I don't know if you remember, but you asked me to write some reviews. Here I am! I am happy to oblige anytime, so ask at any point.
The very first thing I wanted to say is this. It's a great story but I don't think it is an essay. I'm not sure on this, because I know there are essays in the first person, but I haven't read much of them personally. I have been focusing on my poetry with a certain exercise called 100 in 100. I actually am reading poetry, a book on economics, and a book is coming in the library with essays and poetry. I say this, because I haven't really read that many published essays. I've written my own style over the years based upon what I have learned in school. So far, I am really intrigued about writing essays in the first person. Also, the poems I mainly write are in the third, and they are more academic. If you want to get a taste on my style so far, just jump to my portfolio and go to essays. The most recent one I wrote called Perfection, has much more growth than the other ones. I'm saying all of this, before getting into the review, that I come from a very different angle than where you are coming from, and I am just going to share what I think. Please keep in mind my style is very different, and that what I know does not encompass everything there is to know about essay writing.
First I want to say it sounded more like a short story. On the other hand, it could be viewed as an essay. You state your thesis that you aren't as geeky as you thought. You provide the evidence through the story of going to the anime convention, and then the conclusion reinforces your thesis while bringing about a sense of conclusion. I would say that your conclusion could have some more summary of what happened. Or, you could follow the chain of logic as to why you aren't as geeky as you thought you were. So I see how it could be an essay, it could also be a short story, and it could also be a segment of an autobiography. In my view, with my style, this isn't an essay.
First there is a minor thing. You didn't necessarily state who Colette is. She/he comes out of right field. Also, it is normally accepted that when you do dialogue, you do separate lines/paragraphs.
With that said, I am pretty certain that an essay in the first person focuses on logic, rather than experience. Does that make sense? You state some sort of thesis in the essay, support it, restate the thesis, and then conclude. Research essays are easy, you just have to read a lot. Academic essays have more to do with your knowledge from various sources, and weave them into making your point solid. Really hard essays are what I term philosophical essays, simply because it is only your logic, rather than sources and less on the knowledge part, on providing evidence to your thesis.
Like I said, I honestly don't think this is an essay. I would classify it as an autobiographical short-story. I have never read an essay that has dialogue.
I know it is just a classification thing, but it is something you should know. The story was enjoyable, the writing flowed well, the dialogue needed to be separated, and I didn't see or hear any grammatical errors, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. I really need to read up on my grammar. Oh yeah, I would introduce Chalotte rather than putting that person right into the story immediately.
I hope this review was helpful!
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