Review for 2alicehoney2 // By: chaniel

Title and Story Link:

The Nightmare Man (Completed, Reviewed with 37)

Title:

Ok, so the title was weird at first. When I first read it I thought about maybe a rom-com situation with a girl falling not for the guy of her dreams but for her nightmares, if that makes sense. And then I read your description and the title made so much more sense. And I liked it. However, it still is a little ambiguous and could be missinterpreted (like I did).

Overall appearance:

I really like the way the foreword page looks like, with the poster and the bloody bg, it gives off a really impressive vibe. However, only thing I'd complain about the poster, is that you don't get to read the title itself that much, it somehow gets lost in the colors and lights. And another thing that I didn't quite like, was the way you used several different colors to name each character on the description. To be honest, I'm a fan of the simplier things, and I prefer it when you use just a color or two, and maybe mix between them. Considering the bg is bloody and the poster's red-ish too, so personally I would just stick to those kind of matching colors; red and black.

About the story itself, I would sugest that you edit all your chapters to have the same fonts, I kinda pay a lot attention to those things.

Description and Foreword:

Here, I can't lie. Your description got me so interested in the story, mostly because I was expecting something so different, that when I finished reading it, I was like, "Whaaaaat?". It deffinetly made me want to read more.

However, as I got to the foreword, I was a little turned off by the little extract of the story. At first I thought it was an extract from chapter 1, but after I didn't find it there, I began to like the foreword again. But still, I would've loved it more if you had just left it with only the description, because the description is so good and interesting, that needs nothing else to get the reader's attention.

The trailers, I have to admit, aren't something I actually like. Not yours in particular, but all trailers and the idea of them, I have no real clue as to why. It's more of a personal opinion I guess, and I would rather have the foreword without them.

Plot:

The plot, I have to say, wasn't exactly neat. At first, because of your description, I thought I was going to read a mistery/crime sort of story, more like Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie's stories. However, with the actual plot, I still don't get why everyone did anything in this fanfic, the mean guys I mean. I know that you keep pointing out that it's a sort of mental deficiency, but it's not quite a convincing sort of topic. It reminded me strongly of Saw, yet at least in those movies, you knew that they had all been chosen because of something they had done with their lives. I would've preferred if each of them realized on their own their "connection" with the nightmare man, instead of having Ryeowook so kindly explaining everything as if it was no big deal.

Also, the love plot here was kind of unrealistic. I mean, I did buy that Kyuhyun was some how in love with Sunny, and that Sunny and Taemin loved each other, but not as much as I would've wanted to. There are no scenes of them together rather than the ones where they are already kidnapped, so I don't know why Taemin would say he loves Sunny just like that. I can understand that they could like each other and then fall in love with being captive, but to be already in love when they barely even knew each other... I'm just not a fan of "love at first sight" or characters that fall in love so fast. Instead, I would've bought it so much more if you had given me maybe some "flashbacks" or moments before they were kidnapped, where I got to see a few interactions with Taemin/Sunny or Kyuhyun/Sunny. Also, at the end, Taemin says he and Kyu fought cuz they both loved her, but at the first chapters he asks Kyu for Sunny's phone number, and I don't see even the slight pinch of jealousy from Kyuhyun's side.

Instead, I really bought Kyuhyun's and Sunny's love story, but at the hospital. I would've liked it if Kyuhyun was taking so much care of her just because he knew Taemin loved her so much, but then they couldn't help but fall in love with each other.

Victoria's story didn't really mean much, because I barely got to see any side of her or her past. Same with Kangta and Chanhee.

I didn't really understand why Chanhee and Bom where chosen, considering the others had their reasons. Even Victoria, she was just a random girl they were going to kill (I guess), but after Taemin tried to save her and then escaped from their prison, I get it that they'd kidnap her again.

I can't lie I found a few loopholes, specially regarding that whole scene in New York, why was the nightmare man in new york? Were they following Heechul? They they chose them randomly while they were there? Were they still living abroad? But then how did they became the nightmare man, when they weren't in Korea and with Ryeowook to teach them?

Also, how did Sunny know that her father worked for Kangta? Did he abbandon her when she was like 5? She still remembered that? Or she was still in touch with her father? Or maybe was something the doctors had planted in her head after brain washing her on that mental hospital?

Still, you managed to make it interesting and it was a good plot, but it somehow felt like a Quentin Tarantino movie; a bloody killing with no actual reason behind it than mental instability.

Language:

Your grammar and language was really good, with just a few typos and mistakes. However, they were not important errors or anything that would make people cringe when reading your story, so that's great!

Here are a few spotted mistakes:

On chapter 4, you typed "collar ID" instead of "caller ID".

On chapter 7, "Cheers and shouts filled the room as the young and popular Chanhee's name was called to the stage" should be "Cheers and shouts filled the room, as the young and popular Chanhee was called to the stage." There's no need for the word "name" in the sentence, because it doesn't make sense. "Young and popular" talk about a person, not a name.

"everything in Chanhee's vision grew black." Here, I would use "went black", instead of "grew black".

On chapter 11, "we had stop her from having a breakdown" should be "we stopped her f