The Strange Boy

Information

Status

Completed

Year

2021

Author

LAHIN

• The Strange Boy
  Jun 6, 2021

Reviews

Community Reviews(2)

• Not_A_HatRoyal Road

  ★★★★ 4.0

  This review is brought to you by Ludo305's iniative to ensure every 'complete' story has at least one rating.
  This is pretty good, but a bit of polishing wouldn't hurt either.
  It's a bit rough on the grammar. That first sentence might not technically be run-on, but it's definitely a bit meandering.
  The first paragraph says he's 'rarely' done this, but later on he's surprised by the steps into the bus. It seems like 'never' might be better?
  Honestly, I think the addition of the faceless friend hurt the story a bit. Needing someone along on a bus ride, at the age of eighteen, seems a bit much. I can understand a bit of confusion if he's never done this before, but it's not rocket science. Honestly, it's not even model rocketry. Public transportation is designed for the lowest common denominator. Moreover, the friend doesn't add much of anything to the story. They don't get to say anything, and they're not even named or given a specific pronoun.
  The ending was an alright twist, if a bit obvious. Offering someone charity out of the blue is rarely doing to work out as planned, so I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be played straight, but I wasn't sure how it was going to pan out until the bit about the bag being full.
  I did like the tone it ended on; sure, he didn't get to feel all magnanimous about helping someone in need, but the money got there in the end. :P
  Also, it being set in Bangladesh was interesting. I feel like there's a lot of interesting culture, history, and mythology in those parts of the world that has been almost entirely ignored by western fiction, so that was neat.
  Having the definitions at the end was nice. Knowing exactly what the words meant wasn't plot-crucial, but it was nice to know.
  All in all, a good effort.
• RznRoyal Road

  ★★★ 3.0

  This was an interesting story with a naive main character and an ending that could be seen coming from a mile away. It was good and yet the ending at the same time undoes much of the character development and the very assertion he's trying to present to his father. It was good.