Shady back with another review towards the first step of saving this chapter from the Green Room. I really enjoyed your chapter 4 so I'm looking forward to seeing where you take the story in this chapter! You're already familiar with my reviewing style at this point, so let's get started...
His voice when he had called her name had sounded so empty to him... that he would somehow meet that peaceful destiny.
So the paragraph that starts and ends like this is WAYYYY too long. The point of paragraphing is to break up thoughts into digestible chunks that are easily read and understood. Personally I envision it as the line breaks between paragraphs as giving the reader's mind a break. When a paragraph keeps going on and on and on I feel compelled to keep reading the paragraph without a break, and at the end of this paragraph my brain just felt exhausted from reading so long without a break. I'd recommend you break that up into at least 6-7 smaller paragraphs.
However, that being said, the imagery that you used there is absolutely breath-taking! I loved the little tangent you went on with his emotions and such. It was almost poet with the depth of emotion and glimpse into his world that you gave us in that monster paragraph and I loved it. Do watch out to make sure that your sentences don't get excessively long or convoluted but it was really enjoyable to experience the beauty of the word-portrait that you painted there with your expressions.
maybe the children’s psyches were not so important on the list of priorities after all,
I would argue that they're not actually looking out for the children's psyches afterall. I mean sure the bunk bed thing -- sure, I guess you might have an okay theory there. But honestly is sleeping in bunk beds more traumatizing than getting separated from your brother right after your parents died? Not really...
“Do you think the Fullers will like me?” Jesús asked out of the pervasive silence which had ruled supreme. Irene was startled that he even spoke, what’s more he spoke a full sentence beyond the word “okay”.
Well, I mean, he had asked her where Jim was earlier, which was a full question... it seems odd for her to be so startled by it now since it's not the first question that he's asked her today.
“I can see it in your face. You don’t have to be afraid. Even you were the one who said the Fullers would accept me and love me. I would never expect them to lay down their lives for me. Why are you afraid of me? Well, the simple answer is that I speak truth and you cannot deny it, for if you tried to do so you would feel as if you were betraying yourself.”
She bit her lip and tried to stifle back a burst of tears. She was a fraction of a millimeter away from bawling her eyes out, on the freeway, no less.
Okay, so, this exchange felt a bit unrealistic. The one that comes later with Jesus's questions seems more like something a child his age would. But in this exchange and especially in this bit that I quoted -- he seems like a little psychopath, being so meted with his flowery words. It just seems out of character for a ten year old to have such a pattern of speaking. I mean I was a pretty strange, reflective little kid -- and I never came close to talking in such grandiose language as this haha.
I also really don't understand why most of your cops are so emotionally unstable?
“Everything all right?”
I swear that guy has a crush on me, she thought.
So I get that he does have a crush on her. But what in the world about him asking if she was alright -- immediately after she was acting strangely on the phone -- makes her think that he's got a crush on her? Like if he'd added in a pet name or complimented her or something like that this thought would make sense. But as it is it kind of feels out of place and a bit random.
Meanwhile Irene and the doctor sat quietly, staring off into space.
This also struck me as odd. 1) Why in the world do they keep doing the foster exchanges from the police precinct? Usually that happens more on the children's services turf. The middle of the night thing was weird but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. But now he's coming during the day to do his business at the police precinct? It just feels odd.
2) Do neither of them have anything else to do but sit around idly for an entire hour waiting for the family to come? From my experience with both police officers and social workers, they are constantly slammed with a ton of work. The social workers my family interacts with are constantly like oh no, I double booked myself, can I please squeeze you in during this tiny little window that I think I'll have the day after tomorrow? And here he is just sitting doing nothing for an hour?
It seems like at least one of them should be doing actual work -- and in modern society with modern technology I would think that he at least would be trying to get some work done (and honestly if we were really striving for realism then he definitely would have called the prospective family before he left his office, in order to reduce this lag where he'd have to wait).
Irene was horrified by what Joseph Springfield had just done. She saw a different side of him just then, something completely different than the caring person he portrayed himself to be.
What other side of him? That's how he's been acting the entire story...
And I know I keep screaming about how unrealistic the foster system in your story is... but I'm going to say it one more time This whole huge rush to get the siblings placed is just... difficult to buy into. Surely there's another children's home they can be placed in. Or placed in protective custody until a family can be found. Or /something/ other than rushing to get them off their hands as fast as possible.
Typically, a foster family has to go through the long process of a home study that I'm pretty sure that I ranted about in my last review -- and then they get introduced to the children. And then eventually the children start making few-hour-long visits to the home with the family. And then they'll move it up an overnight visit. And THEN after a lot of trust has been built with the child and familiarity, THEN they will transfer the kid.
They don't just get in a huge rush to pass off the kids to the first options that pop up. They put a lot of work into ensuring a good placement for both the kid and the foster family and so far I don't think this foster family has so much spoken to Jesus, have they? It's just a really odd set up that you have here.
Jesús and Raffie were now stuck with whomever they were with,
I mean, this isn't really correct, either. A social worker can't finalize an adoption. That requires a court hearing and an actual judge signing off on those papers -- and 100% definitely does not happen literally over night. And a foster arrangement can be ended at any time by either party -- so Springfield absolutely could be like "jk, I found a home that'll take both brothers, they're going there now" and remove the custody of both foster families just like that. So it's really not a forever thing at all.
~ ~ ~
Okay! Despite all of my complaining I did really like this chapter haha. I liked getting a bit of a better look into Jesus's character, rather than him just being a supporting character for Raffie, like he was at first.
I like to see how reflective and intuitive he is. I really like his character so far and I'm hoping that you get to expand on that in later chapters to really explore his personality and see how he responds to different stimuli.
I don't really understand the explosion that Irene had on Springfield after this foster care arrangement. I mean this family already seems a ton better than the one that Raffie was placed with -- why didn't she explode last night? His behavior seemed very in character for him so I'm really not quite sure what about that surprised Irene. And I, still, don't understand why she is so explosively emotional.
This was a good chapter, though! As I've mentioned before, your chapters are really long. You'd probably have a better chance at getting more reviews for this if you split it up so that it was less intimidating to tackle as a reviewer. But your story is coming along quite nicely and I'm glad to see that you're doing such a good job of character development.
Hope this helps! Keep writing!
~Shady
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Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. — Ann Landers
Hey Amadeus,
Shady back with another review towards the first step of saving this chapter from the Green Room. I really enjoyed your chapter 4 so I'm looking forward to seeing where you take the story in this chapter! You're already familiar with my reviewing style at this point, so let's get started...
So the paragraph that starts and ends like this is WAYYYY too long. The point of paragraphing is to break up thoughts into digestible chunks that are easily read and understood. Personally I envision it as the line breaks between paragraphs as giving the reader's mind a break. When a paragraph keeps going on and on and on I feel compelled to keep reading the paragraph without a break, and at the end of this paragraph my brain just felt exhausted from reading so long without a break. I'd recommend you break that up into at least 6-7 smaller paragraphs.
However, that being said, the imagery that you used there is absolutely breath-taking! I loved the little tangent you went on with his emotions and such. It was almost poet with the depth of emotion and glimpse into his world that you gave us in that monster paragraph and I loved it. Do watch out to make sure that your sentences don't get excessively long or convoluted but it was really enjoyable to experience the beauty of the word-portrait that you painted there with your expressions.
I would argue that they're not actually looking out for the children's psyches afterall. I mean sure the bunk bed thing -- sure, I guess you might have an okay theory there. But honestly is sleeping in bunk beds more traumatizing than getting separated from your brother right after your parents died? Not really...
Well, I mean, he had asked her where Jim was earlier, which was a full question... it seems odd for her to be so startled by it now since it's not the first question that he's asked her today.
Okay, so, this exchange felt a bit unrealistic. The one that comes later with Jesus's questions seems more like something a child his age would. But in this exchange and especially in this bit that I quoted -- he seems like a little psychopath, being so meted with his flowery words. It just seems out of character for a ten year old to have such a pattern of speaking. I mean I was a pretty strange, reflective little kid -- and I never came close to talking in such grandiose language as this haha.
I also really don't understand why most of your cops are so emotionally unstable?
So I get that he does have a crush on her. But what in the world about him asking if she was alright -- immediately after she was acting strangely on the phone -- makes her think that he's got a crush on her? Like if he'd added in a pet name or complimented her or something like that this thought would make sense. But as it is it kind of feels out of place and a bit random.
This also struck me as odd. 1) Why in the world do they keep doing the foster exchanges from the police precinct? Usually that happens more on the children's services turf. The middle of the night thing was weird but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. But now he's coming during the day to do his business at the police precinct? It just feels odd.
2) Do neither of them have anything else to do but sit around idly for an entire hour waiting for the family to come? From my experience with both police officers and social workers, they are constantly slammed with a ton of work. The social workers my family interacts with are constantly like oh no, I double booked myself, can I please squeeze you in during this tiny little window that I think I'll have the day after tomorrow? And here he is just sitting doing nothing for an hour?
It seems like at least one of them should be doing actual work -- and in modern society with modern technology I would think that he at least would be trying to get some work done (and honestly if we were really striving for realism then he definitely would have called the prospective family before he left his office, in order to reduce this lag where he'd have to wait).
What other side of him? That's how he's been acting the entire story...
And I know I keep screaming about how unrealistic the foster system in your story is... but I'm going to say it one more time
Typically, a foster family has to go through the long process of a home study that I'm pretty sure that I ranted about in my last review -- and then they get introduced to the children. And then eventually the children start making few-hour-long visits to the home with the family. And then they'll move it up an overnight visit. And THEN after a lot of trust has been built with the child and familiarity, THEN they will transfer the kid.
They don't just get in a huge rush to pass off the kids to the first options that pop up. They put a lot of work into ensuring a good placement for both the kid and the foster family and so far I don't think this foster family has so much spoken to Jesus, have they? It's just a really odd set up that you have here.
I mean, this isn't really correct, either. A social worker can't finalize an adoption. That requires a court hearing and an actual judge signing off on those papers -- and 100% definitely does not happen literally over night. And a foster arrangement can be ended at any time by either party -- so Springfield absolutely could be like "jk, I found a home that'll take both brothers, they're going there now" and remove the custody of both foster families just like that. So it's really not a forever thing at all.
~ ~ ~
Okay! Despite all of my complaining I did really like this chapter haha. I liked getting a bit of a better look into Jesus's character, rather than him just being a supporting character for Raffie, like he was at first.
I like to see how reflective and intuitive he is. I really like his character so far and I'm hoping that you get to expand on that in later chapters to really explore his personality and see how he responds to different stimuli.
I don't really understand the explosion that Irene had on Springfield after this foster care arrangement. I mean this family already seems a ton better than the one that Raffie was placed with -- why didn't she explode last night? His behavior seemed very in character for him so I'm really not quite sure what about that surprised Irene. And I, still, don't understand why she is so explosively emotional.
This was a good chapter, though! As I've mentioned before, your chapters are really long. You'd probably have a better chance at getting more reviews for this if you split it up so that it was less intimidating to tackle as a reviewer. But your story is coming along quite nicely and I'm glad to see that you're doing such a good job of character development.
Hope this helps! Keep writing!
~Shady