Hello, Ra M,

Here is a review for your "A Page from My Diary" .

Comments and Observations:

Such a beautifully written story! I felt as if I were reading a poem. You've captured both the sense of feeling strange in an unfamiliar place and the discomfort of realizing that photography can only show the truth approximately.

Your prose, as definitions, is very rich. I felt the texture or your words, so to speak. Kudos for that! They show up in many sections such as, “shoebox shanties squatting side-by-side like tired relatives” or “the sour rot of a neglected gutter curling through the settlement like a reluctant river.”

Then, the distance between observer and subject, privilege and poverty, and experience and representation add tension to what you are telling. In these words, “I had walked into a life I could leave,” I felt the ethical tension in your self-awareness. Btw, I say "you" because the story is in first person.

Come to think of it, your prose has a rhythm to it, too. These, "The flow of light, the children’s laughter, the swing’s creak " and some others, carry a rhythm that feels almost musical.

I liked the ending, too. "Truth slipping out of the frame" as a metaphor works very well. Your reflection, "not all rivers run both ways” unsettles or alerts you and the reader, together.

If I may suggest, not that it is immediately important or anything, but if you the narrator, for a brief moment, would interact with someone on the scene with a word or a couple of sentences of exchange as acknowledgement, this would put you the narrator into the story a tiny bit, so the story doesn't feel like someone from above is telling it.

I think this is really a thoughtful, well-crafted story, and congratulations for writing it.

Suggestions on the text as to grammar, usage, and punctuation

I saw no problems in this area.

Best wishes with your work.





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