Characters 12/25
Alex didn’t really win me over. I’m buying his mopey attitude, but painting him as a talented artist felt cheap. His “friend” was shallow and while I’m sure that was the intention, the characterization fell flat. This is in contrast to the verbally abusive father, who felt like he had an actual reason for being included in the narrative without personally wanting to be there. So I’m going with 6/15 for Alex, 6/10 for the side characters.
Plot 18/25
As far as narrating a suicide goes, this was ok. The handling of the “friends” felt like it could have been done better (Andy felt like you put a gun to his head to have him show up and read his lines and the text from Steven made Alex come across as a creepy stalker rather than someone I should feel sympathy for).
Setting 10/15
There’s nothing spectacular about the setting, so I’m giving 10/15 because I’ve decided that’s a decent “it works” mark that still leaves room for settings that blow me away.
Creativity 3/15
It’s not very creative, though to be fair, I think scoring people on that is a bad idea. Anyway, maybe I’ve just experienced too much of what happened in the story first hand or by proxy for me to see it as anything but generic, but 3/15 is all I’m willing to give regarding creativity. It is, in essence, a story about a teen killing themselves and there isn’t much flourish to it.
Style 2/15
I didn’t really enjoy reading it. The descriptions felt like someone was ticking off a list and they were occasionally repetitive. I’m giving two points because I’ve read things that have made me want to claw my eyes out and this didn’t reach that level.
Grammar and Spelling 0/5
If I could give negative points for something, I totally would do it here. Not putting any spaces after punctuation was seriously not ok. On top of that, there’s a couple errors regarding singular and plural as well as verb tenses.
Overall Score 45/100