Response to Kody Blackwell's "Whatever Gods May Be"

            Kody’s story follows the protagonist Thomas Abrams.  Set in a small town, Thomas, who was once a teacher and high school football coach, decides to make a drastic lifestyle change in order to further serve the Lord.  During his position as a preacher, his wife, Bethany, becomes pregnant.  While this news elates him, an encounter with a young boy’s story of an abuse and traumatic family causes him to question his faith and his teachings.  Following this revelation, Thomas decides to resign from his preaching duties.

            The first aspect to Kody’s story that really jumps out to me is the quick and concise writing style.  I really enjoyed the general briefness of his sentence structure.  This allowed him to fit a lot more information on the page and gives the story a bit of personality.  I also really liked the characters, but I do wish that there were more showing and not telling.  Maybe dramatizing some of the scenes and shedding light on different perspectives can give the story depth.  A lot of the imagery was really fitting as well.  The descriptions of the characters and the scenery made the story all the more vivid.  However, there are some components of the story that could be deleted or re-written.  For instance, some of these side characters or even some of the main character’s back-story can be too much at times.

            In all, I really enjoyed the story and found that there were a lot of things that work.  I appreciated the structure and the writing style as well.  Some of the story elements could be trimmed up or elaborated on.  The characters are interesting and so are some of the themes of the story.  All of the details and story elements are really captivating and provide a nice backdrop for this story.