Fresh Pain

First; damn this short story was well done.  To say that it did not take a bit for me to become invested would be dishonest, though.  After the first two pages or so (which is a healthy amount for a short story) I found myself becoming increasingly curious about the characters of Susie and Mamie.  If nothing else, the author did wonders with character development concerning how little pages there were to progressively display any kind of character habits, traits, and so fourth.

I feel that this story played more with character arch than it did any other elements of literature.  There was obvious foreshadowing, such as Susie's humming, or her Grammy's arthritis, etc., and those elements came into play concerning the story in a very smooth way.  I, at one point, definitely caught myself trying to reason that Mamie was related to Susie.  I thought I had it in the bag! And the BAM, totally wrong.  But what a way to be wrong! The story was so cleverly done and the characters that only had small roles had such impacts and such personalities (the Great-Aunts, anyone?). I also enjoyed the fact that only the female characters had any true power within the story.  The nurses were female, the members of the family that knew everything and ran the shows were female, not to mention the main character. I enjoyed that.

As far as the story's relation to the Young Adult genre/ demographic, I feel that there would be no reason not to show this story to students.  That being said, I do not feel there would be any need to delve into it any more than discussing themes and plot, and so forth.  I feel it can be relate-able to some students. I mean, every family has their secrets but that is not necessarily the point of the story.  Self acceptance, growth, forgiveness.  That is the point of this story and I feel that that is important to students within that age-group.

It's difficult to judge this short story in a way that would properly convey its cleverly-written plot and at the same time justify its contemporary theme. I would highly recommend it be used for certain teachings and in that area I would give it a B. As far as the story itself, I would settle with a B+ to A-.  So, overall, let's give it a sold B+.