Ancient's Smashing Reviews

Broken Hearts by @TheOriginofLove2013

Been on vacation in europe, finding a new job, and moving, all in the span of two months. so its been an extremely exhausting period! I had to read this story and do this smashing on the plane just to find the two minutes to do this!

Dont have time for memes and a lot of humor this time because of that and doing this on my phone on a plane. How does Siber write this way???

I read 24 chapters out of 52? I feel i hit halfway and got a decent idea. At the very least if you get furthering than me than you are probably hooked!

Tldr; A romance of two broken homosexuals trying to find their place literally, emotionally, geographically, philosophically, etc.

Overall Id rate it 2 smashing out of 5. Its weaknesses outweigh its strengths.

Main characters - mixed bag - There are two MCs. Burnboy and blindboy. Easy to figure out a bit if what their deal is. Their emotions are expressed well and colorfully. Much to the author's credit i had my doubts going in because writing a blind MC is extremely difficult to do even for professionals, but she handled it... 90% fine. Which impressed me greatly. I loved how his scenes were written just because of how the blindness was handled in what information was given and how. (Remaining 10% is like how would a born-blind person know what color is or be able to visualize a smile from tone alone? Might be ignorance in my part not actually knowing anyone blind, but i thought this odd. Easily ignored though.) blindboy also takes some challenges and makes choices on values so i liked him. Burnboy though, i found to hold the story back. Burnboys entire plot narrative was on an endless repeat chapter after chapter with no change. This permanently set him back in the story pacing as a character so while blindboy went on to further acts in his growth, burnboy is still back in act1. He never left chapter 1. Individually, sure, i dont mind him. Some people change at different paces. I know this, im autistic myself. But the story is a romance first and foremost which means its about chemistry, its about all MCs carrying their weight in the story whether by causing drama or solving it, and burnboy is so far behind in his character growth yet too inactive to start conflict by which he might grow that i found he fell to being a mere SC in his own story. There is some attempt to grow him with a backstory, but when a sad story is the only true meaningful growth a guy has rather than present conflict, then he only becomes a person to be pitied. The guy with scars that can do things easily is far more pitiful than the guy who is trapped in a room all day like a pet, and thats sad. Not to mention there is no antagonist MC. Hell im not even sure there is an antagonist SC?!

Side Characters -mixed bag- which brings me to the SCs. A major source of early tension comes from Darwin Daddy and Phobic Mommy. Their individual philosophies expressed as the same. At first it was great. It gave the MCs proper things to bounce off. But i dont know if they are antagonist or what they are! 1) rather than rival or hinder the MCs, they wind up actually helping them by bringing them together in a normal way that benefits them a lot. 2) these so called antagonists do absolutely nothing, zada, nilch, after the first fiveish chapters even after half the story has passed. So... whats the point of the tension to begin with? Its just hot air. They have seemingly no importance but to be an explanation for backstory and background information. There was another SC briefly in thomas and he offered blindboy growth, but this was a 1-2 chspter arc and did nothing for burnboy. So yeah... not much in the way of side characters. No one to get them out if their comfort zones or give them variety, and this hinders the MCs a lot in very very VERY quickly making them stale.

Grammar - No rating - the author is not a native english speaker and so the grammar will not be rated nor affect the overall stance. Unofficially i must say i am impressed as it was easily readable with little to no effort, and the quality only improved over time. though it should be brought to an editor before official publishing because while the sentences are technically correct, it doesnt sound natural. An editor would help smooth it out for optimal readability. :)