Hi OOT™
This review of "Going Home" is the first of three reviews you won with the awesome Pig package in "Chinese New Year Celebration" .
Reader Impressions
I really like stories that have an emotional pull, whether they make me laugh or cry. For me it means I get right in there with the characters, and I do in this case. I’m very lucky to have never had to deal with the death of immediate family (parents, siblings (I have no children/husband)), but I’ve a number of characters who have and I know that if I’m tearing up while writing then I’m doing something okay. If I tear up reading someone else’s writing, they’re also doing okay. Which is what I think of you and this story.
It’s a very simple theme – how the surviving person copes with the loss of loved ones. Everyone copes in different ways and Jill reminded me of the Robin Williams’ movie What Dreams May Come, where he and his daughter are killed and the wife then kills herself to be with them, but ends up in a different part of the afterlife because suicides are treated differently. Okay, quite different, but the grief is still the same. If the people you were living for are gone, then what are you now living for? It’s a tough thing to cope with, and our hearts go out to Jill because of those last words she’d had with her daughter. I’d think the daughter probably got over things once she was in the car and didn’t think of them during the crash, but you can’t tell that to the surviving person. The knowledge that the last words you said to someone were cruel or cold or nasty is a tough, tough pill to swallow. No pun here about the pills.
What I’m saying is that I think you portrayed Jill and her grief and spiral downwards very very realistically. And though the story starts post the accident and post Jill’s own attempted death, you’re not all focused on the dark side of things. We see how Jill and Jeff met, we see tiny moments of their life together and understand how strong their love is. That makes everything more tragic, and also allows the reader to understand how the spiral started.
The Title and Description
There’s always discussion on here about how much effort we should put into the title and the description and how most of us don’t really. However, both of yours are really good, and they’re ambiguous. I really only got that once I’d read the story, because initially I was all about, oh, she’s going home to live with her parents. Understandable. But then the description makes you cock your head and think hmm, is she not going to make it home to her parents? and is there a different sort of home here???? But even with those thoughts I really didn’t see the end coming. You could almost add ‘suspense’ to the genres for that reason.
I think ‘home’ for Jill is not her parents’ home, and that comes out later in the story. And because she doesn’t succeed there, then that’s a perfect match for the negative description. It’s all very nicely done!
The Ending
Well, let me admit that I first read ‘napping’ for ‘tapping’ and I thought Jill had fallen asleep or something and had had a car crash, and the tapping was her husband saying ‘hey you, welcome home’; a sort of ‘I’ve come to take you’ kind of moment. I was just a little disappointed that it wasn’t quite this way because I’m a romantic first and foremost and that would have been way cool.
But… the ending was still pretty neat. Definitely unexpected because though we’d had Jill grieving and remembering as she’d been driving, we hadn’t really had a repeat of suicidal thoughts or any indication she was driving erratically and could end up in a ditch. I’d expected her to get to her parents’ house and have a big breakdown in her mum’s arms. Instead we get a sort of ‘fate intervenes’ kind of ending. It worked. By the way, a yellow jacket is a wasp? Or is it a bee? (Not that that really matters since I presumed it was one of those too things and my brain was already understanding what it looked like and what it did.)
The last line is both lovely and sad. Being the romantic I’d love to have caught a glimpse of Jeff and Leah coming along the road to her or something, but even as it stands we readers can already imagine that and though we might be a bit sniffly we’re also smiling alongside Jill.
Things to Work On
The timeline confused me quite a bit. Though I could tell when Jill was dipping back into her memory easily enough there were a few places where you mention exact ages or timeframes that through me a little. For example, in the opening paragraph you mention that Leah is four; because it sounds like the present I spent much of the story thinking that she was only young when she died (well, she was, but later we find out that she was thirteen). Also in the same paragraph you say ten years ago and that made me wonder how much time between that ten years and now. The but that was before doesn’t indicate what sort of time-gap, and it almost makes it sound like it was just before the tragedy and therefore Jill’s been suffering ten years from the loss.
