Erina,
Before I offer my complete review, I will admit that this was the hardest 4.0 I've had to give as a rating yet as I found this to be a very compelling, interesting, and easily comprehendable story. There was not one moment I can recall having to re-read a passage twice to keep on track.
This is easily a 4.5 piece, and with a little bit of work, a 5.0, with the right editing. The biggest hindrance I noticed was grammatical. While many authors successfully "bend the rules" of grammar to add style to their pieces, there are some cases where doing so shows more of a "bad form" than a "unique style"
"But she was never conscious of it. She just
carried on doing what she’d learned to do; knowing she was on the path to bring her
perfect textbook happiness."
In this section, the use of a semicolon is grammatically incorrect, yet does does nothing to assist the style, however
"He was interesting; he knew how to
make people smile
employs the correct usage of the semicolon. For your style, which utilizes the "short sentence" very effectively, I'd try and use semicolons sparingly, and make they are used correctly when they do come into play.
As far as the short sentences go, they make the flow of the story go incredibly quickly, and for the most part, every sentence gets the point across.
"Six hours later she found herself in a bar. It wasn’t a popular one. But she knew it
was a place she could find someone. She was lonely."
In instances like this, instead of making this a four-sentence section, I could see possibly coming up with something like "Six hours later, she found herself in a local bar. It wasn't a popular one, but she was lonely, and knew it was a place she could find someone."
Perhaps this is just my own style talking, but I left the words intact and it seems to have a nice flow. As I said, I do enjoy the fast-paced style your story incorporates, but the occassional mixup might add a little depth to the story.
I would have liked to see a few more complex sentences come about, especially at the end of the story. We build up to the revelation of what excetly Skye is giving up, and breaking the final lines into three sentences, in this case, left me desiring a more powerful conclusion. That isn't to say that it isn't an effective finish to the piece, but I feel that possibly combining the three ideas into one idea could have been more effective.
"And to tell the truth, it’s
probably something she knew all along."
Since you chose to use the Third-Person Omniscient on this piece, it is almost implied that the narrator is "telling the truth," therefore I found this to come off as being a little awkward. Again, just a minor factor that may or not be that important to most readers.
On the positive side, though, aside from the occassional grammar error, I thoroughly enjoyed your story and find it incredibly believeable. Your main and secondary characters are given enough description to clue the reader in to their personalities and a rough idea of their physical bodies. Even the man in the bar is given enough detail for a nice mental picture to be painted.
Keep up the great work, and I really think this could turn out to be an awesome story. It is well on the way there right now!
-A |
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