you, there isn’t really much of a plot happening at all – your whole story revolves around one girl and her emotions, and repeats itself over and over again in your chapters. When I think back about your plot now, all I can think of is just a splurge of blackness, one ridden with Haneul’s insecurities about herself, and up till now I still can’t really clearly point out what exactly happened in your story. I know that stuff happened, but the descriptive and abstract part of your story overrode the action and flow of plot so much that it kind of blurred out in my mind.

I’m not saying that this is bad, not at all. After all, no one ever said that a plot needs to heavily rely on “what happened in the story” to be a good plot. But, whilst this kind of plot may attract some readers and really draw them in, it may also really repel some other readers – depending on personal preference. I do know that a lot of readers only like to read stories with action, they like to read stories with a lot of events happening – so whilst I really do encourage the plot you have now, but I have to warn you that because your plot is so heavy, this heavy cup of tea may not just suit everyone.

I’ve looked through your other stories, and whist I didn’t click into them and read them, I saw that you write stories with similar styles (I assumed so from your titles and descriptions, correct me if I’m wrong). I understand that everyone has a style that they prefer to write in (including me), but I was wondering if you would like to try writing in a different genre one day? Maybe comedy, or adventure, or supernatural…I believe that through writing different genres and different styles of stories, they really can help us walk out of our comfort zone and challenge ourselves as authors. And when you finished exploring, if you really feel that you want to stick to your original genre, then by all means go back – but trust me, by doing so would definitely improve yourself as an author, and it’ll also widen your horizon.

Overall, it was a dark, but enjoyable plot. Keep it up! I hope Haneul finds her light in the tunnel at the end of the story.

Character Development [9/10]

With your story so heavily revolved around your character, it would be weird not to see character development. Fortunately, there was development in your character - and the development became especially obvious in the later chapters as there finally was a little ray of hope in her words.

To be honest, I don’t really like Haneul. But at the same time, she’s so painstakingly familiar to me (and I believe, to most girls) that I realise that I probably dislike her for the reason that she’s so realistic. That when I look at her character, I can see bits and pieces of her traits in myself; an unconfident girl who never deems herself perfect, even when the people surrounding her tells her otherwise; a selfish girl stuck in her world, only ever thinking about herself and her feelings; a hypocrite, one who never exactly do the things she tells other to do. But then again, we’re all human, and no human is perfect.

Writing Style [15/20]

Generally speaking, you have a nice flow of words, and you expresses emotions and feelings quite well. The only thing that kind of really bugged me throughout your whole story, was your overuse of parenthesis. To be honest, if I was just purely reading your story for entertainment, I might’ve already stopped simply due to your use of parenthesis.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against using parenthesis in stories, but I don’t really like it when it’s overused, especially since a lot of the parenthesis that you used in your writing seemed a little…pointless? What do I mean by pointless? Here, I’ll give you an example:

(Take note that these examples are taken from the preface)

Example One: Usually authors start off with their childhood memories; those joyful times in which they were barely starting to discover the world, unravelling its secrets one by one (with a genuine smile on their faces), their innocence still intact and the gleam in their eyes still present.

Over here, there is no need for the parenthesis. Parenthesis is used to give additional information, or to provide an explanation or an afterthought. I don’t see the sentence “with a genuine smile on their faces” that much as an afterthought or an explanation – this sentence connects perfectly with the previous one without a parenthesis: “unravelling its secrets one by one with a genuine smile on their faces”.

Example Two:
I was fourteen years old when it started.
When I started to lose myself, yet no one came to my aid.
(Or so I thought).

Here, though I can accept it in a parenthesis, but I don’t think it needs to be in a parenthesis at all. Personally, I would’ve found the sentence stronger without it, and it would’ve made a deeper impact on me since the sentence stood alone by itself.

To be honest with you, I prefer stories to use as less parenthesis as possible. The sentences just flow better that way, and unless you felt like the parenthesis really suit that current moment in the story – my advice is to not use it at all. In novels, you would hardly see that many parenthesis used as well. The upside of this is, I realised as I read further down your story that your use of parenthesis seemed to have lessened and improved a bit, but it still appeared quite a lot. I would suggest that in your future chapters if you could completely stop using as much parenthesis as you do now, and only use them on a few occasions.

Spelling, Grammar and Diction [23/25]

I don’t see much problems with this section, congratulations! I was able to read through your story fluently without having to worry about grammatical mistakes, which made it easier for me read.

Personal Enjoyment [7/10]

It was a very dark read – and though it was enjoyable, but unfortunately, I didn’t fall in love with your story, perhaps really just due to your use of parenthesis (I’m sorry for being so picky gahh). Nevertheless, I did like the fact that I was able to actually digress your story, proving that you had a well-written story. Good luck for your future chapters, and I hope to see more from you in the future!

Also, I hope this review was useful to you in anyway and I would like to apologize in advance if I offended you in anyway in the review! Take whatever suggestions/advice you found useful, and feel free to correct me in anything that I have perhaps read wrong in your story, thank you.

Final Score [83/100]