Why Me?:

"Emma is anything but your average teenage girl. Emma hates any contact with anyone and dislikes attention. She's on the run from Team Rocket and she doesn't understand why their leader hates her so much. One of her two starter Pokemon, Trust the Eevee, has been missing for years and Emma has been traveling across regions to find her. But that's not the only dark secret from Emma's past, not at all. Emma grew up with a drunk and abusive father, but was put into the adoption system at the age of 7. She she was adopted a few months later but forgets most of her past due to a mild case of amnesia that she received from a hit to the head during the time she was abused. Will she ever see her father and brother again? Who is this mysterious silver eyes trainer who she sees in memories? And who the hell is Team Void and what do they want from her? Find out in Emma's first thrilling adventure, 'Why me?'"

Genre: Fanfiction

Rating: PG-13

Ivy (@RiverIvy's) Review:

So, today we're critiquing the currently most trending Pokemon fanfic - "Why Me?" which currently has an astounding sixty-four thousand and seven-hundred fifty-four reads after being up for only a few months.

Now, this is going to be a bit difficult for me write this review; the story is just so long and complex that it's nearly impossible to get on every single detail.

Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to have a long and complex plot, not at all. However... Generally, if you're a beginner writer, it's always best to start the first few steps with a short or medium, and - I wouldn't exactly say straight forward - but an easy-to-understand plot.

Here's the author's mistake: she decided to put a whole bunch of characters, both Pokemon and human, and backgrounds and side stories and mini-plots and all that, that in the end it just became confusing and even a little overwhelming. For an advanced writer this would be no problem to pull out: they'd probably know ways to introduce each new idea in their own professional and elegant way. However, here on Wattpad pretty much 99.9 percent of us are just starters. I don't know about you, but I know I wouldn't be able to do that. 

So yes, that's the first negative thing about the book: WAY too complicated. I hardly even know who the main character's Pokemon are or even some of the people; there's just too many!

Another thing I didn't like: the romance. I just...felt the author wasn't really putting much effort into it and was rushing through it as if to get over it. Okay, so Red has romantic feelings towards Emma; Why? They don't speak much, they don't interact much, heck, Red hardly has a personality. Red is just...there.

Or you know what? Maybe it's my fault; maybe I just wasn't paying much attention or I forgot or I got confused or something else happened - which leads back to the previous problem: there's too much people and ideas to take in and absorb, so that the readers end up forgetting some - sometimes vital - details.

Anyway, let's move on to characters.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this. Oh, I absolutely LOVE the main characters' personalities and development, like Emma or even Silver. And especially Night - without getting into spoilers here, it's simply marvellous how the author described Night's frustration and sadness over how people see her, and describes how unfair it was that everyone praised and respected her owner Emma when she in fact wasn't that much of a better person than she. I don't know why, but I thought that was a beautiful and well-crafted moment and it really did touch my heart.

However...the thing I didn't like about the characters leads back AGAIN to the first problem: there's just too many! Some only existed just for plot convenience, some because the readers demanded for one of their characters to be in it (which, no offense, isn't a good idea. An author should create his or her own characters; otherwise the character that wasn't theirs wouldn't be really exactly how they're supposed to be and end up awkward and confusing), or some are just there because...they're just there. And yet OTHERS I don't even know who in the name of Arceus they are.

Moving on to the good parts: the story was very original and the whole idea was definitely different from the average, making it stand out from other Pokemon stories. I also love the thrill and suspense that the author built up. Description was decent and the pace was just perfect.

Overall, it was an entertaining and thrilling book, but there were some things that need to be worked on.

Rating: 7/10

Night (@Nightels_Scarlett)'s review:

It's a very interesting story and the plot was a very creative thing, even if it was simple the way she puts it made the story special. However, some readers have been annoyed at the fact that impossible things seem to happen; like having several legendaries like Jirachi who isn't supposed to be awake after a millennium and other Pokemon like rare shinies, to be honest, even I felt a bit intruded by this. Next thing, each chapter can be different from the others, but not the plot prescription. I mean, one chapter seems so detailed and like-like and the other doesn't seem to be understood very well. Another thing I noticed is that other parts are explained too quickly, I mean, it's nice to point out some facts but it's difficult to fully understand the situation like how Emma said about her ability to be able to talk or be-friend Legendary Pokemon: it was only explained in one paragraph. I prefer show the readers, NOT tell them. But don't get me wrong, everything was creative and the story gets interesting the further you go that you start to ignore the minor mistakes and start to read only. But there were some parts added in the story added in the story that were useless to the whole drama part which made me confused at one point. Above all, the story was exceptionally good!

Rating: 8.5/10

X (@calliope95)'s review:

"Why me". I ask that question all the time. I was attracted to the name as soon as I saw it. Nice choice of words.

