Title: US v THEM
Author: Zombary-P
Grade: 81% B-
Review:
Disclaimer: Obligatory "excerpts from the story titled do not belong to me". There are also excerpts from No One Mourns The Aftermath and Twenty-One, ongoing stories which can be found around Wattpad. I used small snippets solely as positive examples. And, of course, two of my stories make an appearance, one from Wattpad (Lost Destinies) and one from my drafts.
Looks like we have a bunch of review requests stacked up! Time to try and read them all... 🥲
So, I was told ahead of time that the author of Us v Them is French and writing in her second language, and I'm going to try to keep that in mind as I go through it. I'm in a particularly cheery mood and this is a short story so I get the feeling I'm going to end up keeping things pretty lighthearted. I've read some seriously HORRENDOUS books on Wattpad both from people whose first language is not English and whose first language is English, so honestly, the bar is pretty low and based on the description alone I don't think this one will have those kinds of major problems. Let's get right into it, shall we?
We've got another case of Uppercase Title Syndrome, but I'm going to let this one off the hook because a) it's still a way better title than A ROYAL SURPRISE, and b) I'm feeling nice today.
Not gonna lie, the cover is pretty awesome. Yeah, the title isn't perfectly centered, but there's so much cool stuff going on that I didn't actually notice that until I'd looked at it several times. I like the effect of a picture at the top and one on the bottom, separated by a dark blur that serves to connect them smoothly. 10/10 font choice. You've got to tell me what font that is because I'm in love. The blood spatter and faceclaims are very nice. I like everything about the cover! There's no author name, but other than that, it totally looks like a legitimate book I would pull from a shelf in Barnes & Noble.
The description is ominous and effective, and precisely the length I would expect for a five-part short story. The dates are placed right where they should be and the blurb tells me exactly what I need to know, nothing more. Literally the only complaint I can come up with is that the character's ages aren't really necessary to put in a description. If you are going to say their ages, I would go with: Among them, a family of three brothers: twenty-four-year-old Vår, twenty-year-old Vinter, and ten-year-old Höst; along with their seventeen-year-old sister Sommar. That would feel more natural, I think, but that's just me.
By the way, I did Google how to pronounce all their names out of curiosity, but I would probably get them wrong once or twice saying them aloud anyway because unless your name is John Smith I have to actively learn pronunciation of everything. (The real reason all my characters have generic names is revealed.) On that subject, side note: why do so many people choose not to learn how to pronounce the names of people they know? It takes effort but only a little, jeez. Okay, focusing ADHD brain back on the task.
Chapter 1 opens straight into the sibling quartet entering a house. I'll be frank here—We found a house isn't exactly a banger of an opening line, and you really want your first paragraph to hook your readers. Anyway, although it isn't specified directly, this chapter is from Vår's perspective. The note about the baseball bat makes me realize that he must be the man front and center on the cover, and that little identifying detail is actually a little fun. I'm going to assume that since it's from his POV so far and he's centered on the cover, he's the main character. I like knowing that from the get-go. Good job.
As for editing nitpicks, I did notice a repetitive line here:
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Vinter is the first to take a step. Although I usually prefer to lead the way, the gun allows faster reflexes and I trust that Vinter will shoot if he has to. He already had to.
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It's not that big of a deal, but I would maybe say: Although I usually prefer to lead the way, the gun allows for faster reflexes and I trust that Vinter will shoot if he has to. He's already proved it before.
There's immediately worldbuilding setup, and I can't tell whether it's intentional, but I'm going to praise it anyway. In the house the siblings have entered, presumably to search for supplies, there are covered bodies and a suicide note of sorts left behind. The family who lived here apparently penned a note encouraging anyone who stumbled upon the home to take what they needed, wishing them well (and someone wrote a really very pointless, but sweet, reply of thanks and rest-in-peace). Now, my only experience with zombie media is pretty much... yeah, I can't think of anything I've watched except for Zombieland and Zombieland 2. So Zombieland is my go-to reference, and this is definitely a drastic contrast to that universe. Here, people would rather die on their own terms than be forced to survive the zombie apocalypse, and honestly, can you blame them? There's a somber sense of compassion here. The people in-universe, both alive and dead, still retain their humanity and care about strangers, which is one of the beautiful things about life—as bad as people can be, there are always those who will extend a helping hand to someone they've never ever met before.
