Book: A Chapter Completed  by bachoo101

Judge: Corey 

For: Mystic Awards 2018

"A Chapter Completed" is a short story about life in high school for our main character: Zoe. Although the cover seems a bit cluttered, the story is not. The story explores the very dark realities of depression as it focuses on peering into the mind of Zoe, a depressed teenage girl, as she battles cutting, self-hatred, body image issues, and suicidal thoughts. The writer covers this using beautifully crafted lines that truly captivate the reader like "the bathroom stall was my prison, as well as my home." You can sense the depression in Zoe as the story unfolds: lack of motivation, trouble focusing, withdrawing from any social activity she can, including with her family. 

While the summary gives you insight into the main character's life, the reader could be left not knowing what this story is about. The title also seems a bit vague, especially considering this captivating story deserves a more captivating cover. 

There are a few minor issues grammatically, including paragraphs that are too long, a few uses of "my" instead of "me" or "collage" instead of "college" but it does not distract the reader too much from the story as it delivers well. There are some clichés like "the populars" but it is not overbearing. While there is some insight into the other characters, there is not as much depth. I feel this is not a total letdown, as the primary focus of this story is (and should be) the main character. 

The pace of the story is unusually a bit slow for a short story. However, a few hooks are implemented by the author that keeps the readers attention. Overall, this book is a pretty good read. I think that the writer may benefit the most from working on the title and making some changes to the cover to better represent the story.