--

---

There are truly no words. I had fully intended to write a good long review for you, detailing errors, offering suggestions, criticising every other line.

But no. This story is just perfect. Beyond perfection. It's great. The first line is so abstract and appealing. It's so unusual it's immediately attention grabbing. Have you heard of the Young Writer's Literary Journal? I don't think it's too late for you to submit this. This short story is so full of emotion and fantastic writing I don't see how it can't be accepted. But don't hold me to that.

I absolutely loved this story. I only hope that it isn't based on a true story, even if it happened to a friend of a friend. The only thing I can suggest is tying blue more to the brother she lost. Maybe his favourite colour was blue, the last jacket he wore was blue, his denim jeans were blue, his eyes blue.

Otherwise, I just can't think or see anything wrong with this story. I adored your use of one worded two/three words, like "quietstill" and "idareyou". They really added to the style of writing you stuck to throughout your whole short story. Just wow. I was awed by your character's asides to her dead brother. Of course I was confused by them initially but, it didn't matter. You just wrote this story magnificently and it's fantastic.

Geez, would that truck have killed them if she had let him finish the anecdote? What a thing to live with the rest of her life. I felt so sad throughout this story. You are a very strong writer, and I hope you continue writing. You have real talent. It's hard to write a sad story without over doing it. I think you wrote just enough to leave the reader begging for more.

Thank you for the incredible read.

- Jai

Why hello there.

Just wow. I agree completely with Seemingly. There aren't any words I can say that would make this any better. You have a gift; a beautiful one.

This story left me with mixed feelings. I was both sad and joyful. Sad that it had ever happened and joyful that they were growing past the pain. Your writing makes me want to both smile and cry. I thank you ever so much for this.

Have A Nice Day,
Azrael.

I'm on the verge of tears, because this was so touching. I love the character's voice. I love how real you made it feel. You wrote it in a slightly quircky way, which was very cool and interesting. You managed to take one line 'the taste of blue' and make it into so many things. Even if someone asks you, do not change the 'idareyou' and all of those - it's part of the story and fits perfectly.
Like the others, let me say wow. You did very, very , extremely well!!! If you have anything else you write and need a review for, please PM me!
The emotion you set across with this made it sound as if you've expreienced it. I don't know if that's true or not, but it felt so real... Thank you.
Ofir

Hi there, Kaitlin! I'm Trish, and I'm here to review your story on this wonderful last-Sunday-of-the-month called Review Day! So let's get started, shall we?

Description and Writing Style

First off, I'd just like to say that your description is breathtaking. I felt myself get absolutely sucked into your story and Ashley's thoughts. It was just an amazing story to read and held my attention from beginning to end. Your wording as well is very unique, and that's another thing that just makes it all that more interesting. One of my favourite descriptive phrases is:

You didn’t see that they’re perfect—loud and wild and don’tgiveashit, glittering with energy and smeared with idareyouto.

This is just such an amazing and unique way of describing her friends. I loved it! Awesome job!

Your writing style is also quite interesting with this, how you formatted and phrased things just gave your story a whole new level. I especially love the way you played around with sentence and paragraph lengths to make it more interesting, it really worked! Great job here as well!

Character Development and Dialogue

There's not much I have to say here either, except for good job. I think that you did a very good job bringing your character, Ashley to life throughout the entire piece.

Your dialogue as well is pretty much perfect, though you don't use that much. (Not that you needed more.) Especially the part with her and her friends. I felt like they were all real people, and they each had their own voices, which is what you want to aim for with dialogue.

Nit-Picks

Now, here's where I'm going to go through your story just looking for any grammar mistakes/typos/etc. that I may find. I'll do my best to pick out the ones I think are the most important, but I'm sure I won't get them all; but hopefully, after reading this you'll know what to look for when you go over it more as well!

I sit in Christian’s van and watch. Jim throws snow at me and it slides down my neck and clumps my hair in sticky wet ropes.

This part is a bit confusing. How would she get hit with the snowball if she's in a van?

Then we remember (of course) and he blasts the heat and cranks the music—screamo today; he’s in quite the mood—and he pulls out, and I lean my head against the ice window and watch kids walk home from school, blowing smoke rings with their breath.

This is a bit of a run-on. Maybe try rewording it and separating it into more than one sentence so it doesn't feel so cramped.

There's not much else that I can find, though I'd like to just point out a couple general things to watch out for here before I end this section.

First, I noticed that you're a bit heavy on the capitalization. Now, I know that you're probably doing it for emphasis, but there are some that don't need to be there, and just end up being distracting. Take this for example:

“We’re your best friends, so we love you anyway, but people are beginning to think you’ve gone Over the Edge. And we want to Bring You Back.”

You don't need the capitals on "over the edge" and "bring you back". It just takes away from the overall impact of your story to have distracting things like that, so maybe just go over your story again an make sure that you're moderating your use of these types of capitals. There are other ways to emphasize.

Another thing I noticed was that sometimes your sentences don't really flow together as well as they could. Therefore, I would suggest that you just go over it some more and make sure that your sentences are not too choppy.

Lastly, I'd just like to suggest a book to help you recognize things like run-on sentences, and just basically help improve grammar, etc. The book is called "A Writer's Reference" and it's by Diana Hacker. I would really recommend it to anyone who's serious about making an effort to improve their writing. It goes over pretty much everything you need to know about writing and grammar, and it has become an indispensable tool for me with my writing. So, if that sounds interesting at all, maybe just google it or take a look at it at a bookstore to see if you think it'd help you!

Overall

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. It was incredibly moving, and you have a ton of talent! Great job, and I look forward to reading more of your work! Hopefully I've been a help to you today.

But for now I must bid you goodbye. It's getting quite late and even though it is review day, it's also time for bed! So goodnight, and I hope to see you around YWS sometime!