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 Review #4154839 |
It's No Match for Friendship  [13+] Lee and her friends have their friendship put to the test.  |
| (3.5)  Welcome to WDC from "Newbie Welcome Wagon" !  First Impressions: This was quite a realistic story. It might seem strange but I liked that not everything go resolved at the end; that’s not how real life goes. It was great to see how they all rallied together to fix what they could though, although at first it seemed they didn’t have much hope of being able to achieve anything. They didn’t give up and came up with a good idea that was worth a shot, and it paid off. The characters were nicely done and you showed their different strengths and weaknesses but mostly the depth of their friendship and how important they were to each other. You hinted at it in the story, in a couple of years they’d all go their different ways but it was easy to imagine that their friendship would last even if they weren’t together any more. At this time though, it was important for them all to be together and that’s why they needed to make this happen for one of them. Most of the story was told in dialogue and you did a good job making it sound natural and showing the characters’ personalities. There wasn’t much in the way of description but the setting you mentioned, like a diner, were sufficient to give the readers an indication. There was one excellent hint early on at something later in the story, where you said that “Even her father had known” – without you saying it in so many words, the readers knew that the father was out of the picture.  Suggestions: I struggled a little with the lengthy introduction of the friends. That was one long paragraph of attributes like hair and eye colour and I wasn’t sure how that contributed to the story. It seemed to slow down the beginning and I can imagine some readers turning away at that point. There were some bits that you referred to later in the story, like the fact that one of them wanted to be a director, but most of it didn’t seem important. I think it would work better to omit the unnecessary parts and weave the rest into the dialogue somewhere to make it easier to read and remember. The 4 years Numbers under ten are generally spelled out, so “four years.” we are cool. We're friends with I’m not sure if this came across as you meant it to. Was she really implying that they were only cool because they knew some other people who were considered cool? It sounded a little self-depreciating to me and I wasn’t sure if it fit her personality. Lee called Dan There were some parts where you went into details that didn’t seem necessary, this being one of them. If they arrange to meet someone and one character says she will let the others know, it is implied that that’s what she will do unless it is significant to the story that she doesn’t. There is no need to list who called whom as it’s likely to slow down the narrative. The same goes for asides like, they “exited Lee's house and began walking” or the order in which they went into the diner. If you read the story again, ask yourself if those details are important for anything. If not, leave them out. also Alex's friend since second grade The repetition was quite noticeable and I think after the first one, it was implied that they had all known Alex for a long time. Unless one of them has something different to say that was worth mentioning, I would omit those lines.  Final Thoughts: Like I said, I thought the ending worked well to show that not all problems in life can be fixed but that it’s always worth taking a stab at it. At the beginning it seemed unlikely that the friends would achieve anything but they were far more successful than I thought. It was quite an uplifting story and I think that it would be something many teenage and young adult readers would enjoy because it has a strong message, and they will be able to relate to the dialogue and the problems the characters had to face.   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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