'Lifeless'

I like to think popular books on Wattpad would be more dignified than the unpopular ones. However, after having to suffer through the mind-numbing, teeth clenching, making you want to bang your head against the nearest wall ‘success’ that is the After series, I feel like I just cannot force myself to waste anymore time going through a book when it can’t even pull me in to begin with.

In saying that, I have forced my way through a few stories and ended up with pleasant results. Blackout by bateaux is a fine example of this (even if I felt like the only reason Parker was in this story was for dramatic effect [like seriously, why were they even together in the first place?]) because even though I felt that the story was slow and incredibly lengthy in its chapters, it did hold a pretty reasonable tale behind the mess. Unfortunately for Death Is My BFF, I wasn’t too patient in reading past this first ‘chapter’ (it’s literally a prologue, but the title says ‘Chapter.’ Whatever though, I’m not the author). Whether it was because I realised that nine times out of ten any story on Wattpad that starts bad is probably going to end bad, or because it threw me for a loop of how… cringey… it was, I’ll probably throw myself in the middle for my reasoning to why I didn’t read past this first 'chapter.'

So to clarify my confusion a little further, I’ve written this little 8-page review on nothing but the first ‘chapter’ (yes, this is what we’re doing) to this story popular enough to get it’s own movie deal and accumulate enough followers for a 23k Facebook group. From a wild ride of flashbacks, dying children, info dumping, undead beings of the underworld and ‘passionlessly’ kissing a child, I give you all my review to the opening of Death Is My BFF.

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"Ladies and Gentleman, I am here to tell you that there is someone a lot more terrifying than the Kardashians when they’re angry. Death."

I mean, yeah. No shit. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who isn’t a little bit afraid of Death, even on their deathbed. The difference between the Kardashians and Death in general is that we already know what’s going to happen when they get mad. With Death, you don’t know, and you won’t know until he comes and takes you away. I get that this is supposed to be a little bit of a ‘humourous’ opener, a little bit of a ‘heh’ to begin a story about our inevitable end. But it’s a tad tasteless, given that the following paragraphs become completely serious from such a lighthearted beginning.

The narrator begins by telling us that she’s, indeed, met Death, and already we’re getting the impression that she’s got quite a story to tell. There’s a bit of snark thrown right off the bat with "You’ve heard of him, right?" like some bratty middle schooler picking on the new kid, before moving right onto "Buckle up your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride." Already, I’m prepared for the worst.

Seatbelts on, kids, but don’t be afraid to leave them a little loose.

"The first day I met Death, I was dying (Shocker.)"

Yeah, no, that’s actually in the story. Because, you know, not everyone else was already thinking it with a fire line like that.

Immediately following this forced sarcasm, however, the narrator then explains their impression of Death, which is nothing to speak of positively. They describe this being of the underworld as nothing short of a massive dickhead, apparently bullying his victims just because he can or because he’s ‘bored.’ This area for explanation falls flat when they start to introduce this entire world of Heaven and Hell and how it all apparently works and where Death stands in between it all. There’s a lot of information to absorb in this space, including minor facts about the Fallen, the Elders, about how Death used to be a good angel and now he collects and distributes souls for all eternity. Honestly, it’s a lot to process. There is so much information packed into these paragraphs, and you gotta think they would be considerably important if this is where this information is introduced.

Well, it nothing short of bored me, because honestly, the rest of the chapter has nothing to do with these facts. Further down the story, maybe, but I didn’t see any reason to know any of this stuff early on in reading this. It was like the author had nowhere to put this apparent ‘important’ information and just decided to smack-bang it in everyone’s face from the beginning.

We’ve been smacked with the cock of Death. I hope you’re all happy to know that.

There’s a term we authors use for this kind of stuff-up, and it’s called ‘info dumping’; a tactic that’s used very widely on Wattpad, and a trait that tests my patience with almost any story I come across.

But, enough about me and my pet peeves, let’s continue!

