Like a Mockingbird by BoBoLi0us

Title: Like a Mockingbird
Author: BoBoLi0us
URL: http://www.winglin.net/fanfic/_mockingbird/
Reviewed by: hanichan32319 @ LostShadows

**Reviewer’s note: Hate me if you must. I deserve every ounce of it. You have been waiting patiently for this to be reviewed, and you have waited for well over two months. I am terribly sorry for making you wait so long. Life is a monster, and it jumps out at you when you least expect it. To give to you what I can…there’s not much. All I can do is promise you that I treated this review much more carefully than any other. I can only hope that you will take my advice to heart and forgive me for my tardiness. **

Title: 4/5
You kept with the topic/sentence of the challenge, and it fit the story perfectly, what with all the repetition happening. ^^

Poster/Background: 10/10
Okay, I may just be a little biased, but I love your artwork (you made a poster for one of my stories, and I loved it). The poster was simple yet well-fitting, earning you two jalapenos! (This, in plain English, means two thumbs way, way up…) The mockingbird happens to be my state’s bird (you kill one in Texas, and there are some severe penalties), so that kind of made me smile. (Plus, I got that song from Dumb and Dumber in my head after reading the title.)

Forewords: 4/5
You tricked me. *laughs* I thought you were going to have the story take place at the end of the 19th century, which really got me excited! I love reading historical fiction. It kind of opens eyes as to how different things are over a century later. But oh, well. Nothing too special about the forewords, but I’m glad you explained it was for a challenge.

Plot: 14/15
Pardon me for using this in a review, but *Le Gasp!* I really liked the way you developed the story! I would totally and completely rave about it here, but it seems I already covered that in Originality. Repeating myself just doesn’t seem right…

Flow: 9/10
There was nothing wrong with the flow…as far as I could tell.

Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 13/15
There were a few capitalization errors as well as some grammatical errors, but it didn’t mess with the flow of the story. Watch to make sure you capitalize names, especially those of major characters. Also, if you are writing a story in the past tense, be sure to watch your tenses. Don’t randomly switch back and forth between tenses.

For example, in the first chapter, you wrote: “He was either in a trance or just plain out of it. [Everytime she asks him out, he declines her offer and says he was busy. Every time she stops by his house, he rushes her away.] Even during school hours, he seemed to be avoiding her.”

The sentence enclosed in the bracket switches to a present tense. Instead of “asks” and “declines” you could say “asked” and “declined”, as well as “said”, “stopped”, and “rushed”.

Characterization: 9/10
Christina seemed like a very lonely girl, and I truly felt her pain. To be left behind by someone you loved dearly…is a fate worse than death. At first, I thought Key was just a stupid boy who had no idea what he would be missing, but then all the fate stuff got explained, and I was like, “Oh…okay.” I did get the whole Kim Kibum thing, though. That kind of blew my mind, as if Key too was just the “reincarnation” of the different men who had left the women behind.

Originality: 10/10
…Dear. God. This very nearly brought me to tears. And her finding that diary of Heo Soomi was no mere coincidence. That was…destiny. It was something that was going to happen because of Fate’s sick and twisted sense of humor. Love knows no bounds (is that a lyric to a song?), and you really can’t escape the cycle. This left me in a deep and somewhat profound silence. You hear girls crying and complaining about losing their boyfriends, but it brings up the question: do they really understand what “loss” truly is? I believe you answered that. ^^

Writing style: 9/10
Diary-based stories are not completely original, but you really don’t see too many of them out there, especially ones as melancholy as this. To me, a journal is the perfect escape from the cruelties of reality (or the perfect plunge into a deep and dark depression), and you seemed to capture that well in your story.

Overall enjoyment: 10/10
Oh, this was such a good story! I’m such a sucker for love-and-loss stories, especially somewhat angst-y ones filled with a metaphorical and literal sense of loss. I really loved reading this, and I will admit: I must have read it about three times before finally writing your review! (Again I apologize for the lateness) I just wanted to get things so perfectly, so the first time I read it was for enjoyment. The second was to catch any mistakes in spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. The third was a half-and-half, I suppose. You’re an amazing writer (and artiste) and I shall be on the lookout for more of your stories!

Overall score: 92/100