Author: Markie

Story Title: The Cost of Life

Story URL: http://www.winglin.net/fanfic/TCOL2/

Reviewer: Rachi @ shreddedhearts.blogspot.com



Title: 4/5 ~ A bit dramatic, don’t you think? It’s kind of a downer and gives away the tragedy element of the story right away but then again, it does fit the story perfectly fine and it caught my attention, although next time, try making it a tiny bit more creative so it’s more of a title rather than a statement.



Poster/Background: 5/5 ~ Wow, I loved your poster. I liked how JJ and Yunho look exactly as if someone had drawn them and colored them in on a piece of paper. The background was great too, I could read the text perfectly.



Forewords: 7/10 ~ I didn’t really like the forewords because it was very lengthy and I read through 3/4 of it before realizing it was the introduction and not an actual chapter out of the story. Forewords are supposed to act as an introduction or some slight summary of the story. It definitely grabbed my attention but it seemed like some random excerpt out of the story that wasn’t very revealing at all. And shouldn’t the Characters go in the forewords? Or at least before the prologue?



Plot: 14/15 ~ You have a pretty good plot going on. It had my interest the whole time and I was excited to read the next chapter because I needed to find out what was going to happen. One thing I disliked about it was that I felt like half the story is centered around JJ getting hurt, or being forced to do something he doesn’t want to and although I know that it’s all supposed to go with the plot and was interesting at first, after while, it just seemed kind of pointless…like you ran out of ideas and just decided to make it into a horror story.



Originality: 18/20 ~ The whole “master-slave” thing is EXTREMELY overused but the reason you earned back a lot of the points was because a) it was yaoi so it was already somewhat unique and b) because of the way you told it; your tone and dialogue made it interesting.



Grammar/Spelling/Punctuation/Vocabulary: 15/15 ~ I didn’t spot any grammar or spelling mistakes here (that’s a first!) There might have been a couple of run-on sentences but I could tell that those were made for emphasis and tone. I loved your choice of vocabulary, the words fit this story perfectly and made the plot flow quite nicely as well.



Detail: 3/5 ~ Your descriptions of the characters were very nice because I could get a super clear image of what they were supposed to be like based on how you characterized them but for the rest of the story, detail about the environment surrounding them was missing. Yunho’s mansion could’ve been described more in detail, as could the brothel house, and the candy shop, heck just about everything needed more description instead of just labeling it “the mansion” and etc.



Writing Style: 9/10 ~ I liked your formatting and how everything was very clear and readable. Your choice of language was great too. The only thing that made me confused sometimes, was how you used the (~) for flashbacks. I had issues understanding when they started, when they ended, and when another one started; a nice and simple –flashback—would have been nice. Also, I wish you would’ve labeled the POV’s of the characters so I would know right away. Some of them were very clear but others, I would be reading through more than half the chapter before I realized it was from etc.etc.’s point of view.



Overall Enjoyment: 7/10 ~ The whole violence thing wasn’t doing it for me. The rest of your plot was fine and I guess it was all part of the story but I think it was on overload a LOT of the time. I know you used it to emphasize certain situations and feelings but at a certain point, it just felt really dirty without purpose.



Bonus: 5/5 ~ I give bonuses based on two things: whether you replied to comments (if they were nice to comment, you should be nice enough to reply), and little messages (just about random stuff, or if there’ll be a delay in updates) because it shows responsibility and also gives the author more or less of a personality. You did both of that so there ya’ go :]



Total: 87/100

Labels: Rachi