We’re then inserted into a flashback, where Faith (our protagonist) tells us about her first encounter with Death. She starts it off calmly, with a nice, happy family, in a nice, pleasant setting, going about normal family practices. Her mother finds an empty waffle box and then decides she needs to leave the house to go to the supermarket and buy more groceries. Faith, in the midst of scribbling on the wooden coffee table (which, by the way, I’m not kidding when I say that: "…I doodled a portrait of my teddy bear, Mr Wiggles, on the coffee table by his feet. Who needed paper when you could use markers on wood?") hears the word ‘waffles’ and suddenly becomes overwhelmed with an addiction towards this breakfast food. She rushes to the kitchen and her mother, of course, takes her with her.

I think the funniest thing about this part of the flashback is the one paragraph dedicated to ‘Mr Wiggles’—"Let me tell you something about that bear full of fluff. Mr Wiggles was a loyal friend of mine. We ate together, slept together, and bathed together."—and the excessive, repetitive detail about how this bear is Faith’s best friend. Now, apart from being this kid’s best friend, I don’t really see the need to go into so much detail about it. I read the first line and got the message pretty clearly. I didn’t need 7 more sentences explaining the exact same thing, over and over, but thanks anyway.

So then we move onto the car ride, and in the middle of driving to the supermarket, Faith suddenly starts getting a stomach ache. Her mother questions it, becoming concerned, as a mother would do.

"‘It really hurts, Mommy.’ That sentence alone would have normally made my mother slam on the breaks. Make a U-turn, and bring me back home. Mom was always overprotective. But there was something preventing her from turning around that particular day. An unknown force that kept her going to that market; call it Fate."

No, I’m just going to call it ‘being a parent,’ because in the real world even a mother who would do a million things at once could still be tired enough to think "it’s just a tummy ache, from the damn toast that my husband made. Give her some paracetamol and she’ll pass it through within the hour." Like, really, the most logical reasoning for stomach aches is because the person is about to pass a horrendous bowel movement, and once that does happen, they walk out of whatever bathroom they’ve chosen to sacrifice feeling like they’ve just taken on several dragons in a dark cave.

But back to the story. Whilst Faith’s mother ignores her daughters cries, because of the slip of Fate, they continue to head to the grocery store. Faith continues to feel ill, even as they approach the checkout. It’s there we meet a face-studded teenager, whose cliche sour attitude has the Mum unnoticeably uncomfortable ("Although it was evident she didn’t like the rudeness of the cashier, she sure didn’t show it in her face.") and the moment is lifted when Faith decides to hand the flower (that her Mum took from the front of the shop) to the girl with the "exaggerated makeup." She smiles (kind of, of course) and thanks little Faith.

"Suddenly, the automatic doors of the market opened, and male voices began to shout orders throughout the store. Men had entered the building with ski masks and guns."

And here’s that impeccable twist we’ve all been waiting for! Robbers, thieves, whatever you wanna call them, bursting through the doors and terrorising everyone in the place before they take what they can from the registers.

Faith’s mother does the smart thing by taking her daughter out from the shopping cart she was in and hiding behind the nearest register. Meanwhile, our friendly neighbourhood goth is the first to be terrorised, and not-surprisingly the first to go. She sucker punches one of the robbers in the nose, before trying to make a break for it and inevitably getting shot. Tragic.

While the robbers break into the registers, Faith and her mother remain quietly seated behind their chosen register.

"A thin stream of dark red blood became visible down our checkout aisle, curving towards my mother and I. A scream bounced off the walls. I realised it was my own when my mother put her hand over my mouth."

When Faith screams it attracts the attention of the robbers, and one of them just so happens to find them (no way). He creepily mutters "Aren’t you pretty?" before reaching down and grabbing Faith. Her mother then becomes obviously frantic, throwing her handbag at the man—"Mom began to panic, throwing her entire purse at him. 'Take whatever you want. Take my whole purse. There’s two hundred dollars in there. I have more.'"—and when the ruthless villain of our story can only yawn and remain disinterested, she begins to pray like her life depends on it.

"My mother closed her eyes. ‘There is no peace,’ says the Lord. ‘For the wicked…there is no peace,’ says the Lord….’"

“Stop with your bible talk, or I’ll shoot her brains out!”

Crazy, gun-wielding maniac clearly does not like this and puts the barrel of his gun to Faith’s forehead. Faith cries, her mother cries, but then…

"My stomach cramped. Suddenly, I found myself screaming again."

