Ethan Hightower’s short story follows
Jeremy, a teenager who wishes for a stronger relationship with Ashlyn, his
carpool driver. Jeremy wants to
meet Ashyln at a baseball game on evening, but is driven to prove his work
ethic to her by fixing the dirt holes on his street. As he is working, his car gets stuck in a ditch. Although is weary to tell his father,
he eventually does and is met with a much more positive response than
previously anticipated.
One
of the things that I liked about this story was its simplicity. I could really relate to these
characters, however they were not as fleshed out enough in the story. I really wanted to see Jeremy meet
Ashlyn again. The dialogue was
realistic for the ages present, but it did feel one-dimensional at times. It lacked sort of an artistic feel and
came off at times as boring. I
wanted to get to know these characters, but they seemed too closed off to the
reader. The overall plot seemed
too close to a “moral” story which made the ending a tad bit anti-climactic.
Overall,
I liked Ethan’s style of story telling.
The short, and simple sentences leave a lot of room for strong dialogue
themes and details. This where I felt
that the piece was lacking. In
all, there just didn’t seem to be enough going on, which I know is a strange
thing to complain about. The story
just seemed to be very “matter-of-factly” and didn’t have any multi-layered
elements to it. I wanted to see
Jeremy get with this girl after a much bigger conflict than filling up these
holes that the character doesn’t really have to do. I couldn’t really gauge what the characters or the settings
really looked like. Imagery would
be useful in this story as well.
I
see the potential in the writing.
This good story could be a great story with a little bit of work.
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