Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Book club - Stupid Prediction by gustin puckerman

Ray’s made up sister predicts that he’ll have six kids. To no one’s surprise Ray spawns just the right amount.




Book club:

Fandom: Lemonade Mouth


The review:

The story was a fun read with its focus mainly on Ray and his sister’s prediction.

Unlike other stories, Ray and Stella didn’t get together until they both matured which was a nice change. 

However, the shift wasn’t too clearly felt as the story focused more on having the kids come into their lives than the actual growth of the canon characters.

The kids themselves were interesting because they were unpredictable and that was probably why I enjoyed reading about them. Transaction of them ageing up could have been done more smoothly because if I had to read a random section of the story and tell you how old they were and what the current number of Yamada-Beech kids were in existence in that moment, I wouldn’t know.

 One thing I didn’t quite understand was why so many other OCs had to be present.
Ray’s cousin Jack? He could’ve been replaced with Scott, couldn’t he?
Judd? Maybe Wen or Charlie? Even Jules, Patty, Mo or Olivia could’ve been Judd!
Johnson? (Who basically had no purpose) could have been Kevin again.
(Just btw, I had to scroll up and down the story trying to find these people’s names because if you count the kids, this story had more than 10 original characters against the 2 canon characters. The odds are not in your favor.)

In general, the tone was fun and engaging, but more juvenile despite saying that Ray “matured”. 

Brownie points: Interesting OCs

Health deductions:
Potty mouth – I’m not a prude, but when a story has more than twenty swear words for every thousand words, you know Popeye needs to take a seat.
Scene whiplash (ah! My face!) – For every scene change and time shift, it’s usually done with “Anyway”, the lack of flow from scene to scene just hits you.

Red pen level: 6/10
Problems with tenses and incorrect words used.
Consistent length of paragraphs which isn’t an offense, but there’s a sense of monotony which doesn’t work with the tone of the story.

Characterization: 8/10
Takes place in the future so it’s hard to tell how much of canon Ray is retained. Characterization for mature-him is entertaining, but I could still identify canon Ray in his presentation.

Plot: 7/10

Basically proving Ray’s (OC) sister right and the premise is interesting enough.

Overall: 7/10

Recommendation: Actually describing things without the swearing and making me feel like I’m listening to some bratty teenager with all his “whatevs” and “yo”s would be nice.

More canon characters would’ve been appreciated, if there are going to be OCs, its best if there’s 1 OC for every 2 canon characters because making your readers like your story and remember everyone’s role and name in your fic requires going back and scrolling to check if they got everyone down, is waste of time.

The attempt to distance the characters from their actual timeline is understandable, but it’s far from convenient.


Have you read this fanfiction? Do you think I got it right, or are we going to agree to disagree? Review the fic in question or leave me a line below. 

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