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 Review #4759997 |
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| (4.0)| Hey, Elycia!  This was a wonderful short story! It was about a seemingly introverted woman working in an office. She quit her job because she felt disrespected by her boss and coworkers—rightfully so, I might add! Then she ends up meeting her Aunt to go to out eat, but her Aunt had other plans with a potential husband. Fantastic storyline for such a small piece. I was hooked right from the start and at no point struggled to read through its entirety. It was written with fantastic grammar and vocabulary. I especially loved the inclusion of the Manglish terms. While this is a posted on a primarily English website, this still offers the readers an insight into Malaysians' ways of speaking. It added a very unique aspect to the writing style and character development. You write dialogue very well. Sometimes I struggle with this myself; I find myself writing dialogue for different characters but they all sound relatively the same because I tend to write dialogue how I would say it. Sometimes it works, but more often than not I have to rephrase most of my dialogue. You did a great job at individualizing the characters with yours, down to the "Eh?" from Aunty.  She definitely seems like an over-the-top kind of woman, quite the opposite of Angie. ~~~ I was a bit confused in the beginning of the story. What exactly did Murni Printing Company do to scam Angie's workplace? Are they a competing printing company? Did they purchase their services and get scammed financially? I expected to find out towards the end of the story with the introduction of David but it never came about. I feel adding some more details about this could help develop what sense of seriousness the reader should presume this Murni company is. From what I could tell, it seemed like maybe they were overcharged for supplies. But, when Angie's boss threatened to fire her, I realized it had to be more serious than that. I really wanted to know why! I also felt like there was too much going on in the beginning of the story. There were too many named characters who weren't relevant to the story, like Adam and Cynthia. I feel the start of the story would have been completely fine without giving those characters names and just leaving the main focus as Rachel, Angie, and Gemma. I kept getting confused by the other names. But at the same time, it does represent the chaos and multitudes of people crammed into a tiny office building, so it works at the same time. It would just be more of a personal preference of mine to not name the characters since it is a shorter story. ~~~ I believe you had mentioned this to me when discussing your story, but towards the end you mention that Angie turns her phone off. But then she has a Grab driver on the way. Wouldn't her phone have to be on for that? My first thought after rushing out of an uncomfortable social situation wouldn't be to shut off my phone, so I feel omitting this part of the story doesn't change the plot at all, and makes more sense. But, that's just me being nitpicky.  ~~~ The cold air-conditioning carried a whiff of Glade’s artificial lilac fragrance. Angie nodded and sat at the backseat, enjoying the silence while watching the cars’ red brake lights light up the city roads on a Friday night. I think this  excerpt I pulled was my favorite part. Many writers would have chosen to skip the ride between the two scenes in your story and just added a line break. You kept the reader with Angie as she went through the emotions of anger, anxiety, and relief from quitting her job as she sat in the quiet cab and enjoyed a moment of nothingness. Your imagery here is also excellent, as well as throughout the rest of the story. I really felt like I was walking besides Angie and experience these moments with her. ~~~ I do have a couple of comments as far as grammar... Angie pressed it to her ears: “Hello, Aunty?” In the above sentence I pulled from your story, I don't know that a colon is the right kind punctuation you would want to use. I think putting a period after "ears" would work properly and just as well. But I could be mistaken on this as I don't often use colons in my writing. “He’s a very kind boy. Very reliable. My son’s friend. I watched him grow up, now he so tall.” In the above sentence, I wasn't sure if you purposely wrote "he" instead of "he's." I know you have a footnote at the bottom of your story to explain that some typos in the dialogue are on purpose to reflect the accent. The only reason I brought this up is because in the beginning of Aunty's dialogue here, she uses "He's" correctly. So I wasn't sure if this one was accidental or not. If it is intentional, I'd be interested to know why. Is it because it's "he's a very" vs "he so tall"? I'm wondering if her accent flows without the apostrophe in the second part because the word following it starts with "s." Does that make sense? Educate me.  ~~~ Overall, I think this was a wonderful story with potential of being an even longer one. I know you had a word count limit for your class when you wrote this, but I could definitely see a story where you delve into the relationship between Angie, Aunty, and David. Even if you don't continue this story, it's a superb piece on its own. You fit two very detailed scenes into such a small amount, it was impressive. Write on, and thanks for sharing!   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 07/01/2024 @ 10:59pm EDT