Loving Skye Slaughter - Comments

This reads almost like one of those TV dramas where all the characters are sitting down and getting interviewed, interspersed with little flashes of narrative. Like, almost documentary-style but not quite. It's a very unique style, and probably really hard to pull off without boring your readers (you didn't bore me by any means, in case my wording was bad).

It's a really good way of foreshadowing, too, with the whole If I would have never introduced her to Mae, I could maybe, just maybe, have my cousin come back. and little hints like that.

What I really like is the characterization. You give Abigail and Mae very different tones and voices, which is a really good thing to do when you have multiple first-person POVs. It seems like--at least from the end of the second chapter--everyone's just kind of shuffling the blame around, and I'm kind of wondering what happened to Skye. Did she overdose? Is she still alive? It'll be interesting to see new POVs added to this in the future, and to see how you characterize them, and the voices that you give them. If you stick to Abby and Mae, that's cool, too. But you've got a neat thing going and it seems like you're really passionate about the story, so keep it up!

The writing isn't bad, not by any means. I personally love stories that start off recalling memories and the like, despite how cliche it is. But cliche doesn't mean bad.

In the first two paragraphs, though, there's something that's hideous and something that's horrendous. It's a little weird to me, and makes the character seem angsty, and the story gets kind of repetitive if this is kept up.

This isn't a bad piece, though! I love how you stuck to the characterization through and through. They seemed like real second graders.

The long summary was perfect. I love that even after I read it, I wasn't sure of what exactly this story was about, but I was interested enough to keep reading. Even though it was short, there was enough info to catch my attention but not enough to give away the story.

Just reading the story and seeing the daisies in the layout, I got kind of an ominous feeling. The sunny layout and the darker words of the summary (All we wanted was for Skye to come back.) was a little disconcerting, but that's what made it interesting.

Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, with such curly hair it reminded me of clouds. - I thought that description was really cute and fitting for someone as young as Abigail.

I watched as she dug around her backpack and pulled out two Barbie dolls. One was the traditional blonde doll but the other was a darker doll who sort of did resemble Skye. She passed me the blonde doll. - I thought this was a really clever way to describe the characters without having to actually describe them. And I thought it did a great job of subtly mentioning the differences between the two of them (and the fact that the children - and probably their parents, at least Skye's - were aware that they were different). I can just imagine Skye's mother going out of her way to make sure her daughter had a doll that looked like her. I also thought it was interesting that Abigail thought of the blonde doll as 'traditional' - I thought it might be a reflection of how maybe she viewed herself as 'traditional' and Skye as 'other.'

Overall, I think this is a great start to the story. I think starting with the beginning of Skye and Abigail's relationship was a good story and I think pointing out the things that made Skye different as a child was a nice touch. Seeing how those things would affect her as she grew up will definitely be interesting.