Reviewed by Claire
Lightning From The Dark
Reviewed by Claire
Lightning From The Dark, by Yvonne W. Augustin, is the story of a twelve-year-old boy's rise from a bad neighbourhood. It is told mostly in flashback from the point of view of nineteen year old Jake, and tells the story how, at age twelve, he was steered down a different path that led him to a more worthy life, self-respect, and love and respect for those around him.
I thought this was going to be a positive story (indeed it bordered on cliched scmaltzyness at times), and I must say I was disappointed with the ending, which seemed to show all his success as being futile. But I guess life is like that, and we have no ultimate control over our destiny. Depressing, huh?
On a technical note, I was a little confused by the chaptered structure of what I thought was a short story. The story employed almost all dialogue, which is a bit of a no-no, as one of the important factors that makes a short story enjoyable and intriguing is 'show, don't tell'. Unfortunately this story told and then told some more. Any author must ask themselves what the story (the message) is they want to tell, and in this author's case I would also ask how much she knew about the subject matter she was tackling, because some of the dialogue sounded a bit too forced and cliched.
At one point the viewpoint switched from 1st to 3rd, which confused me, as did some clumsy structuring of sentences.
This was a potentially interesting story with an ironic twist that would benefit from the author having another look at it, and maybe changing the style of the story-telling. Sometimes stories don't work well in particular viewpoints and maybe this is an example of a story that would be much more effective in 3rd person, with more descriptive passages and insights into different characters' feelings..and a lot less dialogue. Maybe reading more widely to familiarise herself with the short story genre would also be helpful.
Reviewed by © Claire
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