Young Writers Society

WAIT I GET IT. The bolded parts are snippets from this poem, yes? In that case, KEEP THE BOLD. That's an awesome idea.

Moving on, I do like how this is going. But is this the ending? If so, then I am disappointed! What happened to Jake? You tell us what happened to his parents, but I don't care about them because they abandoned their son and hardly paid attention to the poor child, while giving him toys and anything else he wanted in the hopes that that would make up for their absence. Ha. I won't miss them. <_<

Let's talk about this man. You say that this is an abandoned house, yet he goes in and pockets a picture of Jake? And then he says that he's paying homage and oh my now we see that he's Jake all grown up! Now that's a big shocker, but it wasn't as good as it should've been. Where's the emotion? The insight? I want to see more of big Jake, how he feels about his past, how he feels being back in his old house and being assaulted by memories. Show us more. Seeing more would make this so much better.

Overall, I found this to be a nicely told story with a surprising ending. I honestly should've guessed that the man was Jake but I didn't because you didn't give it away and that's good. This was nicely told and nicely written, so thank you for sharing and I enjoyed it very much. ^^

Again with those bolded words. They're distracting. Consider altering your tactic. I've never read the story this is based off of, but if that story has bolded words too, I imagine it's just as hard to read. I almost skipped over that fantastic line, "Through the errors of others, Jake's identity has been shaped." That's a killer line! And I almost missed it because there were bolded words shouting at me like car insurance adverts. Perhaps I'll change my mind when I know what your intention is, but for now, I say they are jarring and distracting from this great story you're weaving for me.
Okay, the whole spoiled kid with dead parents thing is a little played out. Make me care about Jake. What makes your character different from every other fictional child ruined by their rich parents' mistakes? Why should I care whether Jake is sifting through his old memories? Again, I need a little more from you. You've got the basic ingredients, now go crazy with some sauces and spices.
A question: why does Jake "dismiss his own desires"? If he was spoiled as a child, wouldn't that make him more sensitive to his desires, rather than less?
Keep up the good work, but I want to see more, in general. I like how the narrator ended up being Jake and you didn't make a huge fuss about it. Very smooth, I like that.