These must be some horrendous stomach cramps if Faith is more bothered by them than she is to get shot. Meanwhile, her mother is still frantically trying to get this man to hand over her daughter and he’s threatening to sell her on eBay (yes, the eBay), and then his buddies come in telling him not to be stupid enough to kidnap a kid, and at this rate all my notes are everywhere and I’m not even sure if I’m explaining this in the correct order anymore.

Oh wait. I am. Never mind.

And then out of nowhere, Faith hears this voice in her head—“Amateurs.”—and the pain apparently gets worse because she starts screaming again. Gunman freaks out, wondering why all of a sudden a kid is screaming in the middle of his carefully planned market heist, and he then shoves her to the ground and starts holding his head like it’s the world’s worst migraine, crying, “My…head! I feel like…it’s going to explode! My eyes! I can’t see!”

At this stage, I’m utterly confused, but it’s at no level to what follows through in the next few paragraphs.

Faith’s Mum finally decides to take a hold of her child, while this gentleman is being tortured via ‘voices in his head’ (plot twist: he was actually schizophrenic this whole time), and for some reason I cannot fathom, he points the gun at Faith, whom he pulls away from her mother, screaming at her to "Make the voices stop!" before shoving her away and then punching her mother in the face (???) Faith then musters the courage to actually get up and start running, but not before a gunshot goes off and her mother screams.

Faith has been shot, and in a spiral of events that can only be explained like they were happening in slow motion, she falls to the ground right next to the gothic cashier (which means she didn’t get all that far in running), somehow rolls over onto her back on the cold, hard, tiled floor, and stares up at the lights on the ceiling. Faith’s mother apparently becomes Super Sayan, knocking the gunman’s weapon from his hand, hitting him with "something heavy" (maybe her purse?) and he falls to the ground freaking out the rest of his comrades, who aim their guns immediately towards Faith’s mother. It isn’t, of course, until she approaches her dying daughter’s body that they finally see what’s been going on and slowly lower their guns. Even the shooter himself is reasonably upset, as he looks at his hands and shakes like the arctic just blew their northerly winds through the market.

So everyone’s upset, Faith’s mother is crying and reciting memorised Bible lines while her daughter slowly dies before her. Meanwhile, Faith herself just stares up ahead at the ceiling, probably enjoying the last few moments she’ll get to feel anything before her body and soul fade into the next dimension. "

"As I fell into a trance, staring at the sparkling ceiling, a smooth, baritone voice enveloped my ears, and in my peripheral vision I saw the outline of a massive shadow. 'Well, wasn’t that boring,' the shadow said. 'You made the mother watch? That’s very cliché, don’t you think?...'"

Not really. If I could give a guesstimate on how many movies/books have a scene where the mother watches their child die, they mostly all fall under the tag of dramatic psychological thrillers, where the mother spends 15 years isolating herself from the rest of the world until she’s brave enough to leave her house, and only then does she start to see the ghost of her child (because let’s be real, if this wasn’t a supernatural book, it would probably spiral down that same psychological thriller path).

Oh, and the attempt to disguise this as a break into the fourth wall isn’t sneaky or clever when it’s an outright claim in the middle of the story. Sorry.

The shadowy figure breaks more into view for the robbers, and for Faith also, towering over the average male and pulling out a tool that Faith describes as "… a strange, shaped weapon…" The gunman mutters "Jesus…Christ" which triggers this figures' annoyance as he says, "Jesus? Really? You’ve insulted me immensely," before tapping this guy on the shoulder, and budda-bing budda-boom, he dead. He then extends his hand to Faith’s mother, in an attempt at a joke that I feel is going to be a repeated sentence for the entire book, and introduces himself as Death. He then glances down at Faith, muttering timestamps.

"Hmm, it’s 10:32am. This must be…Faith Williams? Oh, I do love me some Catholic names! Faith. Mmm, delicious—I mean, I’m right on schedule.” The large cloaked man stepped over the gunman’s unmoving body. “She is just…beautiful, isn’t she?”

Anybody else getting creepy, pedophilia vibes from this guy? I mean, I’m not trying to give spoilers for further into the story, but there is a scene that creeps me the fuck out in all the wrong ways, and this line here actually furthers my claims on that. We’ll brush on it when we get to it, but I’m getting all sorts of red flags just from this initial introduction on it’s own.

