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DRAFT After All
When Kasey and her daughter Emily move to Texas for a fresh start, the last thing Kasey expected was to fall for Emily's new teacher Carla.
50 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 11, 2015
30 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 12, 2015
[ Free from Amazon. ]
Well, to be fair, as it was free, and they’re usually always free for a reason, I didn’t expect a whole lot going in, which is for the best. The story itself had plenty of potential, but the author fell short.
For starters, there are far too many long-winded sentences that are rushed, full of way too much information with insignificant details packed in, and it all reads in a hurry, which might not always be a bad thing, but in this case it was due to the fact the flow was broken and awkward, and it all seemed rather forced. And the author is obviously one of those people who think they know where commas should be placed, but waver in places, so they either bung way too many in or skip them altogether. It’s all over the place; the style is up and down, going with one style here and another there. Also, there’s too much repetition with everything getting repeated over and over in these long, rushed sentences; it made me want to do violent things. It’s not good. It has potential, as does the author, but they’re far from good.
Now, the story itself, well, it’s slow, boring, and drones on about details I don’t care to know about. For example, how the hell she cooks her damn bacon, as if this is somehow a huge piece of the plot. Spoiler alert: it isn’t. And it took a little over half of the book to set it up, explaining way too much that could have been put into a few brief stentences and established from the start, because none of it was build up to her meeting this woman and falling in love. The woman in question doesn’t even come into play untul the half-way point, and since that’s the entire point of the story, then it’s awful. There’s no suspense, nothing to keep me gripped (though I forced my way through it all the same), and all there is are boring, pointless facts that matter little to the entire thing. The chapters were too short, and badly divided, even for a novella.
But most disappointing of all, the characters were flat, two-dimension things that all sounded exactly the same as the next. And even though dialogue is supposed to reflect how a character sounds, the only one with anything different going on is the kid, and don’t even get me started on what’s wrong with that; it had every sentence ten miles long, no commas or hyphens to show the kid was still able to breathe, and ugh. Also, the way the narrative switched from ‘Emily’ to ‘Em’ every five seconds when Kasey had never once referred to her by name, let alone given her the shortened name; she always called her ‘Pug’, for some unknown reason, and it bothered me. Okay? Okay.
As for a once-married woman suddenly turning gay over night? Let’s not get into it too deeply, because, I mean, there’s no such thing as bisexuality, right? Or pansexuality, or anything else besides entirely straight and utterly gay. Right? And Gillian Anderson kept getting mentions, you know, as a gay woman she’s the obvious choice for this character to accidentally notice is somewhat attractive. It was far too forced for me, trying too hard, and unrealistic, not to mention a little offensive due to the lack of experience on the subject and/or research, or just general logic. Plus, as soon as we do get to see the romance form, as I said before it happens half-way in, bored to tears beforehand, and then rushed, hand-waved over, and simply lacking in every respect.
Overall, if the author had focused more on the actual plot of the story than on every single insignificant detail ever that doesn’t amount to anything of import to it, then maybe it would have been a whole other story. But, in the end, it held enough potential to be something good and ended up being let down to something awful; readable, yes, but still awful. I won’t be re-reading it, and I won’t be recommending it. And I doubt I’ll be hunting down anything else by the author in future, either, but I do hope they learn from everything they’ve written and grow into a better writer for it, so good luck to them on that.
P.S. Carla Walters may have made Kasey feel alive, but nothing within this novella made me feel anything close to it.
Well, to be fair, as it was free, and they’re usually always free for a reason, I didn’t expect a whole lot going in, which is for the best. The story itself had plenty of potential, but the author fell short.
For starters, there are far too many long-winded sentences that are rushed, full of way too much information with insignificant details packed in, and it all reads in a hurry, which might not always be a bad thing, but in this case it was due to the fact the flow was broken and awkward, and it all seemed rather forced. And the author is obviously one of those people who think they know where commas should be placed, but waver in places, so they either bung way too many in or skip them altogether. It’s all over the place; the style is up and down, going with one style here and another there. Also, there’s too much repetition with everything getting repeated over and over in these long, rushed sentences; it made me want to do violent things. It’s not good. It has potential, as does the author, but they’re far from good.
Now, the story itself, well, it’s slow, boring, and drones on about details I don’t care to know about. For example, how the hell she cooks her damn bacon, as if this is somehow a huge piece of the plot. Spoiler alert: it isn’t. And it took a little over half of the book to set it up, explaining way too much that could have been put into a few brief stentences and established from the start, because none of it was build up to her meeting this woman and falling in love. The woman in question doesn’t even come into play untul the half-way point, and since that’s the entire point of the story, then it’s awful. There’s no suspense, nothing to keep me gripped (though I forced my way through it all the same), and all there is are boring, pointless facts that matter little to the entire thing. The chapters were too short, and badly divided, even for a novella.
But most disappointing of all, the characters were flat, two-dimension things that all sounded exactly the same as the next. And even though dialogue is supposed to reflect how a character sounds, the only one with anything different going on is the kid, and don’t even get me started on what’s wrong with that; it had every sentence ten miles long, no commas or hyphens to show the kid was still able to breathe, and ugh. Also, the way the narrative switched from ‘Emily’ to ‘Em’ every five seconds when Kasey had never once referred to her by name, let alone given her the shortened name; she always called her ‘Pug’, for some unknown reason, and it bothered me. Okay? Okay.
As for a once-married woman suddenly turning gay over night? Let’s not get into it too deeply, because, I mean, there’s no such thing as bisexuality, right? Or pansexuality, or anything else besides entirely straight and utterly gay. Right? And Gillian Anderson kept getting mentions, you know, as a gay woman she’s the obvious choice for this character to accidentally notice is somewhat attractive. It was far too forced for me, trying too hard, and unrealistic, not to mention a little offensive due to the lack of experience on the subject and/or research, or just general logic. Plus, as soon as we do get to see the romance form, as I said before it happens half-way in, bored to tears beforehand, and then rushed, hand-waved over, and simply lacking in every respect.
Overall, if the author had focused more on the actual plot of the story than on every single insignificant detail ever that doesn’t amount to anything of import to it, then maybe it would have been a whole other story. But, in the end, it held enough potential to be something good and ended up being let down to something awful; readable, yes, but still awful. I won’t be re-reading it, and I won’t be recommending it. And I doubt I’ll be hunting down anything else by the author in future, either, but I do hope they learn from everything they’ve written and grow into a better writer for it, so good luck to them on that.
P.S. Carla Walters may have made Kasey feel alive, but nothing within this novella made me feel anything close to it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 2, 2015
Was good but would be better if it was longer
January 31, 2016
Good storyline, the author gets confused on Kasey characters name, unrealistic that she was able to take Emily from NY to TX being divorced and the ex having visitation rights. Really a shame that she couldn't have worked this one into a full length book and probably set it to due a sequel.
June 5, 2015
Ends rather abruptly.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews