Young Writers Society

Hi trashykawa,

Mailice here with a short review!

A very beautiful story, especially the way you set the tone, with a certain feeling of special representation.

I came across the title and was surprised at the outcome of the story, in a positive sense of course. I really liked how you started with a brief glimpse of the past, making the story feel like a life story. This gave the story a certain uniqueness, which was mainly shown by the fact that you leave a positive effect through the short and well-structured sentences. It is refreshing to read through the story in this way.

But I also found that despite the romance, I missed a little more of that feeling. It felt to me as if everything seemed a bit like a documentary from the audio. That can be inferred mainly from the fact that a lot of what you describe remains in a superficial point and doesn't go deeper. I think it would definitely help if you could add what emotions are going through the characters and include them, because that's something I'm missing.

Adding adjectives can give much more than the simple description we have so far. The text reads really well and I like the story, but in summary I think it would be good to go over everything again and try to go much deeper into some parts where you describe more of this feeling. Because otherwise, as already mentioned, it comes across as a documentary.

Have fun writing!

Mailice

Ahoy hoy,

This is a really sweet story and there's really nothing I want to criticise about it. The message of love is strongly woven throughout the words and the characters feel genuine, but since this is a review I'll offer up just a few general comments;

1. I'm not one of those people who can just read a text and catch sight of every tinsy grammar mistake (but thank god they exist because what would the rest of us do without them) but I did notice the occasional error.

"Sam knew Hindi. And a little bit of Bengali, because Bengali heritage ran strong."

"Sam knew Hindi and a little Bengali because his Bengali heritage ran strong."

"He had an accent; and Amir found it oh-so-endearing."

"He had an accent; Amir found it oh-so-endearing."

"Neither of their parents could make it to the wedding, but Amir believes. And he knows that one day it’ll be alright."

"Neither of their parents could make it to the wedding, but Amir believes and he knows that one day it'll be alright."

Gah!! I'm such a sucker for gay romance and this has HIT THE SPOT. You've perfectly encapsulated feelings in three scene showing staples of the LGBTQ+ community. I love how you've turned the story around in a way, starting with something that's usually reserved for the 'happily ever after' moment.

I love the way you characterize Sam with little phrases. It creates varied sentence length that's oh-so-satisfying to read.

A couple grammatical things: in the last paragraph of the first part, 'as' doesn't need to be capitalized. In the fourth paragraph of the last section, you don't need an apostrophe in 'ones.'

This was a beautiful work, truly. As I said before, I love a good gay romance, and this is phenomenal. Happy Pride month!!

This is really cute! I love lgbt stories and writings, and the Troye Sivan line reminded me of my time in middle school when I was just figuring what kind of person I was. This is a short story, as you intended, so it does all it needs to do without wasting time. I would love to see a version of this story that is a little bit longer, just to explore the inner struggles of the characters (specifically in terms of the Indian heritage) and how the anguish and societal pressures can hold the characters' relationship back. But as a short story, you did a great job. I love the use of school projects and old friendships to create this romance, it's very sweet and genuine. Thank you for this story, and happy pride!

I know this is fiction, but since it seems to be set in contemporary india -- same sex marriage hasn't been legalized yet, but homosexuality has been decriminalized.

Cute story though.