Given the situation, isn't Iruka getting way ahead of himself? I get that he wanted them to be a family, but I find him a bit selfish? Especially towards Naruto and Sasuke's relationship. At this point of the story, I hope he improves cause' I find him annoying sometimes and a bit overbearing.

Just saying, it is just my opinion on the matter.

Ho-ly hell, I'm caught between 'what the fuck did I just read' and 'how am I going to live without this story'. I made it to the end after spending 26 hours reading this with only a short pause for sleep. I read it on livejournal since chapter 4 for the full chapters, and being scared of missing a single detail. I don't have a livejournal account though, so I will review here.

I will kick this off with what I didn't like about your story; the switching between first person and third person point of view. I didn't care much for that. That's it.

This story did not go where I thought it would go when I finished chapter 1. It started off as a very innocent story similar to many others, though a very well written one. I didn't mind that though, I don't mind a good old classic. But then it turned into Game of Thrones on speed. Not just because of the fact that there were so many details to pay attention to, but the whole gang/mafia plot that emerged. I also don't know how you managed to work that into the story without it seeming forced or 'I ran out of ideas - here's this new plot'ish. You worked the 'bring Sasuke back' plot from the original story into yours in a way that fit. Incredible.

In the beginning I was wondering why they were using a landline to call each other. Then I realised I'm in 2023, and this story was written before iPhones were common property. It was actually very refreshing to read a story that took place in the good old world of landlines and stationary computers and handwritten notes.

As you can probably tell from my review (if you even read them anymore), you lost me at chapter 45. I initially thought Sasuke had not gone home with Naruto after paying their visit to Itachi. But when you cleared it up I had an 'aha' moment, and after that, I was never confused with the time jumping again. Impressive how you did that without putting "flashback"/"whoever's pov" or whatever before the time jumps. I have seen that people often complain about that for other stories.

The humour was top notch. I didn't care much for Naruto's "I'm going to marry Sasuke" thing in the beginning. I thought it was a bit over the top. But Naruto was 14 years old at the beginning of your story, so honestly - it fits. Naruto also grew up during the course of your story, and he did so without losing himself. When Naruto was thrown in the middle of Orochimaru and Gaara in chapter 59 as "the bomb" and "Sasuke's heart" - that was a powerful moment. Your characters were as in character as they could be given what you had to work with.

Your story had a red thread and you remembered what you had written. For example, in chapter 59, Naruto thinks of the "retard class", something that he thought of very early in the story. There are many, many more examples of this throughout. You knew this story top to bottom, side to side.

I fell asleep with this story, woke up with this story, had breakfast with this story, took out my special coffee cup for this story, had lunch with this story, had dinner with this story, brushed my teeth with this story, sat on an incredibly uncomfortable kitchen chair for this story for more hours I cared to count, paced around the livingroom with this story and so much more, with this story.

I noticed that your author's note said you weren't done with this story, but you never posted anything Almost Sucks related again as far as I can tell. It's both a disappointment and a relief. A disappointment because I don't know what to do with my life now, but a relief because all good stories must come to an end. Your story was brilliant, incredible, fantastic, amazing, and all the related adjectives you can think of.

Thank you for this.

I had to read this twice to make an attempt at understanding. Sasuke slept with Orochimaru? If so - jesus... Not good. I don't mean because of the potential cheating, that'll just spice things up, won't it. I'm guessing it will be explained in later chapters though, moving on.

Oh, your story has so many layers, it's like an onion (I love onions). I was about to say - keep up the good work, but this story was finished 15 years ago, so you know. I'm really enjoying this and will probably keep reading until I'm done.

Hmm... Switching to first person point of view was a bold move artistically, unfortunately I don't think it worked for your story - I felt as if I was reading an entirely different one. Other than that, it's great to get a glimpse into the characters' pasts, and I like how you wrote Gaara.

I was going to wait until the end to comment (reading this in 2023), but your story is bloody fantastic. The way you write and describe the surroundings and characters just draws me in. After reading chapter 1, I knew this was exactly what I was looking for and I have not been let down thus far. I am very intrigued to find out how you were able to keep this interesting for an astonishing 77 chapters! Again - this is amazing, and almost 20 (!) years old, I hope you were able to live off of writing after this because if you could write like this in 2006/2008 - well.

I finally finished this story. I don't know if you are gonna read the review because its being long time since you posted. But is 2023 and I read it xD
I really enjoyed the story and how the relationship between them grew. My only point was that you repeat to much some stuff, same words or expression but the overall twas a great story

Wow ! Loved it, merci beaucoup

Begging you to put this fic (and the rest of your works) on Ao3 for safekeeping because this site is beyond fickle and I would cry buckets if your works somehow got removed.

68

55

BM

I

Cool

Great