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Review #4054649
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Review by Charlie ~
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Rated: | (3.5)
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Hello, aegreenfield. My name is Charlie and I'm happy to be reviewing your short story, "Invalid Item"  today. Keep in mind that the following is just one reader's opinion. I am not a professional and you know your writing best. If you find something helpful here, use it. If you don't, feel free to disregard this review completely. *Peace2*

*Beakerr* General Impressions: This is an interesting little horror story that has a lot of the creepy elements we think about in this genre. Dolls are almost always creepy, in my opinion. Why do they look so real? *Laugh* We first meet Mary, who is the youngest of three siblings. Their mother has just passed away and now the oldest sibling has died too. What we find out in the story though, is that the middle child killed the oldest child in order to be the main beneficiary on the mother's life insurance policy. I thought the plot was interesting and I've seen enough true crime TV shows to know that people do kill for things like this!

*Beakerb* Best Parts: I like that they pick up Blake in the end to question him. He's now the main suspect in both sisters' murders. His character is quite greedy, so it's nice to see him getting caught as the reader. We don't feel bad for him being ratted out and taken in because we want him to get caught. I think that's a good sign that your characters were developed in the right way. We are rooting for the good guys (Sarah and Mary) to get their vengeance in the end.

I also like the way you described Mary losing her mind over the knowledge that her brother is the one who killed her sister. She knows that she could be in danger now if Blake decides that he wants to kill her too. She wants to go to the police, but she's too afraid that they won't believe her or that she'll somehow end up in trouble. It's hard to say what most people would do in this situation, but I like that her character was level-headed on the subject and conflicted about her decision.

*Beakero* Possible Suggestions: As far as technical things, I did notice some issues that you could possible look at editing. I won't go into extensive detail on those, as most of them may just be preference of the reader. I felt that there were some words you repeated quite frequently and it was a bit distracting at times. For example, in the beginning, you describe the doll as being a porcelain. You then say in the next sentence that it shouldn't move because it's made of porcelain. One thing I think that is important when writing is to trust that your readers are going to understand obvious things like this. I don't think it's necessary to let the reader know that the doll is porcelain AND porcelain dolls shouldn't move.

Along the same lines, the second paragraph is chock full of 'had'. The grandmother 'had bought'. The doll 'had been' imported. Beatrice 'had adored' it. Again, this isn't a technical error, but can be quite distracting for the reader.

Moving on from that, the biggest issue I had was confusion with the ending. The point-of-view changed from Mary's to Blake's because her character died off. This made it a little bit confusing because I wasn't sure if Blake had killed Mary or if the doll had scared her so much, she just fell down the stares on her own accord. How is Caroline the police's witness? She's a doll. I'm super unsure about that part, so I may be understanding it incorrectly.

*Beakerv* Summary: Overall, I thought it was an interesting story. I have some confusion about the end that I think may need to be reworked or fleshed out. Thanks again for sharing with us!

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