d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews

Flame of Joy by NaivEevee [Pokémon]

Flame of Joy is a Pokémon fanfiction that tells the story of a college student named Lila Joy, who lost both of her parents when she was fifteen. In spite of the fact that she blames Pokémon for the attack that killed her mother and drove her father to suicide, she finds her path crossed with that of a pregnant Charmander and a man who feeds her. As she slowly befriends this Pokémon, she has no idea that her whole life will end up changing because of it.

Please note that there are going to be some spoilers in this review because a lot of what I have to say involves the ending.

The thing that I liked best about this story was the emotion it conveyed. This was a story that really made me feel for the characters. At times it was sad, at times it was sweet, and at times there was even tension that kept me reading frantically.

There's a real emotional connection between the characters, and all of the little details and descriptions help with that as well. I especially liked all of the little descriptions of the way Lila takes care of Burner and all the things they do together. A lot of them made me smile, and it really conveyed the fact that they had a lot of good times together. There were also some really good descriptions in the first chapter that helped to set the scene and establish how Lila felt about her parents. That was another good emotional connection. Both of these things also helped me to care about the characters, just as it helped me to see that Lila cared about them.

The action scene in chapter three was also definitely a big moment of tension, packed with lots of emotion. Really well done overall.

I have a few complaints about typos and errors, including some punctuation and spelling errors, as well as a bit of tense switching. Besides that, there are places where the incorrect word is used. For example, "inquired" is used instead of "acquired", and a payment to make up for some responsibility in a death is called "ransom money", which is only for money paid to kidnappers. Given this, it was particularly odd that there were a couple of places where big, fancy words were used that seemed stylistically out of place. It brings to mind the old saying about not using a twenty dollar word when a ten cent word will do.

My biggest issue though, was that some of the things that happen in the story don't quite make sense to me realistically. For example, in the beginning, we're told that people don't really know anything about Pokémon during the time when this story takes place and there is no love between people and Pokémon. This seems odd based on what I know of canon, which has stories about ancient people befriending Pokémon and using Apricorns even before the invention of the modern pokéball, and it seems odd in this story because the society seems to be technologically advanced enough to have modern buildings and streetlights and scientific experiments. Besides this, we get mentions later in the story of people who do keep Pokémon as pets and even using them for different sorts of purposes, like Stantler pulling a sleigh. I think this could use some clarification.

There were also a few little details that were just a bit off, like how the first sentence suggests that she had to be told that her father was a painter, even though she was fifteen when he died and certainly would have known this. Another is the fact that a Mightyena is said to have red stained fur days after an attack, when it would have washed off by then or at least turned brown, as dried blood does. Another one that doesn't matter a lot in the grand scheme of things is that it seemed as though Charmeleon was far enough into pregnancy to give birth any day during the first meeting, but it takes months for the birth to actually occur. Besides that, it seemed as though Charmeleon gave birth to an egg that hatched immediately? I would have gone with either a long period of sitting on an egg or a complete change to a live birth like a mammal.

Most of the problem I have, though, is with the way the ending unfolds. I actually really love the twist that Lila turns out to be the very first Nurse Joy because she's inspired by all of her experiences. I also appreciate that the author is trying to draw attention to depression and the way that it ruins lives. That's an important cause that I definitely believe in. Unfortunately, I don't find the depiction of Burner's depression to be realistically convincing.