We proceed with this shadowing character glancing down at Faith and licking his lips like she’s a piece of meat. Death comments on her soul, stating that while most are a shade of blue, her’s is an extraordinary shade of white. Meanwhile, Faith’s mother is in a mix of shock and distress as she realises who has approached the scene, saying she knows who he is and then weeps at him not to take away her child.

Death only adds insult to injury, asking Faith’s grieving mother, “Mom, are you cremating? I personally wouldn’t suggest it. I’m sure the right mortician will make that huge, gaping…kind of revolting…gash on your child’s stomach look like a bee sting!"

Understandably, Faith’s mother breaks down again. And while this does irritate Death, he offers her a chance to save her daughter’s life, which gets her to calm down enough to pay attention to the proposal.

He then explains that they have never seen a soul as pure as Faith’s, and would like to keep it around to watch it mature and grow (again, just another creepy insinuation to add to the mix). He states that he will, indeed, come for Faith again, provided that the mother hand over one thing in order to keep her daughter alive: Faith herself ("Another one." - DJ Khaled)

And despite that this obviously creepy individual has bigger intentions than ‘soul collecting’ on his mind, Faith’s mother considers it, asking this hooded figure, “How long would my husband and I have her?”

“You’re in luck!” Death says. “I’m prepared to make you an excellent deal!” He offers her the chance to see her daughter grow (and for him to witness it too) up until the anniversary of her 18th birthday. Faith’s mother accepts the deal, only asking that he save her child, which he gladly accepts.

He looks down at Faith (because, yes, she’s still managing to stay alive during this whole ordeal) and she hears the mumble of some incoherent words, before light appears from under the hood, revealing a man underneath the veil. He removes a glove to reveal a tattooed hand (the book says "strange markings," so this is where my mind instantly went to) and presses it down on Faith’s chest.

Of course, as Faith comes to, her mother goes to hold her dear child, only to have Death stop her, saying, “Don’t touch the girl yet, she is in a fragile state. Faith doesn’t remember what happened to her, she will remember in due time.” Before leaning his face towards Faith’s and saying, “It is time to seal the deal. Kiss your old life goodbye, pumpkin.”

Death then "passionlessly" kisses Faith, apparently sealing the deal and bounding her to Death forevermore. I don’t know how someone could "passionlessly" kiss a child. I don’t know how someone could "passionlessly" kiss anyone. I don’t even think this word was used correctly to begin with, but regardless we’ll talk more about that later.

A dark cloud surrounds the two, spiralling into a tornado that shoots itself into Faith’s chest. Faith is stunned, and so is her mother, but the young girl is ultimately saved, as well as receiving a free hair recolour as her blonde hair changes into black. Death reminds her mother that she isn’t getting out of the deal, as he touches her hand to turn her blonde into black as well.

As Death continues to mumble down over Faith’s face, the young girl takes a swing towards him, which causes him to catch her arm and chuckle at her actions.

“Aren’t you a brave little one? Rebellious. Temperamental. Courageous. You will be quite the challenge when you mature into a young lady. I can see it now.”

So Baby-Chaser McGee over here is just uttering more remarks that file his agenda under ‘Pedophilia-Without-the-use-of-the-Word-Pedophile.’ He then turns to the mother and reminds her that once her daughter does, indeed, hit the legal age of 18, that he’ll return to take her away, like a pimp once promised me when he told me I had a ‘bright future.’ He also mentions he’s free to come and see her whenever he wants (a fair arrangement) or he’ll kill her and Faith too. Marvelous.

Death then begins to turn and walk away, but not before adding one last, long, look towards Faith as she sits up, and as everyone in the supermarket is probably sitting and staring with shock on their pale faces, Death says, "I will collect you, Faith Williams. I’m sure we will become the best of friends."

Again, just another thing a pimp once told me when he offered me a life of luxury and fortune if I was to stow away with him once I finished high school. I turned down the offer, of course, but I’ll admit, it was enticing.

"So there it is, our first encounter. I couldn’t remember any of that until I was eighteen, because the memories of him I had as a child were taken away from me."

