Review for macchiato- // Reviewed by: pilsuk123

Title and Story link:  

Under the Shade of the Reverie (Completed, one-shot)

Title: (18/20)

The title has a magical and mystical touch to it that I really like. More importantly, it stood out as being original and rather interesting! The only part that I didn't quite understand is the connection between the title and the plot. Of course, at some point of the story, the title does make sense to the plot but the connection isn't strong enough. If the direct and deeper meaning of the title was highlighted in the story, it would have been better. It makes sense now that I've read it again but maybe you could go deeper relation about it, maybe write a impactful sentence about Krystal's reverie in the f/d.

At first, I kept reading the story title as 'Under the Shade of Reverie' and while writing this review, I realized that there's actually a 'the' before 'Reverie' and I felt that the story title could be written withou the 'the'. With the 'the', the title sounded too long when being pronounced and mentioned. It's a lot catchier and the poster's title was written without the 'the' as well. You can think it through but the 'the' isn't really neccessary, w/o 'the', the title is fine as well. The important key word of the title is 'Under the Shade' and 'Reverie' so the 'the' before 'Reverie' isn't actually needed.

That aside, I still love the title. It's just something about it that reading it makes you feel a tingling (is there even such a word?) feeling. I realized that you're one of the few authors in aff who actually have creative and original story title, for example 'Under the Shade of the Reverie' or 'Unthriving Vow' and 'Upon Our Crescent'! All are example of good yet interesting and striking titles.

Overall Appearance: (4/5)

The poster and background picture? Love it, it made sense even just by referring to the title and it has reflected the story's title and plot well. The f/d? It was neat and stylish, I'm really glad you stick to solid and safe colours like black and grey here. It was also well organized with the credits that even though you had many credits to list out, it's still neatly done. The font and size of the story wasn't my favorite though. I actually preferred the foreword font and style over to the story's one because it's a lot enjoyable to read it with that style. I still need to compliment you on putting the extra effort on adding italic on the correct words to make it stand out even more! One last thing, I think you could have spaced out the story better or it might look too wordy at times when the paragraph gets really long and lengthy.

You could try have a empty space after every paragraph and stick to having max. 3-4 lines in a paragraph. 

Description and Foreword: (17/20)

The description didn't spark attention more than the foreword which was suppose to happen. The description felt a little too heavy for just a peak into the story. It doesn't drag readers enough to make them read because you have an amazing story here. For the description, you could instead write something like the foreword which is perfect. Something shorter, lighter, attracts attention and still give a small peak of the story's content. I think the interesting and highlight of the story is Krystal being delusional after losing Kai so maybe you could write about that aspects into the description.

I really love the foreword, it's interesting and it brings people in to make them want to read more. It's so memorable as well! I kept reading the foreword again and again and again until I got them memorized by now. It's short, sweet, impactful and moving all at the same time!

Plot: (28/30)

The plot was 1. interesting, 2. realistically honest and 3. engaging. It's interesting to read how Krystal suffered from her loss of losing Jongin and usually, most authors will start the story with them being together and later Krystal suffering so it's really special to read a story solely based on the ups-and-downs of her emotions. I though the way you decided to write the story's plot kind of backwards and distorted was beautiful as well. Krystal feelings in the story was almost palpable to me, it made the story alive and so real. I think what I love best from the plot is not only from how it revolves on Krystal but I like how you kept every information of the story to a minimal and make them vague and only to reveal all of it through the ending. It constantly keep the audience on a hold, like whether you should jump to your death or not kind of 'hold'. 

The story was also extremely honest and realistic. Everyone who had lost someone dearly before will be able to completely relate to the story and at one point of your life, you'll lose someone you dearly love that you've always relayed on. And like Krystal, you'll feel so lost in your own reverie and unable to move on. It's a very simple plot idea but turned into a masterpiece...

It's just simply engaging, I couldn't stop reading the whole story even though I had a tempting starbucks coffee with essay to complete. I read through the story and I was so resistant to move on because I don't ever want the story to end. I was so absorbed in the story that by the time I was done and back to earth after reading it, my tea had gone cold. 

Since it's a plot idea but turned into a magical and stunning story, it has it's own special sense of originality! It's not a plot where you haven't read similar plot line before but because it's one small idea of reverie and being delusional, it made the story. It made the story special because of it's own very ways. It's beautifully planned and I like how you told the story from the beginning to the end. This story was also a very heart wrenching and teary-eyed story that really gets to me. I love it... every single part of it.

The way you ended the story with Krystal killing herself would simply made me mad in other stories because I don't really believe in character death if it isn't necessary but in here, it's an exception. I'm glad that Krystal decided to end her life and misery and in the hope to see the important person who can save her - Kim Jongin. Even if she lived on, what can she do? Spent the rest of her life miserable, in pain and confuse? I think what you chose for the ending was ideal and perfect for the story. Anyone who read the story and could understand Krystal's pain would agree that there's no better ending for 'Under the Shade of the Reverie'. I'm washed and overwhelmed with the whole story plot... Amazing!

Originality: (16/20)

The story isn't very original because there's a lot of angst and character death story that has similar main part. Parts like Jongin being dead, Krystal being depressed and unable to moved on. I've read tons of story that are similar of those parts but I'll tell you what is it that made it original - the way you had written the story. It isn't obvious from the beginning and one of the plot twist is that I though Jongin simply left her and she's being delusional of everything after he left her but it isn't the truth if you read all the way to the end. He died and didn't left her. And also the fact that you added a different type of character such as Krystal family was new to me. Mostly, it's just about two main characters but by adding the main character family, it made the story even more real and original. My favorite part of the story has got to be the ending part of Krystal ending her life and sending those text messages to Jongin to showed the readers the truth. Even though you said that you got the idea from a post you saw, I haven't seen that yet before and more importantly, I've not seen a story based on that yet! 

The last thing I really like is how you wrote the story that made it original, it's very authentic and real but I'll expand more of this in 'writing style'.

Language: (17/20)

For language, there's just a few mistakes and typos but other than that, I think the story was written to near perfect. I could tell that you re-read and edited many of the mistakes but now there's just down to a few. And I couldn't even actually say it's mistakes, most of them are just me being picky so