It's almost used as a throwaway detail:
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"They were nice people," Vinter remarks.
It is indeed generous of them to give away what they had, but with or without the note it would have still been taken.
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And I imagine this will be the end of it, but I think that it says so much by saying so little. It's a subtle commentary about human nature, which is very important in a genre that often brings out the worst, rather than the best, of it. I want to say that I don't see this a lot, but again, my zombie knowledge consists only of Zombieland, I can only speak for my own opinion that this detail in this story feels unique in a way.
The little race that the siblings do is kind of cute. The idea that siblings remain just as competitive as always even in the face of the apocalypse is kind of hilarious, and accurate. Just the act of racing itself tells me that these characters are all very close, which makes sense given that they're a tight-knit group trying to survive, but it makes things a little more fun and almost makes them feel more real. It's a dark, grim setting, but the characters don't have to be inherently serious and boring.
Another thing that sticks out to me is the offhand comment that Vinter is missing most of his left arm. Yeah, it doesn't really matter on the surface, but it's really very silly that we have so many dystopia and apocalypse stories in which every character is perfectly intact. There are ZOMBIES running around. Anyone with all their pieces still together should consider themselves lucky. This also sets up the possibility of an intriguing backstory for him later.
Another seemingly unimportant comment that really betrays the perspective of the characters is this one:
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If there was a God we would thank him, but this beautiful meal is all due to us and our hard work.
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Yes, yes, this is sacrilege, I know. But it gives me interesting insight into the characters and how they see the world. The world they live in is so shredded that they feel abandoned, like the only thing that can ever help them is themselves. It sets up the worldbuilding further—everyone has to work for everything. If you die, it's because you didn't work hard enough; you are to blame. If you survive, it's because you took responsibility for yourself and refused to give up. It's all about perseverance, and the characters are alone in their ongoing conflict.
The dialogue thus far is choppy and somewhat uninteresting. The absence of much meaningful or witty conversation is only saved by the fact that inner monologues and actions seem to speak louder than words. Vår's character is apparent quickly based on his narration; he's a quiet but assertive leader, cares deeply for his family, and has both a serious and slightly humorous side. For the most part, this makes up for the dialogue issues, but I'm still on the first chapter, so I'll have to come back to this later.
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"It's so quiet," Sommar comments.
"We should sing a song," Host suggests.
"What do you want to sing?" Vinter asks.
"Same as always," he replies.
"Again?"
"Well, that's our song," Sommar asserts.
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I actually didn't put this excerpt here to point out the extremely boring quality of the dialogue. What I'm taking issue with is the number of replacements for the word 'said'. A lot of writers are apparently severely allergic to said, which is something I've never understood. Comments, suggests, asks, replies, and asserts are all perfectly acceptable alternatives, it's just that there's too many of them all in a row. Be creative! Break up dialogue tags by describing actions instead. Here's an example of a brief conversation between three characters (same number as the excerpt above) from Twenty-One by Averageghost.
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"Do you even know how to get back?" Tala asked, brow raised.
Masami swore. She wouldn't have known the way back during the day let alone in the dark. Staying in this haunted city was the safer option for now. "You're not planning on going in there, are you?"
"Of course not. I'm just not going to walk back until sunrise."
"What makes you think that was an optional invitation?" Ale said.
"I don't care if it's mandatory."
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See, here, there's only need for two dialogue tags. The rest can be implied with actions or simply just a line of dialogue in itself with no indicator (do that sparingly). Now here's an excerpt from one of my own stories, in which I use three dialogue tags.
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"Ooh. I like it," says Wipeout, snapping his fingers. "The type of thing that you daydream about in the shower but don't actually go through with unless you've locked your poor, starving remaining brain cells in the pantry to die."
