Hello lanajordy. Welcome to WDC! I'm Charlie. Thanks for sharing your writing with us. I hope this review finds you well. Let me know if you need any help around the site.


Title/General Thoughts/Subject Matter: I chose to read this story because the title caught my attention and then the description confirmed that you were referring to Cage the Elephant. I love that band. They put on some of the best live shows, super high energy. I think it's cool that you created a story sort of around this song, or that you applied that song to this story. I'm not sure which order they came in. I would suggest bumping up the rating on this one though. Right now it's set at E for everyone, but there are a lot of curse words in here. This is the rule system for that: "Writing.Com 101"  This story has more than one instance of the 'f' word, so you'll want to bump it up to a GC-rating.


What Worked: I think you created a good character for a young adult story here. There is a lot of jaded angst and all the things we'd expect from a young adult character, everything from blaming her parents to falling helplessly in love with an 'honest' dude. There were certain things that stood out to me that I liked a lot because it made the character feel real. For example:

He wraps his strong arms around me and I want to breakdown, but I can’t. I trust him, but not that much.

It does take a lot of trust to let someone comfort you during a breakdown. You have to lower your walls and let the person in completely and that's not the easiest thing to do, especially if you're coming out of a bad experience.

I also liked the idea of physically hiding as a child morphing into emotionally hiding at a later age. There was something very raw and emotional about that character attribute. It was great.


Technical Issues/Suggestions: One of my biggest personal pet peeves is when the characters don't have names. I feel so much more connected to characters when they have a name. It makes them human. This "he said" and the "I did" stuff doesn't cut it when you're trying to get your readers to connect with the people in your story- especially if the story needs to pack an emotional punch!

The story telling was a bit wonky at times. The italicized part where the main character was at school seemed sort of out of the blue and I'm not sure how it relates to the rest of the story. I mean, it shows the narrator in a different setting, but I'm just not sure why.

As a whole, this read like a snippet or glimpse into something much larger. It wasn't exactly a vignette because it doesn't focus in on one moment and use that level of description, but it also wasn't really a full short story because there wasn't a beginning, middle, and end. I think it's a cool glimpse into the characters and their lives. I hope you expand on this idea!


Final Thoughts: Overall, I thought this was a good read. I liked the emotional touches to the story and I appreciated how you brought the narrator to life. I think this seems like a glimpse at a longer story. Thanks again for sharing with us!


Best wishes,




My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .