Pokémon Book Reviews

"Deceitful" - by riolu17

Deceitful:

"Damian, a teenage boy, is abducted by the group Team Plasma as he discovers that his best friend is a member of the evil organization. Once captured, Damian is shortly transformed into a Pokemon. Read on as Damian is locked up in a cage, held in a facility, and later turned into his best friends own Pokemon, Damian decides that its time to fight back."

Genre: Fanfiction, Action, Tragedy

Ivy (RiverIvy)'s review:

This book is one that I find focuses wonderfully on a theme that's present and relative to all our lives - albeit not in the exact same form - and that is the theme of separation.

Throughout the novel, characters from all sides of the story are forced to deal with being apart from their loves ones based on circumstances beyond what they can control, no matter how frantically they try to fight them off. Seeing the main character and his family crumble as he's forced to lose contact with his parents and sister, due to being on the run for Team Plasma, for major sections of the book is something that touched the reader and made them feel fiercely for Damien's conflict. This was only the prime example; the struggle of separation was a key element that was shown throughout all the book, with Damien constantly being on the run for his life.

Another thing I liked quite a lot was the betrayal. Although not a very shocking twist, the main character's hurt, anger, and disbelief is evidenced clearly through his thoughts and actions; the scene where he confronts the traitor is one that gives off intensity and many mixed emotions. Things started to branch out in more complex ways when the betrayal went about in directions that both aided and damaged the good guys - intentional or not, it was fascinating to see.

A key plot point to the book was transformation from human to Pokemon: executed well enough. The realism in the confusion and lack of capability was satisfying, thank the good lord he loses his ability to read and write and communicate with humans. The internal dilemma that affected Damien later on was a GREAT addition, we get to see both the practical side of the main character's thinking and the emotional side. Again, mixed feeling were something brought up a lot.

Speaking of human VS Pokemon: the theme centering on that was that Pokemon had an entire world and culture of their own (to some extent), and that in reality, Pokemon were just as intelligent and capable as humans. Different viewpoint to what's normally found in Pokemon fanfics - where Pokemon are often depicted as having more animal-like behavior. Not what I'm used to, but not a bad thing, quite refreshing really.

Something very powerful was the intensity of many scenes, such as those of confrontation, doom, and battle - many of them against Team Plasma. You can feel the dread of the character having to face an enemy whom he betrayed, the terror of having to choose between different lives to save, the hopelessness of the cornered ones, the utter shock of death itself. Lots of these lacked richly detailed descriptions and vocabulary, however, the frank feel and straight-forwardness of the writing somehow went well with the genre of this book (which revolved around action and suspense).

On the theme of suspense - the cliffhangers were done great! The end of some (not all, but some) of the chapters left your jaw dropped to the ground, and the bursts of excitement pressed you to move on. The book was bursting with energy all around, heck, the ending is the hugest cliffhanger in itself.

Moving on from plot, and towards characters - a lot of the characters were very strong and well rounded. Take the main character Damien - I'll admit that initially I had small suspicions of him being a Gary Stu, with how he handled his situation of being turned into a Pokemon and all the friendliness he seemed to treat everyone he met, but it was clear as the chapters progressed that he was a realistically made and developed character. His most apparent flaw was his tendency to give up easily and wail about the worst that's to come, to shrink away from his problems easily. More development was added to his personality after meeting another character, Greninja, who I also liked a LOT with his interesting persona and background.