Pokémon Book Reviews

"Getting Out of Fuchsia" - by d_s_t_e

Getting out of Fuchsia:

"You think your hometown is boring? Try living in Fuchsia City: population 35 and a total of 9 pixilated buildings. All I wanted was to get out of there. I didn't even care where I ended up as long as it didn't look like it had been mapped out by a kindergartener with a box of crayons. That was the beginning.

I knew from the start it wouldn't be easy. Out on the road, just looking at someone the wrong way could force you back to where you came from, and the woods beyond are filled with creatures known to attack at the slightest provocation.

Starting out, I thought that I knew everything. But this story is really about everything I didn't know. The things I never expected to happen, the people I never expected to meet, and the one big surprise I never saw coming.

This is technically a fan fiction, but it requires no previous knowledge of the franchise it is based on. Everything is written and explained as though the reader is seeing everything for the first time. You won't even know what type of fan fiction it is at first. So whether you're a fan or not, please enjoy!"

Genre: Fanfiction

Ivy (@RiverIvy)'s review:

Getting out of Fuchsia Review:

"Getting out of Fuchsia" was one of the most fun and creative fanfics I've ever read, bringing on a spectacularly well-made merging of the real world and the Pokemon world. It follows the journeys of an unnamed main character and her loyal Chikorita.

Now, the first pro of this book, a literary device that I always touch upon in books: description. I loved how it was able to paint a clear and straightforward picture in the reader's mind, without having to use too much big words or complex sentence structures, just easy, plain words stated in a casual and simple narration. Although there's nothing necessarily wrong in using more elegant wording, this makes it good for readers of all ages and reading levels.

Another great thing about this book was the grammar, of course! The grammar was near-perfect. I never once spotted a spelling mistake, and there were very, very few typos - as minor as a missing pair of quotations at most. There's really not much to expand on here: great spelling, capitalization, punctuation.

Something that was quite different about this book than other books was the breaking of the fourth wall.

And oh, I'm not saying that few books break the fourth wall. LOTS of books do, way too many for my liking, usually being unfunny and badly done.

But the difference here is, the breaking of the fourth wall wasn't like the one in the average Pokemon Fanfiction where it went like this:

"Sally said, 'OMG the author of this book is so stupid I hate her for always putting me in trouble'

(A/N: SHUT UP SALLY!!1! UR WORSER! Sorry guys my OC is super rude to me -_-)

Sally replied to her author, 'You're the WORSEST.'"

But rather, it was smooth, witty, and believable - like in the very last paragraph of the first chapter, the character is talking to the reader by saying that this was her story, she's speaking directly to you, telling you *herself* how odd this tale was. I found that really refreshing from the usual fourth wall breaks.

Moving to the very defining plot of this story were the parallel real and Pokemon world, which I found to be very charming. I wouldn't exactly call the idea itself original, since it's not as if it hasn't been toyed around with with hundreds of other authors, but rather how the idea was executed I found to be the real gem.