From the Shadows
written by Amalya
reviewed by SouthWest

Title: 10/10
I actually really like the title.  It draws the reader in and it matches the theme.  The core of the story is about Yifan struggling with whether or not to remerge from the shadows of the forest and back into the real world.  And I thought it also came up again in the end, when he's dreaming/dying.  He has to overcome his past and break free from the shadows in order to wake up and return to Yixing.  I also love the chapter names and how they contradict the title, just like the contradiction between Yifan and Yixing. 

Plot: 31/35

                4/5: Originality
                Definitely original.  I don't even know what else to say.  But I do want to add that I loved the fact that Yixing lives in a small village where the people live off the land and the forest instead of modern conveniences.  If Yixing lived in a more modern setting and was trying to convince Yifan to come live in the 21st century, it would have been way more cliched.  But in your story, the difference in their life styles isn't all that different (it's just that Yifan is alone in the woods while Yixing has a village), thus the question isn't whether or not Yifan can adjust to a 'new world' (or return to modern life?) it's more about him accepting himself and his past and the future Yixing is offering him.  (Does that make any sense?)  In conclusion, I find it much more original and much more enjoyable this way. 

                7/10: Believability
                There are two things here that I want to mention.  First, you never really touch on how Yifan and Yixing’s relationship is impacted by the fact that they’re both guys.  I think I would just feel more complete if there was an acknowledgement that they’re both guys and it’s okay.  There’s nothing in the story to suggest that it isn’t a problem.  But at one point by their tree, Yixing confesses that he feels like an outsider and I was thinking maybe it would be a problem that they’re both guys, but then nothing is said about it at the end.

                My second comment on believabilty has to do with Yifan's background.  His motivation for going into the forest in the first place and the reasoning behind him thinking he's a monster didn't all line up for me or match the stream of consciousness I see throughout the story.  In the fourth paragraph of the first chapter, you write, "The same thing that drove him to destroy anything in his path that rose up against him, refused to let him just lie down and die."  As a solider, did he kill because he wanted something and wasn't going to let anyone stand in his way?  Or did he simply kill to survive?  If it's the first (which is what the quote suggests), then what happened to change his mind and make him retreat into the forest?  If it's the second (which is what I got from the dream/dying in the epilogue), it makes sense that the same instincts that kept him alive on the battle field continue to keep him alive in the forest, but some of what you've written contradicts that.  Now maybe you have a really good explanation for all this, but as of right now, that clarification either isn't in the story or isn't clear enough. 

                And then, from the beginning, Yifan identifies himself as a monster.  So, I'm kind of picturing a guy that is more animal than man now, running only on instinct.  But his stream of consciousness in this story shows that he's still thinking like a human.  He's not just instinctively staying close to the water, he's reasoning that if he doesn't, he's facing heat exhaustion and fainting.  Over the course of the story, I found him to be a natural predator (a contrast to Yixing), he kills the big mean cats and does what he needs to do to survive ad he's good at it.  So, I don't completely understand what drove him to the forest.  I feel like I'm missing a major event which ended with Yifan seeing his hands stained in blood and acknowledging the monster he's become and fleeing to the forest.  But to survive in the forest, he continues killing.  Sure, people and animals are different, but it's still killing and it's still staining his hands with blood.  Has he come to the conclusion that he's a monster and no longer wants to subject humans to his deadly touch and that's why he retreated into the forest and is reluctant to associate with humans anymore?

                It's totally possible that I just missed a piece of important information, but I hope I was able to convey why I don't quite understand where Yifan is coming from.  Don't get me wrong, he's a really interesting character (one of the reasons I'm working so hard to try and figure him out), I'd just like to have a clearer idea of what drove him to the forest in the first place. 

                9/10: Narration
                I love your vocabulary and your descriptive language.  Example: "He is determined not to mar their quaint paradise with his stained and soiled presence..."  Love it.  Just watch out for purple prose.  I love your word choice, but when you throw too much flowery language into a sentence, the reader has to dig through all of it for the meaning.  I found myself doing that at times.

                10/10: Setting
                I didn't have a problem at all with the setting.  Your descriptive language really brings out the surroundings.  And I never had a problem understanding where and how the people in the village live despite the fact that it's not "modern."

Characterization: 34/35