Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Dear Tressi

Title: Dear Tressi

Author: questint

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 5/5

What a phenomenal summary! I was hooked onto each word, it was perfectly polished, and by the end, I was practically racing to press the 'read' button. To me, that is a sign of a brilliant summary, so I think you've done a great job here. You introduce your protagonist, you keep the backstory purposeful and succinct, you pepper the writing itself with rhetorical questions and imagery that makes it all the more intriguing. I think the final rhetorical question at the end was a fantastic punch, and along with that, we can see the dilemma and stakes that she has to face – all that safety and career she's built, or the depths of hell that is her past.

I don't have any suggestions here. Well done!

Grammar: 4/5

There were only minor, minor errors that I found, and I presume that most of them are actually just little slips that were missed while editing. Here they are:

"Nothing's wrong, mother."

Since 'mother' is used as a proper noun in this example (since it's 'mother' as opposed to 'my mother'), it should be capitalised. It should be:

"Nothing's wrong, Mother."

Next:

Tressie's heart pounded, "Edda? Edda where are you?"

Two things – first of all, I would replace the comma between the action beat and the dialogue with a full-stop. Additionally, I would put a comma between the name 'Edda' and 'where'. It should be:

Tressie's heart pounded. "Edda? Edda, where are you?"

And finally:

"I really do love you, Tress." Des said.

I think you know this, but when dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question, and an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"I really do love you, Tress," Des said. 

Characterisation: 5/5

This section here is spot-on. I think Tress is a pretty darn amazing protagonist – we see strength in the way she wound up where she is, sleeping on a park bench, volunteering to help underprivileged kids. But then we also see a complex side to her – she does get frustrated, she can be stubborn, especially with everything regarding Vil in that chapter with the headshots. We also see her develop throughout the story, becoming more desperate and less caring in a way, forgetting polite manners and being as subtle as a hand grenade when it came to asking Patty about Mrs Waldam.

And it worked so well, because that desperation carried through to the reader as well, and we could feel that darkness threatening to engulf her and the secrets and backstories become more twisted.

And Des, Des, Des. From the start, he is charming, even smooth talking his way out of getting in trouble for buying an expensive television. I didn't realise at the time, but it was clever foreshadowing, seeing how protective and angry he was when he found out about Tressi's intentions, then the way he just caved and acknowledges that she needs to move on and support her. I thought it was sweet at the time, but it was clever showing how dangerous his charisma actually is, and how there may be more intentions lurking behind what we see.

In other words, I was in love with your characterisation. Well done!

Writing Style: 5/5

Your writing is nothing short of stunning and captivating.

I'll keep this section short because, really, I have nothing to critique here. I love the way you describe settings, and the way you use that to build mood – even just describing houses and showing us the moisture in the air, the surfaces looking like they were moments away from breaking out in a dew, and then using those comparisons to show how uncomfortable the mood was. It was brilliant, and you carried that throughout the whole story.

Your writing was engaging, it was captivating, and I loved the way you emphasised the darkness through employing imagery. Well done!

Plot + Originality: 5/5

Even from the very start, in the first chapter, where it was just a plane ride, I was clinging on to every word.

You have brilliant moments of juxtaposition. We see her just sitting there, enjoying her husband and homely onion soup, following by the 'let it go' vision of her sister, with the dark blood pouring down her throat. Those moments were so powerful – it really emphasised the two sides she was torn between, and then at the end, when we see the twist, we realise the irony of how those two paths that seemed so different were actually more intertwined than we thought.

There's a lot of darkness, with suicide and overdoses, gossip and secrets, and each chapter ended with a bit of a punch. And gosh, the end was fantastic – so many twists! First, them thinking Tressie killing Edda because of that letter (which was a phenomenal link to the title), and then the way everything just came together – Mrs Waldam's remaining memory, Lila dying within a year of Edda and the locket, the final thought that it was probably Daxton, and then finally, the final twist that it isn't even him – it was Des all along, who drugged Patty and framed Ricky.

And I also love how cyclical the structure of your story is! It starts and ends with the airport, with calling Edda's resting place a... well, a resting space, and the drip, drip, drip. Very clever! And there was that final slight message about how love had potentially made her blind.

In short, I thought your story was simply brilliant. Well done!

OVERALL SCORE: 24/25

An incredible and gripping story. I really have no suggestions, other than to just quickly brush over slight grammar and punctuation typos. Well done on finishing such a brilliant story!