Killing Him Softly

Reviewer: dhaatk
Review for: wonjana

Requested on: 05/06/2015
Finished On: 14/06/2015

NOTE: 12 Chapters (Spoiler Alert)

(10/10) Title: The chosen title is great. Even though such word play makes reader think that he or she will encounter a mysterious story, full of angst, it actually fits this kind of narration, too. The question who kills who is in the back of many readers' minds throughout the story, probably until the tenth chapter, when it is obvious that Luhan is the one who slowly destroys Sehun's mental stability.

(7/10) Character: The best thing about characters is that they all have different personalities and the number of them is not too big, because the more characters there are, the more difficult it is for the author to distinguish them. Also, it appears interesting how characters are related. For example, Luhan's ex-boss is Tao's father and Tao is a neighbour and co-worker of Sehun's. However, two main characters are a bit hard to understand. Sehun is not that complicated, since he kind of has worse personality than Luhan, but still some of his features are strange. For example, it is shown how well he fits into his new family and that is a bit unexpected. He is adopted at rather old age for an orphan, plus he is disabled at the time. The only difficulty he faces is Kris. Sure, adoptive parents may love their new child to pieces, but that child must go through some hardships before feeling at home in the new place. What regards Sehun more, it is smart to put an intimate scene with him and his girlfriend, where he is not excited to have . This shows that Sehun might now be attracted to women. What concerns Luhan, his personality changes dramatically. In the beginning, when he is late for work for the nth time, he seems as light-headed and carefree guy, who is not very responsible, but everybody loves him. After his boss assaults him and he is fired, Luhan is shown just as a weeper, who cries so much and is so punished throughout his whole life, that it becomes annoying.

(10/10) Originality: This story is original in a way how childhood friends struggle, when they are suddenly reunited. They friendship and developing romantic relationship is very bumpy and full of obstacles. However, the way they make each other feel can be easily found original.

(30/40) Storyline/Plot: The pace of this story is so quick that the flow becomes a little bit choppy. So much happens in first chapter already: Luhan meets Sehun at the orphanage; they have good time and become best friends; Luhan breaks his promise to never leave Sehun, because he is being adopted; his new mother dies; the grown-up Luhan is attacked by his boss, gets his bag stolen in the street, and ends up facing Sehun. A lot of questions rise in reader's head. So did the orphanage crash? Why and how? Was there an earthquake? Why was Kris the one dealing with beggar (Luhan)?  Just like some of the characters' traits, most of the storyline is awkward. For instance, Tao putting ointment on Luhan's balls could be put very simply – that's no-no. scenes are weird too, it seems like the author does not actually know how gay men have . But the biggest problem of this story is that just too much drama is trying to be put into one story. There should be less events or they should go in a slower pace.

(20/25) Grammar/Errors: Vocabulary is really good, but the grammar is a bit poor and disturbs from peaceful reading. Most of the mistakes are of mixing tenses and sometimes the wrong word is used. Also, point of views should not be mixed in the beginning. The reader faces three ways of narration: Luhan's, Sehun's, and the omniscient one. This one is used throughout the remaining story, so it would be advisable to start the story with 3rd person's narration.

(2/5) Overall Enjoyment: All in all I did not like this story a lot. The way Luhan and Sehun haunt each other is intriguing, but for the biggest part the plot is too awkward for me. Also, grammar is a bit off and sometimes left me confused, it did not happen frequently, but still occurred.

(79/100) Points Total

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