PICK ME! {Book Reviews}

Until There Was You

000artemisrising000

Fandom: Naruto

No. Of Chapters: 42

Status: Incomplete

Mature Content: Violence in Chapter 15 and Chapter 16

Trigger Warning: Fight scenes and Depictions of death Chapter 15 and 16

Area of focus: Flow and pacing. Characterization. Enjoyment. Areas of improvement. Just wanted give you a heads up that the dialogue tags have not yet been fixed yet so I hope it doesn't ruin the reading experience.

Plot Summary:

Perennial underdog Minako's promising career in KISU (Kumo Intelligence and Security Unit) comes to a crashing halt when a mission fails disastrously and she is left as the sole survivor in the carnage with no memory of what happened. Suspended indefinitely and with her future on the line, Minako decides to uncover the truth to what happened that fateful night.

But while embarking on her journey, she becomes a victim of a dabbler who casts an ancient spell to bind souls and gets stuck with an insufferable and infamous reformed criminal named Sasuke Uchiha.

Together, they must work to find the Grand Spellcaster of the Majin Realm to break the enchantment within the next full moon or risk being bound together for all eternity.

But little do they know, that there are dark forces that conspire against them. Nothing is what it seems.

Review:

I want to start this off by congratulating you on writing such a great piece of work. Quite a bit of my feedback can be drawn more toward stylistic differences that technical. Your work truly is phenomenal.

Your summary does a wonderful job of setting up the story to draw in readers. As far as your prologue is concerned, thus far, I think it feels out of place. As small as it is I feel like it could better be worked in through your exposition. Possibly as a lore that Minako comes across along the way. Either that or try giving more detail to flesh out the significance of the prologue.

In general I like the flow of your story in the way you build up the interactions between Minako and her friends. That being said, I do find some of their actions a bit OC. I may be wrong, but I saw Omoi as much more serious than a ladies man. That being said, it has been years since I've watched/read so I may be wrong here. Given that it's a work of fanfiction and there isn't a ton of exploration done with the some of them in the original that I can recall, I think you're fine as long as you remain consistent.

Minako's relationship with her father throws me off a bit. Without giving too much away, I found the sudden turn against her jarring. I'm sure most of that was so the reader would feel the same sense of betrayal she feels, but it comes out of left field. There's a sense of comfort and support between the character at first that would lead me to believe that he would be more apt to listen and be more of a help than a hinderance. If not her father then I would have thought Killer B would have done more to try to smooth things over beforehand. Perhaps plotted together.

Overall, I love the build up. The fact that this is very much Minako's journey and Sasuke isn't introduced until much later. I love the balance she plays between her friends and the longing and tension between herself and some of the other characters. My only real pet peeve (and it's more of a personal stylistic choice on my end) is that your chapters are long enough and well rounded enough that I don't think you need to break them into parts the way you do. It's okay for your chapters to bleed into one another. I don't think the added separation is necessary.

I definitely enjoy it and plan to continue reading, but you've been waiting so long that I wanted to get this out for you. I'm also looking forward to reading more about her growth as a person on top of her struggle to prove her innocence. The way you use her internal monologue to point out her character flaws where she thinks she's above some of the people around her/things she's doing is great. It gives you someplace to go with her rather than trapping her into this box as a perfect righteous character.

~Imnotwhatyouwant