Olivia Reese

This should actually get 1.5 stars. I did't hate it, but the story fell short in a whole lot of ways.

I took 3 pages of notes while reading this, which illustrates (to me at least), that there was promise in the premisse, the problem lays in the excecution of the writing.
Furthermore, I'm guessing the writer is not a native English speaker, there were a lot of odd turns of phrase. And I believe the writer to be very young and inexperienced. If this is the case and the author reads this review, I would say: keep practising, do your research better and you might become a better writer.

*****THE REST OF MY REVIEW CONTAINS LOTS OF DETAILS AND SPOILERS!!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK*****

Now to my issues with the story:
Chapter one reads like a police report (and this is not meant as a compliment). All the facts are there, just listed and without a soul behind them. Also the 'When Rose found out Ellie was living in NY...' -> They're sisters, Rose (in her 20s at this point) still lives with their parents, Ellie was their caretaker before she moved to the city. In what universe would Rose not know about her sister's move to the city if they saw eachother on almost daily basis?
Chapter 2: Rose ended up in a mental hospital in the Bronx, yet her 'good' sister only visits her once a year (on her birthday, which happens to be at christmas-time)? Now, I understand the strained relationship between sisters (being a woman and having a sister), but come on! Also, the parents death seemed very contrived. The mother was ill with cancer, and suddenly the father dies because of the same disease? Oh yes,so Ellie sees her sister once a year, and Rose happens to have a good day (mentally), so Ellie decides 'I'll talk to her doctor to take her home with me'? How very naive.
Ch 3: Rose has dissapeared by now, and they need a sketch artist for her portrait? I know my sister has a recent photograph of me, even though I hate being in pictures... Ellie remarks 'I should have visited her more.' Uhm, YES, you silly girl How did she ever become a detective?
Also, they didn't immediately notify the mental hospital of Rose's dissappearance. At this point, they still think she wandered off and got lost. So logically, she'd try to get home. Which would be the hospital
I'll skip several of my notes here, because basically it's more of the same type of comments.
My next big issue with the storyline/behaviour of the protagonist was this: They know Rose wandered off after a clown. Ellie gets the nurse to the sketch artist for a portrait of the clown, een though the nurse knows which agency sent him to the hospital. And they don't phone that agency immediately to find out his name. No, they get a sketch made up to identify him that way. (SPOILER: When they finally do call the agency (after the second call from the kidnapper!!), they get his name (and it's not a pseudonym)).
Next issue: the kidnapper calls Ellie and has a hoarse voice. From this, the police assume he's got lung cancer. What the BLEEP? There are lots of things that can cause a hoarse voice. Also, they want to use this 'lung cancer' clue as a way to identify their target, by looking who walked into the ER in the last 2 days with lung cancer... ??????
Last issue (I promise): from the 'official' profile: 'A guy that ended becoming a psycopath with severe lack of control issues'. People don't just become psychopaths, they are usually born that way (and learn to hide it). Besides, they rarely lose control and operate under their own strict moral code. They're usually control freaks. And even after this analysis, Ellie goes after him on her own? Sigh.

Even after this long review of a short story, I have to repeat: I didn't hate it. I believe it has it's uses, and every aspiring writer/beginning writer should read it as an excerise.
It's always easier to identify certain pitfalls in other people's work (like sentence contruction, use of description etc.), and hopefully seeing how this affected this story as badly as it did, help new writers identify these problems in their own work and fix them.… (plus d'informations)