d_s_t_e's Wattpad Reviews

How Wonderful by AangTheAvatar [Pokémon]

How Wonderful is a Pokémon fan fiction about a girl named Dream who was raised by abusive parents with a deep-rooted fear of Pokémon. Her father tries to beat this into her, but what he doesn't know is that Dream has a secret friend -- a Shuppet. At fifteen years old, Dream and Shuppet finally make their escape together into a new world of friends and enemies.

One thing I liked about this book was that it drew me in from the beginning. The first two chapters have tension and suspense, complete with the series of ups and downs surrounding Dream's attempt to escape from her abusive home. It's also definitely not a standard beginning, which makes it much more interesting than the same old story told all over again.

I also liked Shuppet from the beginning. She seems really sweet and compassionate, and I love the concept of a ghost Pokémon having been Dream's silent, hidden, and, most of all, constant companion. I don't tend to think of ghost Pokémon as a popular type, and I myself didn't care for them too much before reading this book, but I actually ended up really enjoying that Dream becomes a ghost type trainer. I like how all of the ghost Pokémon are portrayed in this book, both normally and in battle.

I do think it would be really interesting if the book played with the darkness of ghost types a little more. For example, I was really intrigued by the pokedex entry of Shuppet: "feeds, grows, and thrives on human anger and other various attitudes." Dream's Shuppet denies that this is true, but I think it would be so interesting if the actual reason that Dream was able to befriend such an awesome and unusual Pokémon is because Shuppet was drawn in by the toxic atmosphere of her home. I think it would also be really interesting if ghost Pokémon are particularly drawn to Dream (or if she's particularly drawn to them) because of the impact of her dark past.

That brings me to my main criticism of the book, which is that, while the book portrays very serious and heavy abuse, it doesn't seem to have had much of a permanent impact on her. After what she's been through, I would expect her to have some lasting fears or trepidation, perhaps towards pokéballs or strange Pokémon other than her friend Shuppet. Even if she knows that it's irrational to feel that way, I think that the conditioning that her parents placed on her would show through in some way. Perhaps she would struggle to overcome those prejudices. I would also expect some lasting emotional damage.

Basically, I'm saying that, while Dream's tragic past is a really interesting angle, it really has to be properly carried through. This includes plot lines involving Dream's parents, and her father in particular. I wondered many times if he was out looking for her, trying to chase after her, and why Dream didn't seem to be worrying about this or taking any steps to hide or maintain a low-key presence. It would add a lot more excitement to the plot if the kind of danger we see in the first two chapters were really carried on throughout the entire book. It was a little disappointing to me that this wasn't quite handled the way that I was hoping.

There were a few other small things that seemed off to me. For example, I couldn't understand why she wanted to go to the Pokémon lab when she already had a Pokémon to start off with. There also seems to be not quite enough training and time for Dream's Pokémon to improve in between all of her gym battles, and some of the battles seem a bit unrealistic in terms of how much damage Dream's Pokémon are taking and how they somehow seem to go on much longer than I would have expected.

There were also little things I liked, including particular descriptions, little scenes of things that the Pokémon do outside of battle, and all the little twists and surprises inside of battles that make them more interesting. I also like how Dream is really close to her Shuppet and how she has at least something of a relationship with all her Pokémon.

I did notice some errors throughout, including awkward phrasing, misspellings, and incorrect word usage. It's still perfectly readable, but it would be nice if the author were to go back and clear some of those things up.

At the time of this review, the book has 27 chapters published. I'm not quite sure where the plot is going from this point, but there are enough open threads to provide a general sort of idea. I hope that some exciting new plot element or twist is coming up around the corner or that some existing plot becomes developed more fully.

In all, I thought that this book was pretty fair if you like Pokémon fan fiction. You might like it well enough if you're a fan looking for something new to read.

** Published in July 2015 **