Review: Good story, but I wish the writing were better
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 7, 2014
Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.Rating: 5/10PROS:- I liked the premise: that a boy who’d been made fun of would grow into a hunk of a man and be attractive to someone who used to torment him as a child.- Paul’s tendency to stutter when he’s excited or nervous is cute. It reminds Karl repeatedly of the men’s history.- Some of the actions and comments of Paul’s son, Charlie, are pretty amusing. And I was glad that Karl didn’t just sail through all of his initial interactions with Charlie without messing up. That wouldn’t have been realistic considering Karl’s lack of experience with kids.CONS:- The writing is awkward. Some of the phrasing sounds British (“car park” rather than “parking lot”), some sounds American (“cell” rather than “mobile”), and some just sounds…weird. Sometimes words are misused (“I’m going to premise this with a request” should be “PREFACE this…”; “Charlie scoffed three waffles” should be “scarfed”; etc.). There are even some sections that I struggled to understand at all, like this: “He’d felt a little shy. And a little bit more. A really very little bit.”- The narrative voice sounds a bit too conversational and stream-of-consciousness for a story written in third person. It comes across as jumpy or stilted quite often.- I found the names “Karl” and “Paul” to be a bit too similar (both are one syllable, and they almost rhyme). They made the story a bit difficult to read quickly.Overall comments: The story here is solid, but I couldn’t get past the writing. Aside from the general awkwardness of it, it also drives me crazy when writers attempt to spell mumblings phonetically (examples: “Myyah” and “Omigngf”).