I'm just going to start off with a "High school romance is not my cup of tea" disclaimer, because it is not. For me, my high school days were a long time ago, and even my uni days have started to become but a distant memory to me.

Fundamentally speaking, I do believe that this story has potential. However, there are also issues.

Reading this, my hunch is that the author is not a native speaker of English. Then again, neither am I. However: Many of the issues that I have with this story are related to language, and the most prominent one is the consistent mixing of verb tenses, where the past and present form of verbs get blended into the same paragraph.

To illustrate, here is an example from Orientation (2) :

Spoiler

"Shush, you're a bad example." The announcer girl glared at her partner. Some laughter can be heard from the crowd of freshmen.

[collapse]

Here, we have "glared" (=past tense) in one sentence, followed by "can" (=present tense) in the next.

Another issue that is unrelated to language concerns the pacing, which I find a bit uneven. I suppose the current arrangement of scenes would work better if it was in a more visual medium, but here, I just find it uneven somehow.

There is also a definite tendency of cramming a whole lot of information into some sentences or paragraphs, which on one hand provides useful background information but also tends to disrupt the flow when there is too much information at once, information that would have been a lot easier to digest if separated into more paragraphs and perhaps also spread out over the course of the story rather than all at once.

To illustrate, here is an example from Orientation (1) :

Spoiler

As expected, the road is crowded in the morning. That being said, I already knew the estimated time since I calculated it when I visited the school for the entrance exam before the start of the new academic year. The way to school from my neighborhood is not so complicated that it only takes 17 minutes for Mr. Atang's first time taking me here.

After paying Mr. Atang, I rushed toward the school gate. The school field, which was located in the middle of this U-shaped school, was crowded with students from every year, grouped by each class. It doesn't take long for me to know where I should be since first-year students stick out so much from the rest of the students because they wear silly attributes.

In Indonesia, it is a common thing for sophomores during the first three days known as the orientation period to wear silly attributes, as instructed by the seniors in the student council. It was already part of the culture. And among the first years, my look stands out the most.

[collapse]

Overall, potential aside, this story failed to really capture my interest. However, with a bit of polishing, it might appeal to a crowd that's more into this sort of thing.

1 Likes · Like