Never Too Late

By IceboxFroggie

Reviewed by Rinnaul

From the Top
This is the part where I open the commentary with a mildly humorous anecdote or non-sequitur. I don’t have one of those this time. I also don’t think I’ll be linking my offline friends to this one like usual, either, as I haven’t broached this subject with many of them.

Having gone through abuse myself - granted, nowhere even close to the full childhood rape that Bon Bon suffers - I was curious how the emotional fallout would be presented. Unfortunately, it could have been handled better.

We begin with Bon Bon waking from a nightmare. The structure is built upon short, punchy sentences that work sometimes, and don’t work others. In these early lines, they could have worked, as the scene was one of stress and confusion, but they become telly (“She has had a nightmare” could either be implied or explained in a subtler manner) and repetitive (“She is sweating. Her pillow has been drenched with sweat.”).

The next section is a flashback to the rape itself, and here, the short sentences (averaging only 6 words apiece) work in the story’s favor, as it reads very simply, in the way a child might write something. This helps remind the reader that the victim here is a child, and actually works very well.

While I don’t connect to the majority of this story, as my situation was quite different, “It happened forever ago! Stop thinking about it!” is a thought I’m very familiar with.

Some of the imagery works well, such as Bon Bon fixating on the blood, and the adult scenes frequently do well to parallel the flashbacks - she tastes blood in her mouth where the rapist hit her, then she spits out her coffee because it tastes like blood now.

Bon Bon keeps dwelling on memories, with both the emotions they involved and her reactions to them in the present escalating. My only problem here is that they perhaps escalate too quickly, and a lot of emotion that could have been built is lost in the rush. I also find the reactions of the other schoolchildren a bit unbelievable. Thoughtlessly cruel gossip seems more likely to me than verbal abuse.

The story reaches it’s climax with Bon Bon’s attempted suicide, though Lyra finds her in time to get her to a hospital. The following scene is a cute bit of friendshipping between them, a nice release after the rest of the fic’s drama that was well-done enough that I didn’t even mind the lack of actual shipping. The final scene, though it shows a great deal of improvement over the choppy writing from earlier, seems to come very soon after the previous, and gives the impression that Bon Bon overcame her troubles in an extremely short period of time, something that seems unfeasible to me.

Execution/Presentation
The story had no difficulties with viewpoint, keeping it third-person the entire time. Very little attention was given to the setting and backgrounds, but they were hardly the focal point, and that brevity never made comprehension difficult. It’s possible that more detailed descriptions would have made the story more immersive and done a better job selling the emotion, but as it stands, they didn’t detract from anything.

Instead, the story’s primary difficulty is in it’s pacing and flow. Sentences are short, express single ideas, and rarely transition smoothly from one to the next. In the flashbacks this works, as it gives a very child-like quality to the writing. However, the rest of the story suffers for the way it’s constructed.

Mood
The intent seems to have been to express the tragedy of the event and how the memories of it continue to weigh Bon Bon down, even years after the fact, as well as the loneliness and helplessness that an abuse survivor might feel. Finally, it concludes with the positive message of not giving up hope. While I can’t say that it delivered on the wrong emotions, I do feel that the quick, few-details writing style reduced the impact by not dwelling on any points long enough to develop them.

Grammar
B to A-. While there were no actual flaws that I found in the spelling or grammar, the very simple sentence structures were such a detriment to the story that I feel they can’t go without mention.

Tips
Slow down your pace, draw out your scenes, work in some details. The emotions were there, they just didn’t have the right support behind them to make them stand out, and when they did, we passed them by too quickly. The story just needs a bit of time to slow down and reflect on what’s happening.

Rating
Enjoyable - I went back and forth for a while on how to rate this. I didn’t think it merited the lowest rating, but was also hesitant to say I honestly enjoyed it. I even wrote Flare suggesting a rating between the two. But in the end, I decided that while the presentation was flawed, the story had a good core concept, and that part ought to be recognized as well.

2753046 I'm happy to see the first review using the new rubric we created done so well! Nice job in every section!

About the rating even if you don't feel like you enjoyed it, but think it's an "enjoyable" story for others I think that works... though I haven't seen anything from Mr. Flare about an in-between rating. Like he said the badges are still in the process of being made for each rating.

I enjoyed this review and will give the story a read later. Doesn't sound too bad!