Pokémon Book Reviews

Individual Review of The world they live in by xXBrown2Xx

The world they live in. A Pokemon Mystery Dungeon story was an interesting book, taking on some of the plot in the games. I do not know the games very well, but it struck me as interesting when I first saw it. However, issues plague the book here and there, which you can easily fix.

The first issue I would like to discuss is the summary. I feel like you're trying to tell what is happening in the book, but you're giving away details that are meant to be hidden in the book. For example, you revealed who the two protagonists other than Elora are, and you also revealed what kind of Pokémon they are. I would suggest for you to change how the summary goes, like this:

"Elora is somehow transported to the Pokémon World. Upon losing her memory and meeting a friendly Elekid and a mysterious Piplup, things aren't what they seem to be..."

This is just an example of a summary you would want to put on your story, instead of a huge block of words. Another thing I would like to say is: do not EVER put that your fanfic is not anything like other fanfics at the beginning of your summary. It's just that no one really cares about that part. I suggest you just delete it and make a much simpler summary like the one above. It does not have to be the exact same, but it would make your story a little more interesting.

The next thing I would like to discuss is the formatting in each chapter. It annoyed me with all the script dialogue in nearly all the chapters, and I couldn't see many details within each chapter that I have seen so far in the book. In the last few chapters in the book, I was pleasantly surprised by the sudden change; however, they are all in a huge chunk of words. I would suggest for the first few chapters to change them to fit the last few chapters' formats, and then separate the chunk of words into different paragraphs in those same chapters. I would also suggest for you to add a little more detail to each chapter; they're very short, and it would grab your readers' attention more.

Chapters are also really short and fast-paced. A suggestion for this would be to slow down each chapter by adding details to them instead of having the readers scroll down only one page. The author notes also seem to be providing a source of entertainment about what will happen in the next chapter. I'm personally not sure if it's really necessary to put those author notes at the end as if they're a trailer. Nevertheless, if you like to keep those author notes the way you have them now, I would suggest you extend them a little longer and cut them off from the entire chapter to let it make sense.

Spelling in each chapter was mostly correct, though I got a little unnerved that you wouldn't put the accented e "é" in the word "Pokémon." If it was by choice to not put the accented e in the word Pokémon, then do not put it in. Some words or Pokémon species like Flygon were spelled "Flygone," or another word like prologue was spelled "prologe". I believe you can easily mix these mistakes, as well as the grammar mistakes in the chapters. You can correct those mistakes with the GRA's Editing Book, or even going onto Grammarly to check.

The plot itself was really interesting to read, maintaining its originality along with its similarities to the games. It's really nice how you were able to show the lore of the journal, though some parts of the plot confused me. For example, take the journal entries. How did one Pokémon manage to write down zir thoughts while escaping the blobs? You should clarify it a little more when it comes to describing what the writer of the journal is thinking and writing down, though you may want to explain a little how the writer of the journal is also running while running down zir thoughts.

Each chapter has an interesting concept, including the journal entries, as I mentioned above. However, in this new chapter that I have read, it's a flashback. Perhaps you can try to put the flashbacks at the beginning of a new chapter, instead of cutting it apart into separate chapters. Maybe do the same thing for the journal entries? It would help make the story flow a little better, as well as making some chapters a little clearer. The writing in the chapters only TELL what's happening in the story, not SHOW what IS happening in the story, as many writers like Stephen King stress the importance of. I would again suggest you change to the format you wrote in the first few chapters, and in the last few chapters to break up the block of words into paragraphs.

The last things I would like to talk about are the characters and their relationships. First of all, Elora. Elora is really the kind of character others would be interested in, if not for the fact she seems boring. Her and other characters' personalities seem really dull, not really interesting, and they seem to be different from the way they were first cast. One suggestion is to make an original character profile to keep track of your characters' personalities, strengths, weaknesses, etcetera. Another suggestion is to change a little of their personalities and how they act in the current chapters, and as well to fix the trust issues in the story. For example, Dexter was trusting a complete stranger who claimed to be a human. Why wouldn't he be a little suspicious? And Kirby claimed to be a human as well. Why would Elora trust him so fast? Otherwise, everything about the characters is mysterious and intriguing and makes readers want to read more.

Relationships happen to be occurring a little faster than expected. I would expect Dexter and Kirby to make their friendship with Elora slowly, as well as with other Pokémon. How did their relationships with each other develop so quickly? They seem to be all friendly to each other, despite being strangers for a few days before this. They shouldn't trust them that easily, but again, it's your story.

I personally enjoyed the book. The plot was interesting, and even with the issues that plague the entire book, I believe your book has the potential to become a wonderful story. Please have a wonderful day!