Author: parrisgirl958

Genre: Short story/Literary Fiction

What I liked about this book:

I think this author is very talented. Her writing is smooth and evocative, and beautiful to read. This story is well-constructed, and has an identifiable plot arc, which can be difficult to pull off with a short story. I think she could write something really, really fantastic without a lot of effort.

I loved the contrast between the crappy therapist and the good one, and the jarring between the MC's thoughts and the actual events that occurred. It was done in a way that didn't make me feel like I had whiplash, which is a hard thing to do.

What I did NOT like about this book:

This isn't the really, really fantastic thing.

Like too many literary fiction pieces, this piece has lots of flowery prose and not a lot to say. It's a story that's been done before, and it's a story that's been done before with almost this exact structure. Though it's executed fairly well, we aren't treading any particularly new ground here. It's sad, yeah, but it's not poignant, and it's not going to stick around with me once I'm done.

I want to see this stretched. I want to see Alyssa evolve from afraid of her therapist and unwilling to let her sister's stuff go to moving past her grief. We just get flashes in the pan, we don't get the real sticky development that a story like this really needs. A lot of the exposition was done through dialogue which only made this more apparent.

A lit piece like this really needs to be done in a way that is unique and poignant to hit home, and I'm not sure the author can do it with *this particular* story, just because she's retreading the same ground a million other people have. I'd like her to try to either give it some new direction or to talk about something lots of other authors aren't talking about.

Overall:

This book lost a lot of points not because it was a bad piece, but because I *know* the author can do better than this.

Rating: 

6/10. My opinion doesn't fit in a sentence this time, just read the whole thing.