bateaux   -----  Rose Colored Review

Bethany

We stumbled upon this story playing a game on the phone where we type in tags and then pick a number. This story was the winner. Neither of us had read Anchorage, obviously, and some parts we didn't entirely understand, but we were both blown away by how beautifully you write. We described it like this: it's like you're being painted, flowing along easily with the brush strokes, or maybe floating in the water, hair loose and flowing. It was calming, though it was painful. Beautiful, though it was tragic. You could easily imagine yourself being in this situation, loving someone who doesn't want you. It hurts to read, but in the way love hurts as well. Beautiful story. We really enjoyed reading and thank you for sharing this experience with the world.

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Shawn

So, Rose Colored is a short story by @bateaux . I say short story because it contains only 1 plot line, but it does in fact have about 10, very short chapters. The story focuses mainly on the two characters Mona and Pippa and their relationship between each other. One of the fun things about this story is that it is written in the form of letters which makes it different than many other stories in its genre.

To start off, Rose Colored is extremely well written. Its choices in vocabulary and pace make it feel more like a painting than a written work. I found myself lost in the words and enjoying everything I read because of how colorful it was. It made me feel like I could visualise what the narrator was feeling in a given situation. That being said, this did cause some issues. In conversations between characters, character actions were so well described that I found myself losing concentration on what was being said between the individuals. Sometimes I would have to go back and reread what the previous line of dialogue was because of how much description was written before the next line was spoken. I lost track of the point.

I also found that the story was restricted by its style, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but because of this restriction, I was left wanting more out of a situation because it was only mentioned instead of going in depth. Since this is a spin off of a longer story, the lack of info doesn't hurt, but it does cause this story to feel a bit empty on its own.

In the end though, the story was beautifully told and made out to have a bittersweet ending with a wonderful moral. I definitely enjoyed this story and completely suggest giving it and other works by this author a read. She is absolutely a master of her craft.