BookRix

are really heartwarming. one feels how much you miss her.
best,
anne

A story where the characters brim with personality. You have done a nice job with the dialog, presented emotions well, and I love your style of prose. A very heart felt memory. Good job. Robynn

Welcome, Stephanie.

I agree with Val, and I also agree with Paige.

Your memoir has depth, almost akin to Jeannette Walls' classic, "The Glass Castle". You do the 1st person narrative exceedingly well, using clear and painterly phrases over and over, eg., pg. 12. "The wind sings as it flies past the windows." Very nice. Sings is a spectacular verb to have used in this sentence, taking the sentence past the ordinary.

Now:) As far as editing, consider this.
Small, avoidable redundancies, eg., pg. 8. "We are going school shopping. Every year before school starts..." Instead of this, consider, "Every year before the new term begins..." School is gone, now. At times reuse of a word in another sentence is unavoidable...at times desirable for impact...but in most cases it detracts from the otherwise excellence of the story.
Do check your punctuation at dialogues. Commas (or other marks) at the conclusion, followed by ending quotes. Make certain in those ending, or broken dialogues, that your punctuation is correct.
Tense agreement. Pg. 16, "'I know he is," she whispered in a low voice as she pulls away." This one is fairly obvious to someone of your talent.
And that is the upshot, in my view. You are an accomplished writer, and you've given us a wonderful story. BEST of luck in the contest.

I enjoyed your story and agreed, it is very good. I am in agreement with Paige to have a little editing done. That is the hardest thing for me, but I just read somewhere that when you are finished with you story you edit then edit, and edit again. Serena

What a splendid job you have done in recreating the memories of your mother. Recollections of days gone by with our parents are not always told as well as these. You brought your mother to life - and the pictures you painted of yourself as a young teenage girl were quite brilliant. We could feel the special bond between the two of you which seemed to grow as you became older.

I am always thrilled and excited to read new authors' work here, and you have done a wonderful job with your first book.

Loved it all with hardly any critique to offer except one small one. Please go back through your story and fix all the end quotes you left off your dialogue. There are many places where you started with quotation marks but failed to end them. However, that is a small boo-boo and can easily be fixed.

Again, welcome to Bookrix and thanks for giving us such a wonderful first read. Valerie