The Pleasant Commentator and Review Group! 1,289 members · 149 stories
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I'd say this is as good a fic as any to kick off my reviewing gig here.

Captivated is a short bittersweet story that centers around Crystal, the daughter of Sweetie Belle. I would say that Crystal is one of the more unique qualities of this story. The author isn't afraid of shying away from one or two Mary Sue like qualities, and idea that most experienced authors avoid like the plague. But Crystal being good looking and good at school works well for the story because though she's spectacular at a lot of things, she has such a simple problem as guy problems. Most authors are so afraid of having an OC that could be considered too perfect that they add too much imperfection to that character, Crystal is a fusion of both, and I like that.

As for the story itself, it manages to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time, without feeling rushed. The story doesn't go much into description of the setting, but it doesn't need to. The point of the story is the theme, and the whole story does a great job of setting up that theme. Or perhaps themes would be a better way of describing it. The story doesn't really make a particular main theme clear, and there are several I could draw from it, and that works just fine in this case.

In terms of writing style, there were a few distractions in the earlier part of the story I'd like to call to the attention of the author. There's a distracting overuse of lead-in phrases like "after all" and "of course" being used as crutches, but these problems go away by halfway through the story, so no big deal. And to go on a bit of a tangent, the feel of the story seems to change suddenly at about that point in the story, and it makes me wonder if the story was written in two parts. But anyway, the rest of the writing was handled well: the exposition is the right length and there's plenty of dialogue. Good stuff.

Just a closing thought: the identity of Sweetie Belle's father is kept a bit of mystery during most of the story. The author did such a good job of hinting subtly I didn't actually figure it out until I read a story comment saying who the father was. However, I'd chock that up to reader error because there are plenty of hints dropped now that I think about it. For those reading, try to see if you can figure out who it is.

good on you!:pinkiehappy: So I'm going to set my review to this level as well for our folder!

Cromegas_Flare
Group Admin

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Remember to put the category of the story in the tittle of each review thread. It helps with keeping the folders organized thanks.:twilightsmile:

Nice review as well:scootangel:

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