The book cover, while quite explanatory, was a bit of a letdown. My apologies, shinymewgirl, but you should try to make better ones. It was good, but not that good.

Now, to the actual story. I'll be using a pros and cons style of criticism- I think someone else in the group does it, I hope they're not offended by me stealing it.

So here goes.

The cons:

Too many nicknames. Wind Dancer, Anatasia, Faith, Hope, Flare... Gods be good, I found it really hard to follow the Pokemon and who they were. It would be nice if shinymewgirl corrected it in the future.

Main characters talking to Pokemon. Not all Pokemon can magically communicate with humans. That provision is left only to Legendaries and some Pokemon(I'm not taking examples from the anime here). The idea of every Pokemon talking makes it sound like they're gods and goddesses, which seems like a paradox.

Far too many legendaries. I saw almost half of the 52 legendaries in this story. Legendaries are supposed to be rare. And sacred. To just portray them as common Pokemon sounded really disappointing.

Chapters are unnervingly small. This is a small flaw, I just wanted to point it out.

 The pros:

Silver being Emma's brother. Although it seems to be a cliche, I love the idea. Silver's a pretty daring character, and having a daring sister like Emma is really great.

Impressive work for such a young girl. Now, I'm not stereotyping- and apologies if I am-, but it seemed such a lovely story. Kudos for that.

Cliffhangers. One thing I found wonderfully woven into the tale. Especially the part where Emma realizes Silver's her brother. And the intimate scene between Red and Emma. That was pretty good. The conversations between her human and dark voices. I found that pretty amusing. Really amusing. You should actually continue this. Songs were pretty good. Especially a Thousand Years. I love that song. My verdict and rating: I saw more negatives than positives in this book. While she did a brilliant work compressing so much information into such small chapters and for her age,there were some other things that bothered me. I'm also reading "Find my voice", and it seems better than this book. I look forward to reading more books from her.

I give this book 5.5/10.

 Interview with the author:

Q: Why do you write?

A: I dunno. I just started planning one day and then started to write and here I am now.

Q: What's more important in your opinion: characters or plot?

A: The characters because without them there wouldn't be a plot. For example, if Emma had Red's personality that would just be weird.

Q: Do you work an outline of a plot or do you just see where an idea takes you?

A: I have a time line I write down for each book and I just try to get to each point and make it up as I go.

Q: While you are writing, do you ever feel as if you are one of the characters?

A: Yes, I do.

Q: Give us an insight into your main character.

A: Well, Emma is a complicated girl who was originally from Sinnoh. She was taken away from her abusive father at the age of 7 and was soon adopted by gym leader Claire in Johto. In "Why me?" she travels to Sinnoh to take on the league there but gets into a lot of trouble along the way. Emma dislikes attention and people in general. She finds it hard to open up and trust people however much she may want to. She is terrified of the dark and of water these fears were the result of her father's abuse. She has an older brother who she hasn't seen since she was 5 because they had different fathers and also had a mild case of amnesia.

Q: Do you read as much as you write and if so, who are your favorite authors and books?

A: Yes. My favorite authors are @Pyro_Maniac and @PercyPotterGames10 and I like all there books. I also like @Master_of_Illusions and @Serena-Daniels.

Q: Do you ever get a writer's block? If so, what are your ways of overcoming it?

A: I've started getting it recently and I read or listen to music to get over it.

Q: What are your ambitions for your writing career?

A: I'm thinking of becoming an author but I'm not sure yet.

Q: If you had to write your book all over again, would you change anything in it?

A: Yes, I'd slow down the chain of events and make things happen more slowly and better to explain things.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

A: Don't worry if your spelling or grammar is bad. Write for fun.

Q: To finish this interview, would you like to share your favorite quote, if you have one?

A: hmm... I'd have to say its,

You're not scared of the dark, You're scared of what's in it.

You're not afraid of heights, you're afraid of falling.

You're not afraid of the people around you, you're afraid of rejection.

You're not afraid of love, you're just afraid of not being loved back.

You're not afraid to try again, you're just afraid of being hurt for the same reason.

You're not afraid to let go, you're just afraid to accept the reality that they're gone.

~Unknown

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Credits:

Article written by: Ivy (@RiverIvy)

Reviews by: Ivy, Night (@Nightels_Scarlett), X (@calliope95)

Interview conducted by: Flora (@FloralArtistry)

Fanfic recomended by: Rainy (@RainyFantasy)

Special thanks to: Emily (@shinymewgirl)

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We apologize for our recent inactivity, but hopefully from now on we'll be able to post one article over week, every Saturday or Sunday. Thank you for reading this, and tune in for more!

-Ivy and Flora