This story is about a boy named Jeremy who is new to high school and who has made friends with an older girl named Ashlyn. Jeremy has a crush on Ashlyn, and she drives him home from school every day. One day, she complains about the state of the dirt road that Jeremy lives on and jokes that if the potholes don't get fixed then she will stop driving him home. Jeremy starts to fix the holes immediately, but he gets his dad's truck stuck and his dad has to get the tractor to get it out. Jeremy thought his dad would be angry, but he was understanding and reasonable.
This story does a good job of setting up the scenes for us and of showing us Jeremy's thought process. The thought process seemed very believable to me because it showed all of Jeremy's uncertainties and self-consciousness. It showed how quickly something like getting the truck stuck can cause a teenager's mood to swing, and how encouragement from a father can swing it back the other way. It showed the logic behind the unreasonable things we will do for love, and I found it realistic. I also thought that the characters were presented well and that they were all interesting, different, and active.
Improvements I would suggest are as follows. The main conflict is that Ashlyn wants Jeremy to fix the road. But, it's already March, and if she's been driving him home all year, then she wouldn't have taken so long to notice the road's conditions. Also, in the interaction between Ashlyn and Jeremy, there were some reactions that seemed unreal to me. The wincing and the smiling with pain seemed out of place. Also, we don't get the narrator's name until page 6 unless I am mistaken. I'd say we need it sooner. Finally, the end of the story seemed to shift the focus from the Ashlyn-Jeremy relationship to the relationship between Jeremy and his dad. I understand that his dad is necessary to help him get the truck out, but I think their conversation should point us back to what has been the main theme of the story and not introduce a new one.
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