Review of "Fallen Leaves," short story by Rachel Elizabeth Cole



Summary:
For as long as fifteen-year-old Grace Sather can remember, her great-grandmother has hated her mother. And now Mom wants Gran to move in with them. But before Mom can talk Gran into it, Gran has a bad fall and winds up in the hospital. Now a long buried secret is about to emerge. A secret that could shake the family to its very core.

Review:
This story is good but for some reason left me dissatisfied.  The result was that I had to think about it for a few days before writing this review which is a quality I do appreciate in a short story.  I like having to digest a plot.

While the plot is from the point of view of a fifteen-year-old, it is mostly focused on the mother figure.  Grace is watching her mom react to the grandmother.  The point of view choice was excellent given the plot content.  It was just enough to make the details vague.  Grace is as in the dark as the reader so you want to keep reading to find out what the bad blood was between the mother and grandmother.

The horrible secret is revealed (you'll have to read to find out) and suffice to say you realize that the story is really about the mother coming to terms with a terrible past mistake.  She's trying to make her peace with God.

The story concludes with the implication that she has come to terms with her actions.  And it was this aspect of the story that really left me feeling unsatisfied.  After some mulling I realized it was because there was nothing to indicate why she felt at peace.  The grandmother personified the mom's guilt (hence the bad blood) but was not the source.  Therefore, I wasn't sure why taking the grandmother out of the picture cured the mom's guilty conscious?

It's hard to say.  I don't mind dangling endings but I do have a problem if they leave too many question marks.  Either way, it's a good story with excellent characterization and well worth picking up a copy.  

3.5/5 stars
Reviewed by Alain Gomez 

Buy this story on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of "Ferryman" by Nigel Edwards

Summary: "A mythology grew up around the Ferrymen, fostered by a mystique which they wrapped around themselves. Some thought them amoral servants of a ruling elite, sanctioned to undertake work beyond legitimate resolution; others with more fanciful imaginations – or who were more devout, depending on your point of view – believed them emissaries of Evil, with a capital E." Could the Ferrymen become real in your lifetime? Should they? Read this thoughtful and disturbing near-future science fiction story and decide for yourself. Review: This was a fantastic short story.  "Well-written" doesn't even begin to describe Ferryman ; it's engrossing.  The simple, clean style perfectly highlights our precise  protagonist.  If this future Edwards presents to us does in fact become a reality, the character he describes is exactly the type of person who would become a Ferryman: highly competent with the hint of a god complex. What's  especially clever abou...
Read more

The Short Story Project

I was introduced to the short story genre in high school and simply fell in love.  It's completely different from reading a novel.  A novel is a lengthy involvement.  Character development and plot must transport you into the author's world as the story gradually unfolds. Short stories are distinct experience.  A good short story writer will make you care about the outcome of the characters even though you may not necessarily know anything about them.  It is a complete experience in one sitting; not too unlike reading a poem.  You read the short story/poem for itself and not for the hope that it will drag out for 800 pages and then maybe have a sequel. The short story genre has become a lost art.  When newspapers were at their height, a writer could make a name for himself by publishing a short piece of fiction every week.  Charles Dickens is a perfect example of this.  Since then, the literary world changed.  You have to have an age...
Read more

Interview with Author Hugh Howey

Welcome to Book Brouhaha! Why don't you start out by introducing yourself and telling us a little about "Wool." Thanks for having me, Alain! I suppose I'm just this normal guy who just wrote a little story called Wool. It's about a group of people who live underground. When their society turns on itself, it threatens all of mankind. In a way, it poses the conundrum of every revolution: How do you destroy an unjust social structure without the collateral damage being worse than the injustices were? I suppose the most interesting thing about me, personally, is that I lived on a sailboat while I was in college. This led to a career as a yacht captain, which sent me all over the Caribbean and the East Coast. I didn't start writing in earnest until my wife dragged me away from the sea and into the mountains. I've always loved the short form. I've been told that it isn't as marketable, even though science fiction has a long and glorious history of c...
Read more