"Exactly," I tell him. "So, if you don't think about it for too long and you just do it, there's really no conceivable thing that could go wrong."
"And Red agreed to this?" says Silverface, scratching at a mostly faded bruise on his neck.
"I wouldn't've suggested it if she hadn't."
Wipeout exhales a laugh. "You're whipped, you know that?"
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Note that out of three, I actually used 'said' twice. I just don't understand what's wrong with said. It's simple and effective. You should always use it at least once within multiple lines of dialogue. I also intercut with actions to make the dialogue less scriptlike. And there's another thing that sets these two scenes apart from the one from Us v Them: each line from each character obviously betrays their personalities.
In Twenty-One, Tala's voice comes through as matter-of-fact, Masami's comes across as brash and reluctant, and Ale seems somewhat aggressive or at least assertive in the one quote she gets. You don't have to know anything about these characters ahead of time to glean that. Meanwhile, in Misadventures Of A Teenage Dirtbag, the second excerpt, Wipeout is sarcastic, Chester (the narrator) comes across as idealistic but confident, and Silverface is really the only one from whom you can't discern a specific personality trait. His tone feels a bit lazy, so there's that.
It's important that whenever a character opens their mouth, whatever comes out needs to reflect that character. In the Us v Them excerpt, I can't really tell you anything about the people talking because their dialogue is kind of empty and short.
I actually like the prose style, as it's short and direct and never overstays its welcome with flowery B.S. I couldn't tell you whether this simply means that the author is not good at description, but as someone who appreciates short-and-sweet writing, I'm cool with it so far. Every once in a while I notice an English vocabulary error, so I'll try to make sure and point them out. They have lost every hair, some even body members which fell off, like fingers. This one should probably read: They're entirely devoid of hair, and even some body parts which have long fallen off, like fingers. (Or something to that effect. My wording likely isn't perfect either, but when you wrote "members" the word you were looking for was "parts"—I wanted to make sure you caught that.)
Another one: "You shouldn't have," I disapprove. You'd be better off saying I say disapprovingly.
The underlying themes are interesting and certainly serve to keep my attention when dialogue fails to. I particularly like this bit in the first chapter:
I really hope this idea that survival is necessary in order to be there for those you care about isn't fumbled, because I do really like it. (Note added later: it isn't! Vår gets a great character arc.)
The siblings loosen up a little by playing an improvised version of Hedbanz before being forced to quiet by the threat of zombies (called döda here, by the way) outside the window. The calm, slow-paced introduction is a good way to start out and demonstrate the relationships between the characters, so long as the plot picks up in the next chapter, because this is very short. There are little tidbits of backstory here and there, and I'm hoping the comment about the mother has a payoff later. There's some setup for more information about the characters in the future, and the success of the story hinges on payoff happening, so I'm crossing my fingers. Only one interaction with zombies happens in Chapter 1, but this is pretty much par for the course given it's the exposition chapter. I can't tell at this point if this will be contemplative or more of an action-focused story or both, so I'm going to wait to make my official judgment on how characters and plot are handled.
Chapter Two picks up the pace with a robber, although I can't say I love the interaction with the robber. The scene, and Vår's actions in particular, comes across as a little awkward. The rest of the chapter I mostly like. There are some minor writing issues, like this, for example:
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"I got it," Vinter eventually breaks the silence.
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This should be something more along the lines of, "I got it," Vinter says eventually, breaking the silence. Or maybe Vinter eventually breaks the silence. "I got it," he says quietly.
There's grammatical errors like that scattered throughout. The author needs an editor or simply to read through dialogue rules. Lots of people do this; they tend to forget that commas at the end of sentences only work when there's a 'said' tag afterward. You need to use a period if you're going to follow up the dialogue with an action or some form of narration, or else rearrange the line entirely.
Later on, I turn and find the reason of their disgust should be changed to either "reason for their disgust" or "source of their disgust".
Dialogue is not a strength of this story, and the plot seems to move very slowly despite its short length. I would advise leaning into action scenes and gore, which are highlights of the reading experience. I enjoy reading about the boys fighting döda, and descriptions of body horror are great so I would love to see more of that. Pick out the things you're good at and enhance them, minimizing, in turn, the things that aren't your strong suit.
