6 Traits of Writing

Ideas- The book is filled with great info about child abuse, and the author seems to have done his research. My only two complaints in this area stem from Dan Hole, who seems far too stereotypical and underdeveloped, and the fact that the author has too many similar backstories about child abuse. T.J.'s thoughts are interesting and I can relate to them, however. The main points of my problems with this can be seen on two of the comments that I made.

Organization- He organizes it about as well as he can, considering it's a published book. The chapters he has organized it into are really non-notable, and the only way you realize they are there are the bold numbers at the beginning of each section. The paragraphs are each relating to a slightly different subject, and overall it's very well organized.

Voice- Crutcher's voice booms from within T.J. His opinions on child abuse, school athletics, arrogance, hunting, and everything inbetween come out in T.J.'s thoughts. He has wonderful descriptions of each character, and, though similar, the backgrounds of child abuse are interesting in their own ways.

Word Choice- It was avergae, other than Dan Hole there wasn't anything shocking or amazing in terms of word choice. The theme of whales talking had some interesting figurative language in relating it to the overall theme, but the novel in and of itself wasn't really anything incredible as far as language.

Sentence Fluency- Again, it's what you would expect from a published book. Crutcher has flowing sentences that don't feel choppy and you don't notice anything odd as you read from sentence to sentence.

Conventions- The editor got everything, if there was anything. He's a published author and he's done everything correctly. Crutcher has done everything perfectly, and if anything was off, it was really unnoticable to most of the people who will be reading his books.

Presentation- It's a published work, and the cover really does show mostly what it's about- kind of a blurred over letter jacket with someone running in it. The person running clearly isn't supposed to be the main character, you can tell by the color of the skin. The summary on the back is nice and gets the reader interested.