Love Actually

Title: Love Actually
Author: MilkyStar
URL: http://www.winglin.net/fanfic/la_milky/
Reviewed By: Lone Ranger

Title: 4/10
Isn't Love Actually a movie by itself? And I don't exactly see the link between this fic and the name and since Love Actually was moive already, it doesn't look good on the creativity end either.

Poster&Background: 9/10
You had a nice colour scheme, the poster's pretty. And the background doesn't end up covering any words. Good.

Foreword: 5/10
Boring.
All the first 4 lines told me was that this was a typical love story (which is rampant around winglin) and thus it doesn't captivate me at all. If I didn't have to review this fic I wouldn't even move to chapter 1. The reason why it passed with a 6 is because her English has been pretty fluent in the forewords.

Cast Used: 3/5
Nothing special. Hebe and Arron (with a little Jiro), Rainie with Calvin are very typical couple pairings. Even the idea of staring Hebe as a nerd has been used a couple of times before. The reason why you passed is that this is a tried and tested pairing so it was, boring but workable.

Originality & Creativity: 6/15
I got to fail you in this with an overused storyline and an overused pairing. The setting is overused too. I swear 7 out of 10 fics talk about high school love stories. I am personally way sick of the whole the girl gets kidnapped/beaten up and the prince charming arrives to rescue the girl and then the girl and the boy falls in love type of plot. It's way way too overused. Your only attempt in some form of creativity is with Jiro and Genie which I personally felt backfired because it was just weird.So basically your attempt at creativity did not work out really well. Though one thing I must admit it is a very fine line between creativity and absurdity. So you aren't being a complete idiot for making a surprise plot sound a little out of place.

Story&Plotting: 7/15
I felt that the story was pretty choppy. We all know that Hebe all along had a crush with Jiro, i don't see why she can suddenly end up kissing Arron without any sign of struggle. I was expecting Arron to be slapped or something. The same goes for Rainie and Calvin. I thought Rainie was head over heels over Arron and how could she fall in love with Calvin like so suddenly?

On the other hand, I felt that there was a lack of much characterisation in your plot either

Besides that the story is pretty okay. People don't get lost in your plot.

Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 6/10
Your english is okay in general, I understand what you are trying to say but there are some spelling mistakes you made though, and here are some examples:
"...don't see anything wrong with her way of crushing Jiro." Genie said calmy as she did her nails vainly." (Chap 1)
"I treat her just like my sister," Arron added sarcasticly. " (Chap 2)

I didn't have much problem with your language in general, just that it wasn't spectacular that's all.

And one thing, I had a problem with this:
"diamonds(I don't think they are real diamonds. I don't know anything about such stuffs anyway)" (Chap 3)
Try not to do that, it looks really unprofessional, add a * and use it as a author's note at the back. It looks better.

Flow Of Story: 4/10
I understand the story. But like I have said in the story & plotting section, it's way too choppy and I don't see how people can like one person and stop liking the person within the snap of my fingers.

Writing Style: 3/5
The POV thing gets on my nerves a little because I am not big on switching POVs like that. But I don't think I should penalise you for that, but do note that when you change POVs too frequently in a chapter, it does get pretty confusing. The POVs issue aside, your writing style is well, plain. I see a few supposingly big words thrown around (eg: splendor) but I don't see a distinctive style from you. In other words,anyone could have written the fic.

Overall Enjoyment: 3/10
I did not enjoy your fic, personally. It doesn't appeal to me at all.
Maybe there are others that did, but I don't. And the simple reason being it is way too typical. It bores me because I already know the ending before chapter 1 ends. Even you attempt at creativity fell pretty flat with the whole Genie-Jiro thing. It turned out plain weird. At the meantime, your writing style is not spectacular either to save you from your boring plot. So here goes.

Bonus marks: 0/5
I can't think of any reason to give you a bonus mark. Sorry.

Total mark: 50/100

Addtional comments:
As I have mentioned many times in my review, your fic is just way too plain to excite me. But don't be discouraged, it wasn't diasterous or downright horrible. So I just gave you a very average mark for that effort.

Reviewed by Lone Ranger (aka Jess)@midnight-tree.co.nr