Post by Tdyans at work on Sept 10, 2004 14:45:56 GMT -5
The Princess and the Pauper
This starts out seeming like a pretty typical sibling rivalry type of story, but of course takes a turn when the main character decides to run away and finds herself in over her head, so it may be interesting to see what happens to her from here on out and how her experiences change her outlook.
Unfortunately, I just didn't feel entirely connected to the main character. I could sympathize with and understand her feelings toward her younger brother-- the fact that he was not living up to how she'd imagined him, the jealousy toward him, and the feeling that she was unjustly being blamed for things that weren't her fault because of him. But other than that, I couldn't seem to follow her thought patterns; her actions would seem to indicate one thing to me, and then I would be told that she was thinking or feeling something entirely different. I neither felt like I was really inside her head and could understand her, not that I was really seeing her thoughts and feelings borne out by her actions. The only real hint that we get to her personality is that she considers herself to be different from "common" or "simple" Neopets. This is a detail that seems to drop in out of nowhere at first, though it is somewhat reinforced by the way she acts by the end of the story. But it's also unclear exactly what this means to her-- what exactly is it that she thinks about "common" pets and what makes her different from them? Also, shouldn't she think of and speak to her owner by name, instead of simply knowing her as "the owner"?
Though the story was fairly easy to follow in general, it was not always clear to me what was happening at all times. There were some sentence fragments, so that's something to look out for in the future. Also, there are a few times when words are repeated within a few sentences of each other, so it would be good to watch out for when it's unnecessary to repeat a word and/or when you can substitute a different one. Description was good, but faltered for lack of specificity in some spots, such as "bad things" and "big, big fields."
There's always room for improvment, but it's a good effort for a first series, and it will be interesting to see what direction it takes from here since the author has left open so many interesting possibilities.
This starts out seeming like a pretty typical sibling rivalry type of story, but of course takes a turn when the main character decides to run away and finds herself in over her head, so it may be interesting to see what happens to her from here on out and how her experiences change her outlook.
Unfortunately, I just didn't feel entirely connected to the main character. I could sympathize with and understand her feelings toward her younger brother-- the fact that he was not living up to how she'd imagined him, the jealousy toward him, and the feeling that she was unjustly being blamed for things that weren't her fault because of him. But other than that, I couldn't seem to follow her thought patterns; her actions would seem to indicate one thing to me, and then I would be told that she was thinking or feeling something entirely different. I neither felt like I was really inside her head and could understand her, not that I was really seeing her thoughts and feelings borne out by her actions. The only real hint that we get to her personality is that she considers herself to be different from "common" or "simple" Neopets. This is a detail that seems to drop in out of nowhere at first, though it is somewhat reinforced by the way she acts by the end of the story. But it's also unclear exactly what this means to her-- what exactly is it that she thinks about "common" pets and what makes her different from them? Also, shouldn't she think of and speak to her owner by name, instead of simply knowing her as "the owner"?
Though the story was fairly easy to follow in general, it was not always clear to me what was happening at all times. There were some sentence fragments, so that's something to look out for in the future. Also, there are a few times when words are repeated within a few sentences of each other, so it would be good to watch out for when it's unnecessary to repeat a word and/or when you can substitute a different one. Description was good, but faltered for lack of specificity in some spots, such as "bad things" and "big, big fields."
There's always room for improvment, but it's a good effort for a first series, and it will be interesting to see what direction it takes from here since the author has left open so many interesting possibilities.
