Upside-down by Emma Horn
Let’s get to the question right away: is the author of this story a high-school sophomore in Boston? – Really?
“Just last week, in fact, almost a quarter of the world's population was in a bathroom at the same time (or some third world variant of a bathroom), shattering the previous record, and no one knew. Molly Collins, age 20 from Liverpool, England, should have her own record for most times saying the word "effervescent" before reaching legal voting age.”
Do 14-year-olds really talk this way in Boston, let alone write like this? This is a 3282 word story, and it is all as sophisticated as the above. Really? The phrase that bothers me most in the paragraph above, for instance, is ‘reaching legal voting age’. This author hasn’t even reached legal voting age herself, so why is she using this phrase?
The overall content of the entire piece is fluffy – there’s no real depth to the characters, or the situation, which might be a reflection of the mind of a child. But truly, dear reader, look over this story and tell me your opinion – a child of 14 or something fishy going on, maybe a LOT of help from mommy and daddy, or perhaps a teacher. Things that make you go hmmmmm????