Cruel Reviews

Same But Different by illyna16

5-9-2019

This is my 14th review, and it's for Same but Different. This is also the first time I'm going to review an LGBT book(which I assumed it is from the title). Keep in mind that this review may no longer apply after a while, if the writer happens to edit their stuff eventually. 

I want to get a few grammatical/spelling errors out of the way. 

Curled up under the blankets, not curled myself. 

There are a lot of problems with tense in this story and it's the biggest weakness in the text. It fluctuates between present and past tense. This is easily corrected but I do wish to point out that it would be acceptable for thoughts in first person to be in present tense if they are separated from any other text.

The chapter is related is in the first person, which is normally a huge trap for writers as far as I have read. But the author has managed to navigate it well, with the writing sounding like dialog, with only a few outliers to complain of. The writing in general though, needs refining. 

The story starts off with a girl named Yuri Williams, who is going through sleep paralysis before she passes out and another girl awakens in her body, utterly confused by where she has found herself and with no memory of who she is. A challenging experience to write about, but the author's attempt is solid, I would say.

It is later explained in an Author's Note that rather than this being a case of memory loss, two personalities are now sharing a body, with the alter ego's story narrated in the first person. An interesting concept, but I wish she hadn't explained it. It dulled the mystery for me somewhat. 

I thought that the part where she hesitates over violating her own privacy was really well done. And the handwriting thing was really quite clever. A clever way to check if she really was who she thought she was. The ideas used in this story are legitimately interesting and kudos to the author for that because it's a rare thing.

The last paragraph gives away what is to come, as a bit of a teaser. Except it doesn't really make sense, which is perfectly fine. 

That brings me to the end of my review. This story is completed with 65 chapters (WOW). This review was for only the first chapter. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FUTURE WRITING illyna16!