"Nothing to Smile About"

Susan of “Nothing to Smile About” is a normal girl working her way through school. Her life is ordinary in many ways, and her friendship with her roommate Wanda needs repair. The main character changes after her roommate is raped and Susan must not only rescue her but also murder her rapist. I think the writer is trying to show how completely ordinary her life is to add shock to the rape scene in the last part of the story. The story’s rape scene gave me chills. The phone call and what was heard by Susan was terrifying. The writer did a great job of conveying the horror of this scene. I liked the ending- Susan offering Wanda a job as if to leave the reader knowing life has and will continue to change for the main characters. My biggest problem with this story is the buildup. I understand the writer trying to convey an ordinary life, but I was four pages in and had no idea where the story was going. The simply, choppy sentences threw me off and became hard to read. Also, the writer started many, many sentences with “it” and “so,” two words that writers should try not to use so much. She also used “so” in the sentences to convey causation. I did not like this. The diction used was not particularly interesting to read: most of the words were simple and used in everyday language. I would have liked to see more variety in sentence structure and word choice. This is a personal preference, but reading a story in present tense is harder for me to comprehend than the near past. I like the first person point of view; however, if this is the choice of the writer, she should not use words like “thought” and “wonder.” The reader already knows he or she is in your brain.