Bi-Weekly Review: School of Hard Knocks

Greetings!

Welcome to the Bi-Weekly Review! The show where we absolutely fail at our simple jobs. This fortnight's piece of work is:

School of Hard Knocks, by: Hoopy McGee

Spoiler Alert for the mentioned stories.

Now, a little context before we begin; this story is a spin-off of Why am I Pinkie Pie?! A story where a human gets inserted into the mind and body of Pinkie Pie. During this, she and/ or he gets chased down by two police officers and a doctor. As she runs, she tricks them into going through a patch of Poison Joke (This is where it becomes relevant). One guard, who I can not remember their name, is turned two-dimensional. The doctor, nicknamed Doctor Needles, is hypnotised. And the other guard, the main character of School of Hard Knocks, gets turned into a little pink filly. At the end, his mother, whom has always wanted a filly, forces him to go back to their home town and go to school, which is where School of Hard Knocks picks up.

Alright, now that that short summary of the events before the main story is over, let's get to the meat of it. As previously mentioned, our protagonist Cinnamon Sugar Swirl (Yes, that is his full name), is forced to go to school. As one can probably imagine, he is not very happy with that. Now, I will not go further, as what would be the point of even reading it anymore? However, I will discuss events I find relevant.

This story, as one can assume, deals heavily with the whole 'Identity fraud' topic. Not many stories I have read go quite as into it as this one (Apart from perhaps another one, which I may cover). Throughout the whole story, I was left intrigued with how just that one aspect alone will turn out at the end, not even mentioning the other things. As the story progresses, we witness how Cinnamon's sense of identity shifts and how he comes to terms with who he is.

Now let's mention those over things. As the tags suggest, this is an adventure story through and through. It is quite the crime-thriller, and if anybody knows me (Yes Thomas, I know nobody knows me), I am ever-so-slightly impartial to those kinds of stories. *Ahem* Discworld City Watch *Ahem*. Oh, sorry about that nasty cough, I must have had something in my throat. Anyway, Cinnamon, being an officer, naturally wants to solve crimes. And what a doozy he finds! An underground Mafia, in his hometown, threatening the lives of his friend's family, oh my! Honestly, I could gush about that storyline alone. But I'll try to wrap this up quickly.

I think, the main reason why I love this story so much, other than the Crime-Thriller aspect, is the message of change and acceptance. Throughout the story, acceptance is shown both clearly and subtly. Cinnamon's first school friend believing and accepting his looney past, that friend's family coming to accept him as who he is, and him, coming to accept his true identity as it is now, whilst not being afraid to change.

This is a very unique story, for some very good reasons. I will not spoil exactly how it ends, but not many stories take quite the same turn from a similar beginning, if you catch my drift (Hehe, I am officially funny).

I would rate this story: 9/10.

Until next time folks!

This is the Bi-Weekly Review, signing off.