Critique

1. I thought the introduction to the story was a bit long. For me the most captivating part of the introduction was the last two sentences. On the second paragraph where it says “many creatures lie inside the jungle” I would change it to “many creatures lie in wait in that jungle.” I loved the description of the soft beaches and the transparent blue water, in the third paragraph. Also in the same paragraph I would change “underwater kingdom” to “domain.” In the fourth paragraph I didn’t understand the role of the garden and how it fit into the story. The story as a whole though was very powerful and I could really feel the character Lee’s pain and loss.

2. This story engages nothing but laughter from me, sure there are some grammatical errors but over all I thought it was a great story. The way the author told her story was so realistic and I was able to relate to that time in a teenage girls life. The feelings of need to be like everyone else, that encompassing needs to fit in.

3. The first sentence “why do you think people do bad things?” hangs luminously over the entire story. The story itself was a bit hard to follow; I never really grasped ahold of that underlying meaning until the very end. Maybe in order to engage the reader sooner in the story there could be a subtle introduction to the climax earlier on.

4. This story was breath taking, the way the author brings something tender and kind out of something frozen and cold. It is a story that leaves you stranded, a cliffhanger and it leaves me wanting to know how the proposal turns out. The author portrays feelings that one can only wish for and makes them real.