Let's start by saying it's night around here, making me a bit tired. So when I first saw it, I was a bit taken aback by the layout. Having nothing to do I pushed on and I shall be honest: I did not regret that. Though being rough and obviously a first version, it was a nice story; especially for a first one. I'll point out some things that I liked first.
The stereotypes opposed to the more deepened out main character really do the trick. The older brother being loving, respectfull and obviously jealous of the younger brother who gets all the attention. The emotionally unstable aunt Edna, crying out for attention. The mother, overprotective of her children and very aware of her image. Even aunt Joe and uncle Mike have their own characteristics, with just a few lines of attention on them. The main character is something else though, as is Yvonne. The main character because you show him to be more diverse, Yvonne because you keep her shrouded in some mystery. Which brings me to the next point, you keep a nice undertone of mystery in the seemingly stereotypical descriptions of the wedding guests. What happened to the father? The reader wonders. Emotionally the story is good too, as is to be expected with a wide variety of well described stereotypes and a protagonist we do not know much about, except for the flashbacks.
One thing I'd like to point out for eventual improvement, though you should consider it's worth yourself before actually implementing it. The reader does not know what happened to the father; we do not know it was an accident untill the end. We also did not know about the (kind of) psychological problems of the protagonist, untill we learn it's probably a traumatic experience leading to depression. We also don't know the meaning of the empty antidepressants bottle. Don't get me wrong, I liked your ending, and I like open endings in general. But in this case there is so much left open that the reader does not know what to think anymore. It's especially a shame because the reader probably liked the story (I did!) and really wants to know at least one of those things (I do!), though I'd recommend keeping an open ending of some sort.
I won't say anything about grammar, interpunction and style, as this is not the final version. So, last words in my first review: Your story caught my eyes and I read it without losing my concentration after 1 AM. It has a lot of potential with only a few small flaws which you can improve quite easily. Congratulations on discovering your writing talent! :)
It was all my pleasure,
Rhyan
Printed from https://writing.com/main/profile/reviews/rhyan
All Writing.Com images are copyrighted and may not be copied / modified in any way. All other brand names & trademarks are owned by their respective companies.
Generated in 0.07 seconds at 10:06pm on Nov 15, 2024 via server WEBX1.