Ancient's Smashing Reviews

What the Eyes Can See by Heyenbee

Out of a completed story of 20 chapters, I read about 7 before I decided to call it quits and do this review. It could not hold my interest, and I will explain why.

TLDR; The moaning of a depressed woman

Main Character - Wasted Potential - The main character is a woman named Annie and she has the power to see people's future when she looks them in the eye. The future she sees tend to range between a depressing life and horrible deaths. Understandably this leads to depression where in she feels a bit like a grim reaper seeing death around her but lacks the drive to do anything about it. Then she slips up and looks herself in the eye and sees the beginning of a mystery where she cant make out the details but someone dies, whether herself or someone else she is/will-be involved with. Now. Off the bat. This is nothing short of incredible. I was on the edge of my seat for this kind of a mystery story with an interesting super power and a character whose outlook is understandably suffering from said power. The way things were revealed was unexpected, juicy, uncontrived, giving tons of mystery with the expertise of an orchestra master. I was revved up and ready to go.

Then we get 5 chapters of endless monologueing and moaning and complaining about how life sucks. In a competed story of 20 chapters. So 1/10 of the story is getting us ready for something interesting, thought provoking, morally grey, adventeurous and then 1/4 of it goes on to be mindnumbing and because what happens: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

It can't even be considered a tragedy of her downfall following her realization of where her road might end because her outlook hasn't changed in the slightest nor has her job interactions or anything else for that matter. The first two chapters could have not happened and it would be the same, and that is almost depressing to say after finding them so damn good.

What started off as an interesting character turned into less than nothing. Nothing would be a good place to start from, but this is worse than that. She is depressed. She heard the call to adventure and action to deal with a situation and her answer is "no im just going to do nothing and be more depressed." Then we have words put down on nothing making the nothingness compete with wasting time and potential. This isnt a story or a character. It is the anti-story and anti-character.

Side Characters - Failed to do their job - Side characters have a job to do. They are the force that acts as the middle ground between the main character and the world. They represent the world within a closer and more intimate space. They push and pull the main character, forcing the MC to show different sides of ones-self to give us a good picture into a more complete person or to encourage the creation of a future complete person. The side characters are not defined by how long they exist or how many scenes they are in, but on the impact exhibited on the main character to engage with the story itself.

There is no story. There is no engagements that have a lasting impact. There is only one side to the MC presented with the side characters engagements: depressed. Slothful. Waiting for fate to deal its bad hand.

The Side characters are interesting, but they fail to do their job in every way. The only brief exception is in chapter 2 with the friend that likes being high. But that was during the good chapters that was doing something, so I dont know if it was him that was good or just the chapter itself.

Grammar and Word Usage - Semi-Smashing! - Overall the writing an grammar was solid. I read some chapters and listened to some more when reading couldn't hold my attention, and both ways were smooth and easy to process. There are a few rare instances where spelling mistakes happen, but nothing that can't be polished up in a few minutes after running the story through a grammar checker. The story has a strong poetic prose feel to its melancholy that was effective in showing just how depressed the MC is with every sentence.

World Building - ??? - Is there a world? The entire story exists seemingly in her depressed head and a few friends that have no meaningful interactions. No outside forces doing anything except existing. 

Plot - Wasted potential - The story started off on a high note. Mystery, a power with strengths and weaknesses, and an MC with a clear flaw and wound that saw a call to action in using what she has to change something somewhere for somebody.

Then the story hits the brakes like a 16-year old sitting in a car the first time and goes nowhere from there while the MC moans about how much life sucks and I am left as a reader to moan  just as much while watching the potential wasting away of something that started off with life and potential to be really damn good. If the story was much longer than 20 chapters, like 35+, then it can be understood why the author might devote a MASSIVE beginning to sheer depression and doing absolutely nothing if the idea is to make up for it after. But with a 20 chapter story you dont have that time or word space to waste.

I understand depression. I have faced it all my life. I have contemplated suicide at times in my life. This story shows how depression is very well, and in that way it is still very good and poetic and realistic. However the problem is you cannot make a story out of depression. Depression is an anti-story and you have to know 100% what you are doing and how to go about turning depression into a story, and this doesnt do it. This is not a story. This is poetry, at best, pretending to be a story.

If the idea of the "What the Eyes Can See" is to show how much of an anti-story deep depression is, then bravo. My disappointment is points in the stories favor because it is accurate and it is 4/5.

If the idea of the "What the Eyes Can See" is to make a story, then it has failed and needs to be taken back to the drawing board. It had a good start but can't afford to waste even a single chapter doing absolutely nothing but moaning and complaining. 2/5.

If you are interested in learning to write, mastering the craft, want some really good reads, or just to chat and hang out with a mature group of adults, feel free to hit me up for a smashing discord book club that has lasted years.