Hi! I saw your piece in "Please Review"  and thought that I'd give it a peek. I'm glad I did!

Some things I Like:

First, this story is packed full of awesome lines.

"i’ve seen tradition break along with microwaves, garage doors, and back teeth"

This reads like Robert R. McCammon, which is a huge compliment. The line is fantastic! The emotion captured here is very engaging, so its placement at the beginning is perfect. I absolutely adore it.

There are other stellar lines throughout. It is flooded with absolutely brilliant phrasing.

Observations & Suggestions:

The real downfall of this piece is the grammar and lack of proper capitalization. It was hard to read. If that first line hadn't grabbed me, I probably would have quit reading. I almost quit reading after the first HALF of that line:

"i’ve been trying to find safe spaces in other people’s bones cause i’ve"

No caps? I've, people's, 'cause, I've... all in a row? That's just not a good sign. The voice and tone created by the contractions is great, but be careful not to overdo it... it can sound silly. And you don't want a piece like this to sound silly!

"y’know when you get hit, he’s saying, and that corner of the staircase becomes your whole world? that little corner"

This is the type of place where proper grammar would have been incredibly helpful! If you've never read this before and tried to make sense of this "y'know when you get hit, he's saying, and that", you will end up reading it 10 times trying to figure out if it's a typo or something before even moving on.

That is precisely what I did. I read it over and over like "What the heck is that supposed to mean?", which is frustrating and yet one more reason why someone could stop reading.

Overall, it really pains me to give this a mediocre rating, but the writing is super rough. I absolutely LOVE what you're saying, but it was not an easy, enjoyable read. Now, if the subject matter makes a piece difficult to read, that's one thing. If the grammar makes it difficult to read, that is another entirely. I know that grammar isn't easy for everyone, and loose conversational grammar would be fine for a piece like this. But really, it just drastically needs that polish. With revision, this could easily be a 5 star piece of work.





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