Characterization is a little weak, frankly, with the exception of the protagonist. Vår has interesting strengths and weaknesses, and his best quality, empathy, is also most certainly his fatal flaw (he can't bring himself to shoot the robber, for example, even though it would benefit himself and his family). Vinter has the second-most development in terms of personality, a slightly reckless, brash and aggressive type. Sommar and Höst have virtually nothing in the way of character, and the largely flat dialogue makes for little chemistry. Focal points of improvement in a second draft should be increasing chemistry between the characters, whether that means more arguing or deeper conversations or what have you, and building around dialogue more. What I mean by that is, there's a lot of line-by-line dialogue with nothing much interesting in between, and the dialogue itself isn't sharp or snappy enough to really deserve to take the spotlight. A quiet, contemplative, action-packed approach could certainly work, so long as narration is ramped up to make up for the slack in dialogue.
To explain what I mean by chemistry, I'm referring to the natural way dialogue flows between two or more characters who interact. I know, I know, it's icky to criticize this when it's something so loosely defined, but chemistry is the kind of thing that you know when you see, on screen or on paper. The good thing about books is that as a writer, you don't have to worry about actors naturally working well together—you can simply manufacture chemistry yourself. There's a lot of different types of chemistry, but they're all important for keeping dialogue readable and engaging. I've talked about this earlier (see my review of Mr Rude & Me). Their quips and remarks should bounce off each other in a way that feels natural and interesting, whether they barely know each other or have been good friends for years. Here's an example of dialogue from No One Mourns The Aftermath by stellarlunatic, between characters who have recently met and don't like each other.
By contrast, here is dialogue from characters that have known and lived with each other for a long period of time, from Lost Destinies (yeah, sorry, I pulled from mine again).
In both cases, the characters poke fun at each other and prod each other for reactions. Each quip or rude comment is followed immediately by a snappy retort. Personally, I think this style of dialogue keeps things fast-paced and entertaining to read, and it seems to work both with serious conversations (above) and lighthearted ones (below). Having chemistry also simply means that a relationship between characters feels real and believable, be it in terms of a romance, rivalry, friendship, or any other kind of dynamic. Consider how people act with their siblings, friends, or romantic partners in real life—and if you do, you'll usually end up with at least a few funny lines. People in real life say some smart and funny stuff, and it can make for brief moments of enjoyment even in a serious setting.
(For an example of what I think is pretty solid romantic chemistry, and something with less sarcasm, here's Austora by TheBlaisse.)
Now, Cora's character, in contrast to the siblings, is about on the same level as Vår's. I can tell who she is whenever she talks. She's quick-witted and fierce but never becomes irritating, which is nice. I like her a lot.
I think the problem I do have with Vår, who I mostly like, is that he seems contradictory at times. He can kill several döda with a baseball bat without batting an eyelash, but seeing an open wound on his own ankle makes him gag. I think it could work if it was explained more in his internal monologue, if the sight of his own blood making disturbing images of zombies surface was the source of his queasiness. That comparison would make it more realistic and understandable. (His aversion to guns is later explained, which is appreciated, but I do think his character could still be handled with a somewhat tighter sense of consistency.)
The plot picks up towards the end of Chapter 2 with the introduction of the Second World and the idea of finding it. The conversation between Cora and Vinter is the most entertaining to read to date, partially because it provides interesting backstory for Vinter's missing arm and partially because Cora and Vinter seem to be the only two characters here with legitimate chemistry; they both have strong personalities and sharp tongues, and their dialogue bounces off each other well (yes!! This is what I'm talking about!!). The revelation that Vår is the one who chopped off his arm gives fascinating insight into Vår's character—he's willing to do what's necessary without hesitation, even if it means making the hard decisions. However, I find that this isn't conducive to his actions earlier; namely, refusing to shoot Cora. He needs to hesitate less and act more, because it makes him come across as pathetic at times and decisive at others, which doesn't make much sense if one has a memory that stretches longer than five minutes. I admit that later scenes and chapters do a much better job of this, so I won't harp on it too long.
