Pokémon Book Reviews

"Underdog" - by DachshundPiano

Underdog:

"Jared Wilson is fifteen years old and waiting to begin his Pokémon journey, but he always gets held back. As a citizen of Violet City in Johto, he can't stand it any longer and decides to take matters into his own hands.

"Constantly living under the shadow of his brother, Falkner, Jared feels left out and imperfect. He feels that the only way to change this is to become a Pokémon master as well, and take his brother's place. But what happens when Jared's plan to start his journey backfires?"

Genre: Fanfiction, Adventure, Comedy

Andy (Vespin)'s Review:

For this review, we'll be taking a look at Underdog- winner of 2014's Pokemon Watty Awards and the first Pokefic that I've ever read. But despite the nostalgia and sentimentality, here is my non-biased review.

First off, it was great. Every chapter felt like a new episode in a TV series the Pokemon Company should've made a long time ago, and I didn't have any problem finishing the book in one day. It was that enjoyable. A diverse range of characters, lovable Pokemon and a protagonist whom I, and I'm sure many other readers as well, could relate to- the Underdog.

The author did an excellent job in fleshing out Jared Wilson, the titular character, and making us grieve when he grieved, annoyed whenever something annoys him, and furious for every time he was wronged. It's a powerful thing to craft a character so human and to put him through so many trials, yet he perseveres to make the best out of his predicaments. It's inspiring, and I am going to remember this character for a very long time.

Also, I absolutely loved the Pokemon in this story. Each had their unique personalities, which, in my opinion, isn't a strong point in other Pokemon fanfictions. I especially LOVED Romeo and Gigi. Romeo's curiosity always made him do something silly and Gigi was a grumpy, adorable ball of pink- with a soft spot for her trainer. I'll admit that halfway through the story I felt like cuddling these two.

However, where there are pros, there can also be cons.

Despite being an overall good read, there were some things in the story that broke the immersion and made me cringe- they were utterly nonsensical.

Seth felt very forced into the story. Now I wouldn't really consider this a spoiler because it doesn't give away a major plot reveal. At one point in the story, Jared is walking in the forest all by himself and bumps into Seth. And all of a sudden, for the sake of making Seth a main character in the story, Seth suddenly starts following Jared for no legitimate reason whatsoever. The fact that he was insufferable during that scene did not help with his forced addition into the story. I had a few questions in my head at that time: Why is Seth suddenly following Jared? Doesn't he have anything better to do? What was he doing in the forest before this? The only reasonable conclusion I could come to was that Seth was wandering aimlessly in the forest to want to follow Jared so much; in which case, if he had no purpose to be in the forest he should never have bothered to enter it in the first place.

Also, for some reason Seth and Gold started following Jared and his friends. From one incident (which I will not spoil) they became travelling buddies.

A similar situation was when Kimi suddenly decided to follow Jared. She was mad at him the whole time and then, out of nowhere, she wants to travel with him?

Um, ok.

What I'm trying to say here is: forcing something into the story leaves a bad taste.

Here's a small plot hole that broke immersion: In chapter 17, Jared was confronted by Ashy and two more grunts. Jared fled but confronted Ashy again. All of a sudden there was no mention of the two grunts that were with her earlier. And, when she fled, there was no mention of the grunts fleeing (if they still existed, that is). Your readers are visualizing your book like a movie. You need to update them on what's/who's present (or lack thereof) in a scene. This may be minor, but it's also minor plot holes such as these that would break the attentive reader's immersion in the story.