Hello, everypony! You might notice that I missed last week’s review. And I have an excuse! It was Lunar New Year last week, so I was pretty busy. Happy Lunar New Year to everyone, by the way!

Anyway, let’s just get into the story!

Thearts, deep in their hiding places,

• Equestria Girls
• Drama
• Sad

Her heart lies buried beneath the willow tree...

• Suicide / Self Harm
• Apple Bloom
• Big Mac
• Granny Smith
• Applejack (EqG)
• Fluttershy (EqG)

Nines · 8.9k words  ·  53  6 · 2k views

That's a unique title if I ever saw one.

hearts, deep in their hiding places, is a story about responsibilities, and the pain of unrequited love. Through Applejack’s perspective, Nines tells an intensely emotional, and intensely real, story about the pain of loving someone you know you shouldn’t. And I’ll come right out and say it, this one’s one of the best one-shots I’ve read on this site. It’s deeply emotional, deeply character-focused, and basically everything I love about Drama stories.

The story follows Applejack as she endures a night of being unbearably close to the person she loves (that’s Fluttershy, if you couldn’t tell from the story tags), knowing that she could never tell Fluttershy how she feels. But at the same time, it also jumps back and forth through time, showing us flashbacks which give us more insight into AJ’s situation and her thoughts about it.

I’ve spoken before about how I usually dislike this form of backward storytelling, but it’s used to great effect here, and not least because both sides of the story are intensely meaningful to AJ’s life. The flashbacks show us AJ’s life with her family, and the responsibilities she bears, while at the same time showing how her family views her situation. The present events give us the emotional backbone of the story, showing with painful clarity the seemingly hopeless situation that AJ finds herself in. They both culminate at the end in an incredibly cathartic, emotional ending, which I actually teared up at — and that’s not a common thing!

But that’s enough of generalisations, I think. What does this story actually do — and what does it do well?

Beyond this point I’ll speak plainly about spoilers. If you care about those, and think getting spoilers will ruin your experience, please go read the story first. It’s absolutely worth it.

All done? Okie, let's continue.

I think the greatest strength of this story is the characters. This is especially true of the Apple Family; each and every one of them feels especially realistic in their behaviour. They all have their own lives, but they all undoubtedly act like a close family, who understand — despite AJ's attempts to disguise the fact — how much Fluttershy is affecting her. 

From Big Mac, who’s struggling with his own breakup, to Applebloom, who’s struggling with her own problems at school, to Granny Smith, whose aging mind and body bring with them their own set of problems, each of the characters clearly have lives outside of the story, which again adds to the feeling of realism; these characters don’t exist simply for the sake of telling Applejack’s story.

As for Applejack herself… well, I think I’ll get to her a bit later.

Anyway, also related to the characters, the dialogue in this story is also incredibly engaging, and certainly feels realistic. The key here is in how Nines plays with tension in each conversation. Lots of other authors would have the characters go straight for the topic at hand, but Nines actually takes the time to build up each conversation from the most mundane of topics, and the result is that the dialogue flows naturally, and is much more engaging.

Add to that the little dialogue imperfections that happen in real life — things like interruptions, misunderstandings, and such — and you get the perfect blend of realistic and still perfect dialogue.

The whole theme of the story is shown very, very clearly, which also means that the story as a whole is coherent. Even though this story has a pretty unique structure, it’s a structure that works; the flashbacks let us jump back and forth through time and see the significance of present events. And although I would say that having three flashbacks all expressing roughly the same thing in the end is a little excessive… they all build up to the most amazing ending, so I’ve no problems here.

Anyway, let’s get to scoring, before I ramble my way to a thousand words.

Scores

Quality of Writing: 10/10

Grammar and all that technical writing stuff has no error in this story. Nines writes in a comfortable, clear style that is easy to get engaged in.

Character and Characterisation: 10/10

The characters here definitely behave very realistically, and don’t feel like they exist only for the sake of the story. Additionally, character dialogue is done extremely well, and flows very naturally.

Story Structure and Coherence: 10/10

This story has a rather unique structure, but it’s one that fits the story well, and works to create a totally coherent story with a strong theme. The story as a whole also feels well thought-out, like every scene fits together well and has at least some sort of purpose.

Final Score:10/10

I’m actually surprised at this, but I honestly don’t see a reason not to give this story a full score here. It’s a genuinely well-written story, with situations and emotions that feel so true to life that it feels like they’re inspired by some real-life event. Honestly, the only objective mistake I can see here is the rating that this story has. At 33:6, I can safely say that it’s very much underrated, and I can only assume that the six people who disliked the story were crying so much that they couldn’t see the like button clearly enough. Go give it a read — this one deserves some more exposure.

And that’s it! My first full score grade for a story yet, too — I can tell you that I didn’t expect to be giving this a ten! But what can I say, I’m a sucker for stories that evoke such strong emotions as this one

Also, I’d planned to do something new with the Feedback section for this story and break down something done well instead of something done poorly — but honestly everything I came up with didn’t seem interesting enough. So instead, let me point those of you interested in writing tips and advice to Nines’ blog series, Overpriced Writing Advice. Which is free, despite what the title might suggest. Go give it a look, there’s some pretty useful stuff to be found in there.

7132179
Wow, I really don't know what to say! This is such a flattering review! I really didn't expect this. Given the story's response, it really felt like something would have come through that would have said, 'this is why it underperformed'.

Anything you disagree with, want more explanation on, or think doesn't make sense?

Surely you're crazy and this story is the worst on the site!

Jokes aside, I have one theory as to why my story didn't do well: I'm awful at selling my stories. Titles, cover art selection, and summaries... I can't seem to get people in the door, y'know? Again, just a theory of mine.

Anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to review my story. This made my night!

7133407
Haha, glad you like it!

As for why it underperformed, I can't think of anything wrong with the story itself, so I guess you're right on that one. I think the short description of this heavily implies that it's a suicide fic, which people don't really like to read? And I think the fic being EqG doesn't do it any favours either. I dunno, I'm just guessing here xD