"Perfect" by Laurel Kostakis

Laurel Kostakis' "Perfect" is the story of a young woman who changed herself upon entering college, and not for the better as she would assume. Her personality in high school, the reader is led to believe, was meek, school focused, practical, and friendly; she changes herself to be what she believes is beautiful and enticing. The  overarching conflict of the story is that she cannot make connections with anyone anymore. Carly, her "best friend," wants nothing to do with her, and neither do any of the boys she flirts with.

The third person limited perspective of this piece works well. I'd say that it was better than using third person omniscient or even first person. The details the readers are privy to with this point of view keep the story going around this character who is so essentially unlikable. The unnamed narrator's character - shallow, oblivious, and  all together unpleasant - also gives the story an interesting dimension. It's easy to write a main character that the reader can relate to and like, but a more interesting perspective to see the reactions of those likable characters to a less personable character from the outside.

I think a good enhancement to the story would be to give us more background on the narrator's past - her mother and sister, her relationship with them and her father, for example. I would also like to know more about Darcy and how the two of them became friends. Another thing I would like to see explained/reworked is the narrator's lack of emotional depth. She hasn't always been shallow and vapid, so how can she just disregard her family and old friends without feeling any kind of remorse? Her character is too one dimensional to hold the reader's attention. To counter this without changing the narrator, I think more detail could go into the interactions between the narrator and those surrounding her, especially focusing on the reactions of the other characters to her.

With the formatting, I don't really know how I feel about the italics. In many instances where they were used, I was pulled out of the story. Italics are usually (in my experience) used in a first person thought bubble, and having them be third person like the rest of the story made me regard the story as a text instead of a story in and of itself.