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illusory: a collection

illusory: a collection

ByMolly Herren

As a compilation piece, these works all showcase the author’s abilities to write in different genres, create different settings, and write complex characters. The first short story, "The Drain,” details an irrational fear of the shower drain. The piece follows 7th grader Ava, who hadn’t taken a real shower in 4 years. The short story demonstrates a build of suspension in a fast-paced journal format. “The Drain” delves into a world of fear and mistrust. The entire piece is enhanced by an anxious and obsessive narrator, who shares her experiences with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The second short story analyzed the detective genre. The story entitled “The Falsely Accused” follows 16-year-old Sage’s amateur detective work as tragedy stuck in her small town. Woodvale was a quaint, uneventful town. 5 children’s disappearances fill the area with unease.. The story is told from the point of a narrator, who is writing a letter to an anonymous recipient. The decision to write the story as a letter also explored the attributes associated with having an unreliable narrator. The third short story, called “Margaret’s War,” deals with sexism and inequality in an old fictional land entitled Tzergua. In this fictional world, the old roles of men and women are reversed. The kingdom comes to a halt when they realize that the inheritor of the throne is not an heiress, but a male heir, which tests the time’s reverse sexism. The story quickly details the ruling of four different monarchs in Tzergua. The fourth story, “Unpromising Future” is a science fiction story about a year in which humans have entirely ruined the world. Oxygen tanks are required to breathe, vegetation doesn’t grow, and gray covers the world. A young girl named Rosalie dreams big of a world covered in grass and flowers. The open-ended conclusion lets readers decide Rosalie’s fate. “Marjorie’s Curse” is a story about Augustine, a young woman, who uncovers great secrets about her enigma of a grandmother. Her dresses, journals, and many other secrets leave Augustine trying to keep her grandmother’s legacy alive. During this, she is questioning why Marjorie left the will to her. “The Ice Cream Truck” is the sixth short story. The last story leaves readers anxious and on edge. The story deals with the mysterious abduction of the narrator’s younger sister. It goes into detail about the narrator's thoughts, actions, and regrets regarding the incident that haunts her family for the next 20 years.

Details

Publication Date
May 18, 2022
Language
English
Category
Young Adult
Copyright
All Rights Reserved - Standard Copyright License
Contributors
By (author): Molly Herren

Specifications

Format
PDF

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