The Innocent by The Grasshopper

The Innocent by The Grasshopper is a 'dark, modern retelling of the original tale' of the Phantom of the Opera. In this story Christine isn't a singer in an Opera House, but an art student that lives in New York City after spending all her life in a farm near Ohio where she lived with her parents. She works in a cafe to pay the rent, even though her parents have enough money to pay her bills. She's seeing Ray Chagny- the equivalent of Raoul de Chagny - and lives outside campus with her cat. One night, while coming back home through the dark streets she's taken hostage by a masked fiend that's running from the police. The masked guy lets her go once he's managed to bypass the police and Christine gets back to her home and trys to forget the whole episode. But the masked man - Erik - reappears in his life a few days after that and they start a strange relationship. 

This 22 Chapter Fanfic has 55,016 words and was written between 2003 and 2007. It's rated T and is a Horror/Romance story. 

I find it really hard to review this story. For one it's really well written, it has an interesting developement and it captures the atention of the reader rather quickly. 

Erik's based in both Leroux and ALW's musical, for he wears only a half mask, but I've taken to imagine the Phantom as portraited by the great artist Muirin007, and as The Grasshopper's descriptions of Erik are so vague, it's not hard to picture. 

He's probably one of the most interesting characters in The Innocent and he's also one of whom we know very little. None of his tricks are revealed in the story and he's scary as hell. 

Christine is based in Leroux's novel and can be described with two words: plain stupid. And that's the main problem of this story. It's supposed to be modern, but Christine is a character out of 1800 and pretty stupid also. Her character's as thin and translucent as plastic papper. Which serves the story well.

The Innocent is written mainly from her point of view, which keeps it interesting for the reader even though the lack of interest of the main character. She's supposed to be really beautiful, but that's it. The main problem I have with Christine - I've never liked any Chrstine in the first place - is that she acts as a  dumb woman from 1800, doing pretty little through out all the story and then being selfish at the end - wheras usually Christine's only virtue is being rather quick in taking a decision when the life of others is at stake. 

The only other characters in this are Ray - a Raoul character that doesn't do much - and the FBI agent Nathan Radford - the modern Daroga Nadir Kahn. The last few chapters are written in Nathan's POV, and have a pretty heavy effect. He isn't much of a challenge for Erik and has a lucky escape. 

All in all, the story is very readalbe, the ending leaves you stunned by it's strange turn and best of all, the Epilogue. That Epilogue raises os many unanswered questions in such a funny way. 

Out of 10 I rate it with a 7:

 The story is pretty well adapted, the characers are a little bit flat, but the style is good.