Title: A Lightness
Author: teh tarik
Rating: M
Genre: General
DLP-Category: General
Pairing: Some Ron/Lavender, some femslash
Words: 9399

Summary: I whirled through classes. Fluctuated. I breathed brightness. I spoke laughter. I wouldn’t change a thing. Lavender Brown is alive.

Link: HPFF.com

A very nice fic featuring a rare side character -- Lavender Brown. A well-written character study and canon compliant... with all that entails. Lavender comes alive as her bubbly, carefree self, but also shows that she has a serious side as well. I enjoyed it for what it was -- a look at a character perhaps unfairly shunted to the side in canon, with her own set of goals and conflicts as the main plot progresses. (It was a little callous, if you think about it, that Lavender wasn't immediately told about Ron's predicament) I'd give it a 4.5/5.

 

I would give it a 2/5. It had a lot of grammar/ capitalization errors, and the story was just a retelling of canon. The only interesting thing was OC at the beginning of the story, Viola, who the author seemed to forget about. lavender has always annoyed me, but at least she stayed in character.

 

I'm immediately turned off to see that the chapter title is not capitalized (which is a major pet peeve of mine). Because of this, I'll probably review this story much more harshly than I usually do.


The story had a lot of punctuation errors, especially when it came to punctuation in dialogue. For example, this:

There were several glaring capitalization problems and grammar errors (such as using “or” instead of “of”). To continue, the story had some sentence structure mistakes. There were at least two run-on sentences that I could detect, and I’m usually not very good in detecting mistakes.

One thing that I continuously thought as I read the story was that the author really needs to learn how to properly use commas. At various points in the story, she overused commas, misplaced them, or didn’t use them when she needed to.

There weren’t any notable spelling mistakes, as far as I could tell.

The story was, for the most part, grammatically correct. However, there were several specific moments where I was confused for a few seconds about what the author meant. Also, while I can’t really point to something, the writing felt very awkward for me as I read the story. Maybe that’s just me.

Overall, the writing itself wasn’t terrible per say, but it didn’t inspire confidence either.


The way the author wrote Lavender was interesting. Her character was written to be unique, but still canonically accurate. There were several points in the story that really sparked my interest.

Unfortunately, the rest of the story didn't hold my interest very well, and I barely stopped myself from skipping ahead. For the most part, I really couldn't care less about what was happening to Lavender, even more so because this story is a canon rehash (where I more or less knew what would happen at the end).

However, this might be more because of my fanfiction preferences than the story’s quality. If you are okay with nonHarry-centric canon rehashes, then you may find this a decent read.


2/5. This is a pretty average story, in my opinion. It’s not my cup of tea, but some other people might find it enjoyable.

 

One thing I've found (generally speaking) is that HPFF tends to have quite good characterization, especially when they try to match canon personalities. This Lavender feels very much like an OC who happened to do the same things canon Lavender did. I feel no personality from her, and quite frankly, she is one-dimensional.

The writing was mostly technically correct although there were a few grammatical errors here and there, but it was pretty boring, and reminded me of the stories 14 year olds write on FFN - the kind of stories that have parodies written about them. Not to mention the writing is very choppy at some parts and felt somewhat jarring.

The plot itself is canon-compliant which can be a great opportunity to explore a lesser known character outside of the books, but the story doesn't do that in any interesting way. Viola, who could have been interesting, was mostly ignored after the first section. The romance with Padma was never actually developed. The story tried to cover everything, which is possible but requires either more length or better writing.

Overall 2/5 although I'm sure some would rate it higher

 

The story isn't too good. It is too detailed in some parts like those with Viola at the start and doesn't have much details in the Hogwarts parts.
Lavender is a bit flat and not convincing. I'd rate it 2/5 only for the author's idea to do an unusual fic with Lavender

 

Mine is definitely a minority opinion here. I really liked the characterization of Lavender, and the way the author gave dimension to a Silly Teenage Girl without compromising or apologizing for how she came off in canon. I read it as a very subtle story with a lot of depth. Like, it sort of made a case for Lavender, and all her frivolity.

I also tend to like stories that take risks. Maybe even more than polished work (at least for fics). Many of the errors people pointed out read to me more as experimentation with style.

 

For my part I really couldn't engage with the story. The storytelling style was just lacking somehow. It does do something to develop Lavender's personality, but ultimately unless that is what you are looking for it isn't something I would read.

 

The writing felt really disjointed to me, and I found the opening sequence just plain weird. That being said, it was an alright piece, although I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to re-read it.

 

Very interesting characterization for Lavender. This is one of the few post-DH fics that I've read that sticks to Lavender's death in cannon. 3/5

 

The story was, as pointed out, lacking detail in the later chapters. There were a few grammatical errors, but none were outrageous.

Spoiler

To be honest, I was captivated by the tone of the plot, the descent into the madness of the darker periods, and missed out on those errors.

I am sure I will find it disappointing in my second read, but this story was the first time I ever enjoyed a non-Harry protagonist HPfanfic. Lavender was not fleshed out as a character, but the story made me feel as though she were a real human being.

4/5, I'm not giving 5 because I spotted errors on a second read.