Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Cornelia De Lange Syndrome

Laura reflects on living with a brother who has Cornelia De Lange Syndrome and then launches into a personal story of an encounter of someone mistreating her brother for his special needs. Though the story seems to have personal impact on the author, it isn't specifically addressed in the memoir.

I really liked the pieces of description in this piece. You ability to weave words and phrases into delights on the tongue made it hard to not want more when I was done reading. I couldn't tell if you were using a thesaurus or if that was your natural vocabulary but - either way - good for you. You painted these really specific images that you can't forget as you shy away from the cliches and stick with the hard details of the setting. "her three fingers covered in white, greasy lotion that smelled like Clementines and a doctor’s office" is clearly describing sunscreen lotion by use of the senses, which I think made your scenes really believable.

I did struggle with it being too descriptive at points. Sometimes I would get lost in a sentence with so many dependent clauses that I had to read it a few times to draw out the meaning. I think that some of the description can be condensed in some places. The ending was quite abrupt. I know that the beginning of the piece is talking about your experiences with your brother but the ending doesn't seem to provide any sort of closure for the reader at all. There's no reflection on the event, there's no lesson learned, there's not even a sappy "this is what i learned today mom" tearful speech.

Besides the weak ending, I think everything else was done quite well and you definitely have an interesting piece on your hands.

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