Reviewed by Larry

Lara Purvis paints an endearing portrait of a young girls heart. Silky strokes soften the reader, allowing us to commiserate with her character, become hopeful for her, even in knowing the inevitability of it and refusing to acknowledge it.

Though the story is very predictable (I hear some people never tire of stories of first loves), the flow is sure and the transitions smooth. Her dialogue is natural and easy. Purvis attempts to show the reader another side of Alise, the main character, but is failed by an ambiguous relationship with her school mates. This questionable aspect of an otherwise well written story detracts far more than it adds, and was definitely the wrong first paragraph.

But there is one passage that makes this story a must - the passage about Alise and her young love picking strawberries. It is, at once, a lyrical and remarkable metaphor. For to pick berries that ripen and die in such a young and short season, to eat them as you pick them, to ignore the burning rays of the sun, to be happy in the disregard of the inevitable, truly is to love as in youth.