I think part of the confusion may stem from what tense you’re using in those memories. Sometimes you just simple past (enjoyed), sometimes the far past (had enjoyed), with the latter being the one normally used for telling a past event more clearly. Okay, this may not be coming across as clearly as my brain is telling me!! Sorry. Here’s hopefully an example of where confusion pops up…. We’ve just had the bit where Jill’s had the police officer visit (which also contains the memory of the argument with Leah – so two past events showing up together here), and then we flash briefly to the present (the empty tank), and then we pop back to the past with Jill taking the pills. However, that paragraph begins Two weeks after the death of her family, Jill decided to join them. This does not read like it happened in the past, it reads like we’re right in the present now (even though we know we’re not), so I’d recommend just re-reading everything and sorting out the tenses. In this particular case I’d probably do something like Two weeks after the death of her family, Jill had decided to join them.. Or – just a suggestion – you change the present telling events (Jill driving) to the real present tense and leave the memories in the past tense (like Jill notices her gas tank is nearly empty so stops at the next gas station.). (Or just ignore me totally .) (Interestingly, you do use the present tense remembers in the first memory and in the second one she’ll never forget.)
Other things ▼
The bits and pieces here are just little things that I noticed that could be tidied up but which aren’t catastrophically horrifying.
… spent in counseling, or more specifically while… – I would put the comma after ‘or’ and then a second one after ‘specifically’.
But that was before she lost her her husband… – remove one of the ‘her’
… missed her new Ford Explorer… – I’d remove ‘new’. I don’t think we need to know it’s new and how new? Pre family’s deaths? Post? Too many questions, all we need to know is she misses the vehicle she likes the most.
… the fact she had no choice… – I expect this is just me but I think it should be she’d had because that better fits the they hadn’t within the same sentence.
By the time she was released… – how long? We never really get to hear just how long Jill was in the psych unit for so I think you could state the duration specifically here for reader clarity.
… any doubts that remained in Leah’s heart… – should be Jill not Leah.
… the song that was playing… – again a bit of tense confusion. I think ‘was playing’ should either be ‘played’ or ‘had been playing’
… – you use these a number of times, but sometimes it just looks like you pressed the full stop too much rather than have them act as a trail-off, so just check those. The M-dash is a much clearer way of indicating an abrupt break-off of thought or speech.
… from which Leah fell and broke her arm… – tense again. Should really be ‘had fallen and broken’
Jill barely recognized… \ third argument they had had… – a query here. Was this the third make-up argument they’d had? If so, then the ‘barely recognised’ sort of doesn’t work. Are you able to clarify these two out a little?
…stopped at the next gas station she saw – I think you can take out ‘she saw’ as that’s a bit of a given. Likewise, in Jill’s thought that follows I’d suggest taking out ‘now’ as I think that’s a bit redundant. The thought itself is gold though!
Who’s Kathy? She pops up right at the end; obviously she’s been clearing out Jill’s house but who is she to Jill? Perhaps bring her in at the beginning when Jill’s doing those last thoughts about ripping out the sold sign just for clarification.
Closing Comments
Love and grief can, honestly, be really nasty. They’re the two that can make you do something at the drop of a hat that you wouldn’t normally do. And these two emotions are huge reader hooks. I love stories that will make me react as if I were one of the character; that’s the sign of a good story. Despite all my nit-picking things, Going Home does that – I can feel Jill’s love for Jeff and Leah, and I can feel her grief and the huge pit of loss that she doesn’t know how to escape or fill. I wouldn’t have minded her making it home to her parents but I feel that the particular ending you’ve written is more satisfying. Very emotional, of course, but it is also a happy ending of sorts.
I am glad to have been able to read it. Hmm, you know, it would be interesting to read other short stories relating to Jill and Jeff, and Leah; especially a longer version of how they met in school, and good old teen angst fights between mother and daughter. If you do ever write any, let me know!
And big apologies again for the length of time this review has taken to get to you! When I get sick it’s usually a 24-hour thing but, man, this time it’s knocked me for a six!! As always, with any reviews, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need any clarification regarding my comments.
Best wishes,
Os
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