Now onto Cora's backstory—it's bad. It's really bad.
Not the way she says it, it's great storytelling on her part, and I love the backstory itself. I have two main issues. One: how early she tells this story. She's only met our siblings crew today, and in the middle of the night, she's spilling her guts to Vinter out of nowhere. However, I can excuse this to some extent. For one thing, it's a short story/novella, so things have to move quickly, and I understand that. For another, it does flow with the conversation she's having with Vinter, and it kind of makes sense in-universe to be okay with telling people your story since it's all you have and you won't know them for long anyway. It's possible she felt comfortable telling it because this is the first time she's gotten to talk to anyone her age in years, and I can't imagine it's easy to keep all that inside.
The second problem is less excusable: IT'S SO EFFING LONG! I think my readers can attest to the fact that I have been known to write some seriously lengthy paragraphs, but even I have never written a paragraph that looks like this. This backstory is shared in one GIGANTIC, COLOSSAL, ENORMOUS block of text with NO room to breathe in between any of it. It needs to be broken up into several smaller paragraphs, with action, facial expressions, or interruptions from Vinter in between. This isn't freaking history class! Girl that ain't a backstory it's an essay!! And directly after we get the same exact style of infodump from Vinter... it's not a good way of delivering backstories. Honey, your backstories were dumped like piles of mulch from a tractor-truck!!
I don't write short stories, so my usual advice would be to spread out the backstory in a mix of carefully-placed flashbacks and narrative infodumping, sprinkled with various clues that give readers a peek but keep them guessing until they get the full story. This would ideally happen over the course of numerous chapters. For a shorter story... maybe the oral revelation technique is okay! I just don't think that a paragraph bigger than my head is the best way to go about it. Your setup was great—some of the things revealed in Vinter's backstory were hinted at previously—but the execution was about as graceful as a hippopotamus trying to figure skate. The simple solution? Break it up. Form an actual conversation. Make one character hold back the most emotionally charged portion of the story and have the other character lean forward and urge them to finish. Show reluctance, display emotional turmoil on the storyteller's face. Give me dry throats, wet eyes, breaking voices at the end of the tale.
It's a story within a story, so give it the same care and attention you would the rest of the story! People will be discouraged from reading if they see blocks of text the size of the Great Wall. Don't let them leave; keep them hooked on your characters' backstories!
Anyway, after that things are pretty much smooth sailing in terms of storytelling. I would even say that the writing improves markedly from the third chapter forward. There is one weird scene where the POV suddenly leaves the POV character and we are narrated a scene (third-person-present) without him? That was really weird, and I would recommend finding a way to fix it. Either switching POVs throughout the story and changing the perspective style, or simply making the scene happen in front of Var while he eavesdrops or something. Don't abruptly switch perspectives for exactly one scene in the entire story and then never do it again, it disrupts consistency and takes the reader out of it. There's also another scene much later where Var is asleep and we still get to hear what is happening around him, which is a bit strange, because he probably wouldn't hear all that if he was actually asleep.
I really don't have a lot to say about the rest of the third chapter because I really liked it. Character relationships improve, zombie action is very enjoyable, and overall it's mostly well-written from here. I particularly had fun with scenes that found time to be lighthearted, like the one in which some of the boys are making jokes about the zombies by the fence. It really humanizes them and brings light to such a grim, serious setting. We finally get legitimate conflict between Cora and the siblings because of their conflicting worldviews, which I would love to see more of.
Watching the youngest brother learn to defend himself in a bleak world when he's still only a child is really sad, but also heartfelt. Another thing that hits pretty hard is Vinter's outburst when he releases his pent-up frustration about the elders refusing to put his name on the board. His disability is the source of a lot of otherness for him, and he's sick of it, and part of him would rather have been killed that day than lost his arm due to the way he's seen as weak and crippled by others. The way this outburst affects Vår—the reason he's missing his arm in the first place—and strains tension between them is really, really effective! I applaud the author immensely for this scene! It's one of the few that successfully builds the most tension between characters, despite being short.
