Where have you gone? by sonwolforlife

Review by ThisMomentWhen

Title (6/10)

The title, even though nothing new and often used by others, still makes one want to read the story, or at least take a look at it. It’s nice and catchy, but after reading the chapters, so far I don’t find any big relation between title and story. It probably means something along the lines of ‘where has his old self gone...’ but to me, it’s not clear enough yet.


Overall Appearance (7/10)

Don’t misunderstand me now, the poster is good(!), but it seems more fitting for the crime genre. Then again, I like the ‘tunnel vision’ in both, the poster and the background. Anorexia is namely that, a tunnel. The background gives both, the feeling of seeing only one way, a tunnel yet again, but also wanting to be free, be happy again, which is pictured by the sea. In short, the BG is amazing, as is the poster, but it could maybe be less... dark.


Description and Foreword (8/10)

Encumbered to an intense diet he started, Baekhyun found himself spiralling down the path of one of the deadliest mental disorders: Anorexia Nervosa. - Notice the colon before Anorexia Nervosa? Punctuation is more important than one might think it is.

Baekhyun is stuck to his compulsion for his eating disorder, he fails to realise the gravity. - After gravity, it feels as if something's missing, as if there was supposed to be written something else.

As for the foreword, it's always good to add a warning, but it would be even better if you'd give a little excerpt to let the people who still don't know if they should give it a go or not have a look at your writing style.


Plot (8/10)

When it comes to stories such as this, it’s always hard to say something about the plot itself. Of course it’s stereotype, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. Stories about Anorexia will always have many similarities, just differently written. I read many stories with this genre already and it’s always the same old story - don’t get me wrong though! There can’t be changed anything about that, it all depends on how the author writes it down to make it interesting and worth reading enough. 

I would give you a full 10 out of 10 it wasn’t for chapter 5 (and something I’ll talk about after this). Anorexia will always act the same, we know that now and it’s perfectly fine, but Chanyeol’s background story... It was too stereotyped. Stuff like this happens and exists in real life, but when a story is already handling a pretty tough genre there shouldn’t be added even more drama to make it more exciting. 

The next thing that made me subtract a point was chapter 8. Here again let me give you one big advice: Don’t go over the top! I don’t say that it was bad written or anything like that, it just doesn’t take the story anywhere. It’s not even a good plot filler which stories need once in a while. It seemed to me out of the blue and just not useful for the story itself.
Don’t try too hard, just make the best out of the main problem of the story. But beside those two things mentioned above, I love the ‘same old’ plot!


Language (10/20)

The writing itself is great, but here again, it felt like you wanted to spice things up by using words one wouldn’t write in that context, or write the wrong word overall.

x Then it daunted on me. 
o[Then it dawned on me. - daunt = Make (someone) feel intimidated - dawned on me = it’s a phrase meaning ‘then I realized/understood’]

x ...but no one knew what was hidden in him. 
o[...but no one knew what was going on within him.]

x ...a familiar urge to just puke right there and then would invade him. 
o[...the familiar urge to puke right here and there would overcome him.]

Another rather big thing I noticed is your how you tend to change the tenses quite often, and a few grammar mistakes can be found here and there too.

x His mother couldn't had had been happier about this. Of course she didn't know about his horribly health threatening eating habits. Wait. More like self-starvation. She could only see her son less than a hour each day, how would she be able to know all these?

o[His mother couldn’t have been happier about this. She didn’t know about his unhealthy eating habits -more like self-starvation- of course. With only seeing her son less than an hour each day how could she possibly know all this?]

x Sitting in front of me are fried eggs and bread, together with a gallimaufry of spread. [...] I guess
I’ll have a few bites then. That would account to about 100 cals…

o[A plate full of food was put in front of me. Fried eggs and a bread with spread. [...] A few bites, about 100 cal, wouldn’t be all that bad I guessed.]

Personally, as reader and writer I prefer the past tense. It feels more natural and it’s easier not to switch into another tense.

Characterization (5/10)

You did describe Baekhyun, but there wasn’t all too much information we got from his past, or how he feels about his illness. I know he once had been an obese kid, he started his ‘diet’ with his father leaving him and his mother, and he knows that it’s not the right thing to do, but that’s it. I’d like to know some... deeper stuff. You mentioned in the foreword something about ‘personal experience’ right? What better way to get all the pent-up emotions towards Anorexia out of your system than to put it into this story? Don’t be afraid to ‘broaden your horizon’, let me, us as readers, feel everything Baekhyun has closed inside him while reading. 


Flow (5/10)

One small advice: slow down a bit. With going at such a fast pace you do, things like those ‘unnecessary’ fillers happen. Chanyeol jumped pretty fast to the conclusion Baekhyun has an eating disorder. Of course, he’s not stupid and put the pieces together like any other human being would do, but here again I miss some information. You mentioned that Baekhyun made up excuses for skipping his meals? Write it down, bring it into the chapter. I’m not saying you should write about everything that Baekhyun went through, just mention it once in a while expand some parts. 
Maybe this will help you understand better what I meant - imagine a wave. A wave is smooth and fluid. It goes up and down ever so carefully. That’s how a story should make you feel too, go with the flow. And now imagine a cliff. It doesn’t just go down in one go, there are all those obstacles, rocks and stuff. There’s nothing smooth there, it’s one hard and hurtful way down and there will be no happy end. Just try to keep in mind that your story should never cease to flow, always keep it going smooth and easy, don’t go over the top if it’s not necessary.

Overall Enjoyment (6/10)

I feel like some annoying broken record, repeating things over and over again, but I really only try to help you. Reading a story with a heavy genre like this should keep one hooked. One should feel all the emotions the main character does, and learn something about the deadly illness as well. You’re a great writer and I enjoyed reading every chapter, but I feel like you hold yourself back. While writing, don’t think about us, your readers; let the story lead you, but don’t lose your way either. Write everything down that you want to write, put all your emotions into it, but don’t go over the board. 

 

Grand Total (55/100)


A/N:
I’m terribly sorry that it took me so long! I had quite some hectic weeks behind me and wow... really had no time at all to squeeze this in between my schedule - then again, I didn’t want to just squeeze it in and write the whole thing half-heartedly. I hope I wasn’t too harsh or came across as rude or whatever you might think of me now^^ I hope this review helped you at least a tiny bit and I can’t wait for your next update~ Already subscribed to it (: Wish you luck!