I get that Death explained that Faith would remember what happened "in due time," but I didn’t expect it to be 18. And I didn’t realise that Death just completely stripped the memories out either. I just figured it would be partial amnesia that she would gather as she grew older. But, I guess if it adds more drama and tension to the story, who am I to argue. Time restraints are the ultimate anxiety inducing suspense when you can’t think of anything else to keep the readers on their toes.

And to end the chapter, we’re left with this half-hearted line that just makes me believe Faith is just a sarcastic narcissist through and through.

"This is how I survived Death. Kinda."

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And that, children, is the first chapter to the popular story, Death Is My BFF. There is so much to unpack in this one chapter, and that can always be a mix of good and bad. Good, because a whole lot happening could get the reader intrigued. Bad, because it could be just a shitload of backstory that would bore the minds of people who just wants to know what happens next.

Now, overall, I don’t hate this starting point. There’s a lot of flaws, yes, but the story idea itself is pretty decent. It’s an original idea with an interesting beginning that does have me wanting to read on and find out what’s going to happen next, be it not for the actual way it’s been written.

This first chapter is waaayyy too long. There is so much info dumping and unnecessary information packed in that it draws the attention away from the actual story, and a reader could get lost on what’s going on at every third paragraph. There’s no need to have so much packed in for the beginning. You’ve just got to introduce the actual story, and I’m not saying that a backstory is a bad way to begin, but people come for an interesting read, not a history lesson.

Secondly, we’ve met three main characters already. Faith, who almost dies, but then decides that she doesn’t care and becomes a snarky snob. Death, who had been praying on Faith from the moment she was a child, and, given the way Faith describes him, doesn’t give a shit and does whatever the hell he wants. And Faith’s mother, who’s name I don’t think we ever knew, but did hold a pretty important part in story, so I guess that was just an oversight, since this story isn’t even about her. So far, Faith annoys me, Death creeps me out, and Faith’s mother is nothing but a do-good Catholic suburban mom that’s about as cliche as it gets.

And let’s talk about the kiss. In the actual chapter, the author has to explain at the end that the kiss was not romantic in any way and that it was the only way to save Faith’s life. Where, in history, in mythology, in any kind of historic or religious text does it say that a kiss is what Death used to restore life into another human being? I’ve heard of a kiss to the forehead, but a kiss right on the lips, to a 6-year-old?

Why did it have to be a kiss specifically? If you wanted this to be the starting point to a romance novel, you could have had it on the forehead (like I stated) or a hand over the heart kind of deal. It didn’t need to be weird, it didn’t need to be cringey, and even though you’re trying to defend the point that the kiss was "passionless" (seriously, what even is that word?), nobody’s believing you. For a character who feels uncomfortable about ‘uneven numbers’, you would think they would also have some morality about kissing children as well.

And for every line that Death breathes about Faith’s "pure soul," it just brings out another level of creep that I cannot relate to. I’m sorry, but there were better ways to execute this, and given that you would rather stick to your guns and keep the story the way it is because that’s how you see fit, I cannot hate you for that. But I also cannot fathom how you wouldn’t see anything wrong with the situation either.

All in all, my final thoughts for this first chapter are that I don’t hate it, but it’s the kind of story that radiates the same kind of supernatural romance elements that surrounded the reading community when Twilight was released. It’s meant to be very dark, morbid and mysterious, but I just found it to be long, boring and downright cringey for an opening chapter. For those points alone, I will not continue on with reading this story. I just don’t think it’s worth my time, or energy when I spent a good ten minutes just trying to understand what was happening in this initial opener.

And that’s no fault of the author’s, because despite my obligations, this story does have a pretty large audience. I wanna say this is defiantly the kind of story you would read if you enjoyed the Twilight series from way back, and need something different when trying to fulfill your supernatural fix. If you’re after a new world of supernatural elements, especially on the darker side of things, I would say this story may be up your alley.

However, for my overall evaluation of this first ‘chapter,’ I would not recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read. This opening was just so long and boring to get through, and dare I say lifeless, despite all it’s other problems, and for the amount of time it took me to read this ‘chapter’ I could’ve been invested in other works of fiction that were more deserving of my time.

Sorry katrocks247. This book is dead to me.

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RATING

Plot - 2/5

Characters - 2/5

Style - 2/5

Originality - 4/5

OVERALL SCORE - 50