I was kind of surprised by the romantic sparks between Vår and Cora, because it always seemed like she had more of any sort of relationship with Vinter than with him, but that's a minor thing I'm not really big on. And it isn't bad, just underdeveloped in my opinion. Their sexual encounter seems to come out of nowhere for me, so I feel like you could do with more buildup. Also, even though it's not a heavily descriptive sex scene and it's basically a paragraph, I wasn't expecting it, so I would recommend marking your story 'mature' both to warn readers and to avoid getting taken down because of the Wattpad Guidelines.
Something that I've started to realize now that I'm at the end of Chapter 3 is that these chapters are ridiculously long. I write super long chapters as well, but given the short length of this story overall, I think it could encourage more to read your book if you split them up a bit—shorter chapters, more of them.
The chemistry between the characters is finally starting to show, and I'm so happy about it. Vinter's birthday and him drinking whiskey ("It's so disgusting") was hilarious and heartwarming, and I have really liked this back half of the chapter. Here's the chemistry I was always looking for:
Yes! Woohoo! That's what I'm talking about! This is one heck of a family dynamic! I want to see more of this!!
The emotional portion of this scene afterward is also, just, *chef's kiss*. Chapter 3 is iconic. I love it. I wish it was split up into several chapters though because the beginning compared to the end feels like a fever dream.
Chapter 4 is brutal and dark. All the stuff that was kind of weird about the Second World before becomes extremely messed up on a whole other level, and the eventual leaving of Vinter and Var is a twist I didn't see coming. Things got really interesting after the first two chapters, which were lackluster in comparison. I also appreciate the we found a house parallel as a nod to the opening scene of the first chapter. The plan to break into the Second World again and following execution scenes are all great, and this chapter has few problems except for some grammar issues and the fact that it feels painfully long. I was skimming at some points, because I'm pressed for time at the moment (doing this in between doing work for government class). But the action scenes are fantastic, particularly the series of fights towards the end.
I'll be honest, the ending of Chapter 4 almost made me cry. And then when I clicked on the ending chapter, I legitimately did start crying. Aside from just being sad, the ending was miles beyond the beginning, and the improvement blew my mind.
Here are my final thoughts. US v THEM was entertaining and engaging enough, but there were many times when I was willing to put it down and go do something else. It actually took me a long time to get through this review, which you probably already know based on the dates that I voted on your chapters. This isn't because I didn't like the book but rather a combination of my lengthy reading slump and the fact that there were a lot of times when it was fine for me to put the book down—I didn't lose anything from it. The plot, I think, lacks a substantial sense of urgency in the first, second, and third chapters. It is not the story itself that is poorly written all around but the tension and stakes that struggle to keep my attention. The exception to this is Chapter 4, which takes on a considerably darker tone than the rest and unravels a lot of conflict between characters. The tension is definitely there. As far as wrapping up an ending, I have literally no complaints. The ending resolved the conflicts and made me emotional. 10/10.
So, if I have so much critique for this story, why did I give it a B-minus? It took a lot of deliberation to grade this novella, and I ultimately realized that, while far from perfect or even excellent, it deserved better than a C. Compared to the other stories I have given Cs in this review book, its writing style, pacing, action sequences, and setting were much better delivered. That said, it isn't quite up to par with the other Bs yet. It feels very much like a first draft. It's not by any means a bad first draft, and there were many parts I loved and truly appreciated, but it has a long way to go. Hopefully my notes along with feedback from others contribute to your improvement in the future. I think looking at the way you wrote your characters towards the end might help you redesign them for the beginning, because the beginning is somewhat flat and boring and it steadily improves until I had to stop and go, wow. This is getting really good!
I wouldn't buy it, hence the absence of the usual B stamp. But you know what? I would buy an improved draft of it, one that's cleaned up around the edges.
I hope your place on our humble little hall of fame encourages others to pay your writing a visit. That's a wrap, everybody—have a good one!