SPOILER ALERT! READ REVIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK!
I wasn’t going to write a review at first. It’s so annoying to write one since I think you always need to choose your words as careful as you do in stories. However I just couldn’t bring myself not to give feedback.
If you are reading my review right now before reading the story itself I got to tell you: the summary is so goddamn misleading. I don’t know how often I’ve seen ‘Essence of Blood’ while searching for a new fanfic to read. I swear in all my years since I started reading CCS ff, which must have been at least 3 years, it has to sum up to dozens of times. And every single time I told myself ‘what kind of shit-story is that?’ or ‘sounds sooo boring!’. Maybe you can even empathize with me. It must have been because the summary was, no, is just straight down confusing(?). I mean hello? What is this about calling of blood, no vampire story and all those things. Besides I got to say even after I read EoB the summary just doesn’t make justice of the story itself.
One day -okay yesterday- I was so bored at home because of all this virus shit(hello’n’goodbye corona) that I clicked in while there’s literally nothing better to do. Worse comes to worst is just a bad story that I don’t have to continue to read at least I can say that I have given the EoB a chance. I’m glad that I did because the story is pretty good.
I like how every chapter the POV changes between Sakura and Tomoyo. It’s like one story told in two perspectives at once and each person has a different kind of focus. Because each chapter either overlaps with the previous one to fill some holes or tells us what happens before and their reaction. Our main characters are very well defined we can see their struggle and acceptance of emotions.
I know that is a free Plattform for every kind of person and I suppose most writers and readers as well are very young. So there’s not much to expect of how a writer chooses his words and connects sentences. Heck she writes a fanfic because she loves the anime or whatever. Just to give form to his fantasies and inspiration and to share it with others. So I say: go to hell with all your flames please. No one forced you to read the story. Anyway I like how this author- & Beta- wrote his story. I kind of get the feeling that the personality of Tomoyo and Sakura shine through the words you know?
There’s also the part about Tomoyo, Sakura cousin in this life, being Sakura and Syaorans previous daughter which is a very entertaining part of the story.
Might I add that I love how God is portrayed in this story? It’s so hilarious and my favorite scene is when God materialized just to help YingFa pee while XiaoLang went mango digging :’D
Urghh... I hate writing reviews. What else can I say? Hm...
There are some points where I can see that our dear author either changed his/her mind about the storyline or just couldn’t find it in him/herself to continue writing EoB. Why? Because at the beginning of the story it’s said that the story spans over seven years so when I started to read EoB I was prepared for lots of time skips or very long chapters. And hey- while the story is great it definitely didn’t span seven years like it’s said. Well I’m reading on phone so I can’t go and look how long it was and I’m lazy at reading time descriptions but I think it was about... one or two months? And then in the end it all went back to the past where nothing has had happened yet. Welp not that I hate the ending, I actually like it, but it’s just not in constant with the first chapter. But who cares? Hehe :)
AND our syaoran isn’t a playboy like you might have thought when reading the summary he’s actually totally infuriated, with mind, soul, heart and blood, with Sakura.
There’re some loose threads like who betrayed the gang or how did the book get into Tomoyo room. But some things are better of let off for your own imagination I guess a fun part of stories for me :)
Goddamn there no structure at all in my review I just write whatever comes to my mind. I hope it wasn’t confusing and that I could help deciding wether to read or not to read EoB. I can’t think of anything anymore so... Well last but not least the most important part in any review:
I reallly enjoyed reading Essence of Blood and will never regret reading it. Thank you for this great story, Wolf Blossom!
Lots of love,
GAotaku

Hello!

So the story was going extremely interesting!
I am so sad you lost interest at the end and the ending showed. I would have appreciate at least a PS like expalining what you thought would be the ending when you started. But it is fine.

NB

I'm only 7 chapter in, but I couldn't contain myself any longer. you, my dear, have entirely stolen my reader's heart. your writing is wonderfully captivating. The voices are so smooth and the continuity of the story is beautiful. I'm so eager to continue reading. 3 you'll hear from me again!

Great story! I really loved the past presnt combo. Sounds like a great screenplay. Looking forward to reading more of your stuff!

Now that I think about it. Are you a fan of Fushigi Yuugi?

Oh, jeez!

hey there u know what this was one hell of a story
the plot was nice nice humour
I like the way u described both of their POV seriously strong enough
I wanted to. c more of Eroil n Tomoyo seriously they look descent enough.
thank u ur story was nice bt I'm a with the end like A rush n u know bt I'm thAnkful that u actually finished it
thanks n gr8 work

love it

The ending was a little anticlimactic. And there were loose ends. But I still commend you for finishing this story, considering that you had lost interest on it.

I wished at 11:11 when I was a kid too lol

So. I quite liked it. At the beginning. I liked the back story about Ying Fa and Xiao Lang, even though the whole stripped and cut thing was a bit disturbing but I guess it adds to the imagery. So it was a great start and the whole idea sounded pretty promising.
Towards the middle, it got a little repetitive. Like nothing was moving forward. But it still kept me interested.
Now the thing I would berate you for would be that I expected more. More to Tomoyo, Eriol, Chiharu, like you suggested at the beginning. But as it progressed, it just become overly Sakura and Xiao Lang(Syaoran is barely mentioned actually but that's okay I guess). Not just that they were the focus but that even Tomoyo talked a lot about Xiao Lang and not enough about Eriol. All the intricacies sort of fizzled out. The end battle was a bit confused and the conclusion kinda ignored Tomoyo's narrative in the first chapter, in the sense that I saw too many loose ends.
But considering that you said that you'd lost inspiration, I commend you on finishing and at least giving us closure which is more than some authors do.
So all in all, I hope you're enjoying your new projects and your inspiration for them continues on. Again I commend you on the beginning, it was really promising.

I don't know if I'll like it. I don't know if I'll finish it. Maybe I'll like it so much I won't review and just click on next. Either way, I really like how you started and how attention grabbing it is. Truly amazing writing. Almost inspired. Very unique. I think.

It wasn't my favorite ending but I'm happy everyone is alive and well :) I'm sad we didn't figure out who the snake was.

-Akemi

I am so sad that she won't be with Eriol!

-Akemi

It's crazy but great tomoyo figured out a way to get there!

-Akemi