Once upon a time, every girl stepped into a strange land called Puberty. It's a place where your voice might stay the same, but your life definitely doesn’t. Boys turn into men, girls into women—but for girls, there's a surprise visitor every month. And no, it’s not a guest you’d want to meet.
It starts quietly. One day, you’re eating a sandwich…then a packet of chips…then a family-size chocolate bar…then somehow you're looking at an empty fridge wondering what just happened. Your stomach seems to have turned into a black hole.
Then comes the Mood Monster. You get angry because the spoon made a noise. You yell at your partner for breathing too loudly. Even the baby’s smile feels suspicious. It’s not their fault. It’s the hormones. But try explaining that while you're angrily vacuuming the floor at 2 AM.
And just when you're done being mad… tears. You cry because your sock went missing. You cry because you saw a puppy. You cry because someone said “good morning.” No one knows why, not even you. You just cry.
Then the real drama begins. Aunt Flo (yes, that's what some call it) loves to make grand entrances. Not when you’re at home doing nothing—no, she shows up when you’re in a white dress, at a party, or just stepped out with no backup pad. Classic.
And the pain? Oh, it’s a full package—cramps in the stomach, legs that feel like they ran a marathon, and a headache that says “I live here now.” Some women get used to it. Some never do. But all of them have a silent sisterhood of pain, chocolate, and hot water bags.
Then—just like that—it’s gone. The Freedom For the next 15 days, you feel free. You smile. You wear light-colored clothes. You make plans. You enjoy life… until you hear distant thunder. You know it’s coming back. The cycle never ends.
Puberty hits everyone, but for women, it brings a monthly guest who never calls ahead—and always overstays her welcome.
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125,022 Literary Works • 672,748 Reviews
Hey there! Plume here, with a review! I see your work has been in the Green Room for a bit, so I figured I'd give it a review to bump it out!
This was quite a fun way of exploring growing up and the sad reality of periods. You made great use of humor as a rhetorical device in poking fun at the experience. The use of second person, too, was quite effective; this very much seems like a piece designed for commiseration and relatability in its ironic tone and satirical tendencies.
A couple things, though: firstly, I noticed that you tend to use a lot of lists of threes. While this can be an effective strategy and creates nice flowing sentences, when you use it in practically every paragraph, it starts to get real old real fast. I wonder if there are perhaps other ways you could illustrate your points instead of through those lists, or at least not through as many lists. It just gets repetitive quite quickly, when your prose could be much more varied.
Another thing is that the humor in this piece felt quite... generic. While I get that humor is obviously subjective, I feel like you tended to recycle a lot of the common tropes about menstruation into something that was mildly entertaining, but didn't really add anything to the conversation, you know? I would argue that most jokes are the funniest the first times you hear them, and I feel like this just feels like a compilation of jokes people have made about periods before. I think something that could help with this would maybe be inserting personal experience; I find the funniest jokes I've seen about periods are absurd things I didn't think anyone else could relate to, and even if I personally couldn't relate to it, it was so absurd that I just had to laugh anyways. So, while in some ways the second person helps this to function better as a satire, I think that including more personal, original anecdotes (likely in the first person) could really elevate the humor to something more unique!
Overall: nice work! I think that you've got a really good starting point for a fun little routine about periods, and with some more fine-tuning, you could have something really great! I hope to read more of your work soon; until next time!
Thank you so much for the review plume
Hi! I totally agree with what TheTaostedWriter said, for being a 'mature' piece, I love how you used humor to talk about the topics in such a carefree and easy to read way. I think that writing like this is great for education and for younger readers because it is relatable and easy to follow along with, because it makes real life situations into a story with a plot.
I enjoyed how you made up characters to follow along with - the Mood Monster,The Freedom, Aunt Flo, etc.
I loved this part, the line about hearing that distant thunder approaching was so good. You really captured that feeling of the calm before the storm, that temporary freedom.
Also, nice job going back to the beginning and summarizing in the end here. I feel like this piece could have been way longer and you could have expanded on each piece a lot more, but for being short, it is very strong and well written. I did not come across any grammatical errors or sentences that did not make sense. Overall, this seems like a great educational piece coming from a place of experience and pain! Great work and I hope to see more! Keep on writing!
Your friend,
Ellie
Thank you so much for making ur time to write review...I just wanted to keep it short with highlights.
For this being a mature piece on puberty, I loved reading this. I would most definitely use this to explain to the younger girls before they join the club :')
Thank you..I would be honored