By CocoSushi
I was beginning to think that my hunt for a completed multi-chapter story in the Psychological Fiction genre was futile until I stumbled across "Just Like Clockwork" by CocoSushi, a story based on the characters and events of William Golding’s "Lord of the Flies."
"Lord of the Flies" is a novel that caused me to groan internally when I was told that I would have to read it for Senior English in high school. It was old, it sounded boring, and I was completely disinterested. Then I actually started reading it, and my opinion of the book turned a complete 180 degrees. Not having read the book in over five years, CocoSushi has reminded me why I fell in love with the story in the first place, and has added her own personal twist to it in the form of her original character, Lucy Everard.
Lucy is a twelve-year-old girl stuck on another weekly Sunday afternoon visit with her Great Aunt Eliza. Tired of listening to stories that sound like “lengthy twenty-page passages taken from a dusty school textbook”, Lucy excuses herself to go exploring, stumbling across a strange gold pocket watch amongst a vast collection of attic paraphernalia. The watch begins to vibrate in her hands and she suddenly finds herself whisked away to an island in the year 1955. The lost British boys from "Lord of the Flies" welcome Lucy into their fray and before long, she is sucked into the harrowing events that plague the boys’ stranded island life.
CocoSushi has shown her obvious knowledge of and love for "Lord of the Flies" in the way that she cleverly weaves Lucy’s own story into William Golding’s existing one without really altering the events. Character deaths are still carried out in the same manner and the arguments between the boys remain the same, even though they now have a female influence in their island life. Lucy’s existence in the story, however, leaves you pondering the reasons for the boys’ actions in the original story. With the romance between Lucy and Jack, and the discovery of Lucy’s relation to Ralph, the horrific quarrels and savage behavior tend to make a little more sense. Introduce a female and boys tend to go a little crazy.
This craziness is not just confined to the male species, it seems. The quest for power and control that surrounds the bigun’s (Jack, Roger, Ralph) rapidly begins to affect Lucy too, dragging her deeper into the messy situation.
Lucy's eyes sparkled with greed. Her own throne. All the power in the world at her fingertips. She would be at the top for once, giving orders left and right, and there was nothing any of those boys could do about it.
I felt that Lucy’s character did become a little too crazy in later chapters, almost a contradiction to the person we were originally introduced to. Then again, in an insane, murderous situation like that one, I’m sure I would probably find myself abandoning any rational thought too.
Though Lucy’s personality and her place within the story are quite suitably explained, her physical character isn’t so much. Some readers may prefer this, giving them the freedom to make Lucy look however they please. I, however, prefer the main character of any story I read to have at least one or two of their physical attributes described to me. I do take poetic license with the images that my brain connects to what it reads, because really, who can control exactly what their mind conjures? When given a blank canvas with a character as strong as Lucy though, I come up…well…blank. The entire sixteen chapters of this story had me picturing everything bar the main character. The setting was described well, all of the events and actions were fairly detailed, but when it came to character appearances, the detail and description was lacking. It was as though Lucy was a transparent ghost in the amazing imagery in my mind.
I also felt that some of the plot development was a little rushed. One chapter finished at a certain part of the story, and then the next chapter jumped straight into another event without much explanation at all. It did get a little confusing at times, but overall the main story was quite easy to follow. Additionally, it contained a few themes that I thought were inappropriate and slightly disturbing; not so much the violence and murder, as they were a big part of the original novel, but more the romance and implied sexual exploits. I found it a little hard to get my head around a twelve-year-old engaging in such activities, and even declaring such a deep love for a member of the opposite sex, because thinking back to when I was that age, sex was still something disgusting and embarrassing that you’d giggle at. These days though, you hear about twelve-year-old mums, so I guess I’m a bit behind on the times.
I did really enjoy this different take on such a classic literary piece, as it lead me to delve a little deeper into the minds of the boys and contemplate the effect a time-travelling character could have on the story. The introduction of Lucy could have taken the boys down many different roads to the one they were on, but CocoSushi has shown that sometimes life just has a set path and there’s nothing that can alter it. Reading "Just Like Clockwork" has made me want to hunt down a copy of "Lord of the Flies" to refresh my memory of the tale. I’m sure the next time I read it, I’ll be seeing it in an entirely different light thanks to CocoSushi. Her writing talent (sense of character and setting, sentence structure, grammar and punctuation) is quite advanced and made for a pleasurable read. For a freshman, I think that’s definitely something for her to be proud of.
Reviewed by Shantelle on behalf of Fictionista Workshop
Location: www.fanfiction.net
Category: Books, Lord of the Flies
Rated: T
Chapters: 16
Words: 29,605
Status: Complete
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