Back To Square One
written by shashashy
reviewed by Meleodiseu

Title: 10/10
At first your title didn't make sense to the story but when it was explained in the end, it suddenly made sense. That, in turn, made the beginning of the first chapter make sense, leading it to be a nice circle and getting rid of any errant questions that were raised from the first part of the first chapter

All in all, your title was rather clever.

Plot: 19.5/25

                The setting is the stereotypical high school in an anime. It played out well and the details of the setting were rather well done.

                2.5/5: Originality
                The plot couldn't be called original for two reasons. One; in the foreword you did say that it was going to have the anime feel due to one anime. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean it's based off of an anime, however, it was implied. Two; there are multiple fics based off of a school romance involving a smart girl and a bad boy. That's the most common thing for people to write about which, makes every other story seem unoriginal unless they really work at making it different.

Sadly, this plot did not.

However, the use of the carvings of Japanese and French on the table with the book acting as a translator was quite clever.

                7/10: Believability
                This plot follows a "perfect girl" and a "delinquent". That, in itself, is a little far fetched. Those two groups really don't interact within a high school dynamic, even if they bump into each other in the library. Yes, they would talk briefly but after that they would probably go back to being in their separate groups. Other than that, the high school setting was well played out and read like they were actually in one.

However, Sana living by herself raises doubts for it to be completely believable. When in high school you cannot live by yourself as you need a legal guardian, unless you are eighteen. The fact that she lives in a house alone is very questionable because at the very least, she would have a caretaker there with her.

Characterization: 5/35

3/5: Presentation
2/10: Development
0/20: Diversity/Purpose
 

Sana
To be blunt, Sana is a Mary Sue. The whole "good-girl-turned-bad" is one of the biggest tropes in fan fiction and, quite honestly, overdone. Not to mention the fact that she's pretty, rich, has absent parents, and is one of the three smartest girls in the school. She's perfect in every sense of the word and this remains constant throughout the story, making her unlikable to many people.

It would probably have been better if she grew from this mould that was set in the beginning of the story and into her own character, but, she stayed little miss perfect. Hence her nickname in the story, one would think. Yet, if she despised that nickname, then it would be a natural reaction to shed the habits that led to it. Sana was the same throughout the entire story, leading it to be the same story.

Jeongguk
Jeongguk is the bad boy that every girl fantasizes about. "Tough and cold to every one but me.". The typical deliquent that is seen in almost every school romance anime- something that makes sense as you're basing it off of one. However, that being said, his character wasn't portrayed in an original way. Hell, he even had the "my mother left me when I was young." backstory that almost every "rebel" has.

His character was almost as bland as Sana in the sense that he too was perfect. He was the perfect bad boy character seen throughout every story.

Background Cast
The teachers are the stereotypical strict, no nonsense teacher that is seen in almost every story set in a school. Going along with that, if all the teacher's adored her, then why did the teacher in the beginning seem to almost despise her?

Dahyun is rarely seen, despite being her best friend.

BTS and TWICE members are seemingly randomly thrown in and never seen again. Point and case: Nayeon was only mentioned once with Sana's rather petty opinion of her.

The background cast were just their stereotypes. If you had given them their own personality, it would've been fine.

There is also the issue that most of them are only mentioned once. That seems rather... unnecessary for the story. This section was almost titled "Secondary Characters" but they couldn't be classified as such, seeing as how they weren't. It's not bad to add detail to your stories and to beef them up by adding another character, one that could potentially make the story better by adding drama.

Writing Style: 15/30

                The narration style of the story was really good, telling the story in an interesting way. You found a good style and you should keep to it.

                5/10: Consistency/Flow
                The flow, however, was very... choppy. There were too many periods used when a comma would have sufficed and you repeated some phrases in the next sentence, making it rather redundant.

One example of this would be the line: "When she first met Dahyun, Sana felt like she wanted to be her friend. That's why she's friends with Dahyun." The second sentence is completely unnecessary. You stated before that Sana was friends with Dahyun and you are just repeating the phrase. However, if it was phrased as "When she first met Dahyun, Sana felt like she wanted to be her friends, which is why they were friends now."

An example of a comma working in place of a period would be the line: ""Greetings, Nayeon-ssi." The brunette smiled. Finally getting a grip on reality." That period could easily be replaced with a comma and still be considered a proper sentence while also improving the flow of it.

""Greetings, Nayeon-ssi." The brunette smiled, finally getting a grip on reality.".

The sentence doesn't have the sharp pause that a period brings, but more of a softer one that doesn't completely interrupt the current flow.

                5/10: Spelling/Grammar
                The grammar and spelling is a different matter. Obviously, most of the spelling mistakes are just that: mistakes. There were a few words missing a letter and a few missed spaces in between words here and there, but it didn't distract the reader to the point of not being able to read your story. The grammar, on the other hand, needs a good amount of work. There are multiple misuses of tense and a lot of the errors didn't seem like they were intentional but rather the result of rushing through the story, but that doesn't erase the fact that they are there.

"Yes, he considers the table an art." That simply doesn't make any sense. "Yes, he considers the table a piece of artwork.".

"He gripped tightly on his steering wheel as he stepped on a pedal..." -> "He gripped the steering wheel tightly as he stepped on the pedal...".

""Why did he fell for Mimi?"" -> ""Why did he fall for Mimi?"".

Those were a few instances of improper tense usage, but there are multiple more. As a suggestion, if you're too busy to read through it, hire a beta reader to catch those mistakes.

TOTAL: 49.5/100

Reviewer's note: Hey, Mel here *^^* I really, really hope I didn't sound too mean in this. That wasn't my intention and I don't want you to look at the score and feel like you didn't do well enough. The story was good, but it fell into too many clichéd moments that distracted from your original intent for the story. I would recommend that you find someone to beta read for you to catch any small mistakes and to add more detail to your stories and characters, take the time to develop an original personality for them.

If you do that, I am positive that your stories will be better.

Keep writing~~ *^^*