Duffy's Jacket (Book Review)

Duffy’s Jacket is a short story about a camping trip.  The main character; Elise, is with her sister Marie and her cousin Duffy.  Both parents are sisters and they do things closely, but they’re convinced that ‘nan-stuff’ will help.  So they get a ‘cabin’ that actually is a old two storey house in bad condition.  Now the story escalates because of her cousin’s (Duffy’s) extreme clumsiness and general stupidity, for he has to be reminded about everything.  They all go out  on a walk and stop to eat and head back, so with Duffy's clumsiness he forgets his jacket with everyone realising when they are near getting back!  They didn’t go back to collect the jacket and continue back to the cabin.  Later on the adults go into the town near night, leaving the children at home.  While the adults were away the children saw something outside in the darkness of the night, next they heard something scratching on the door.  Scared, they snuck outside to hide or flee, they found a shed that was unfortunately is locked!  Desperate they retreated back to the house and go up to the second storey in hope of safety, then to hide in a room.  Suddenly, they hear scratching and knocking on the door to have it suddenly open revealing the sentinel beast, then it speaks ‘Your coat stupid’, then it drops the coat and disappears…

The tone for this story is weird, with it being quite bland in emotion and descriptions It’s conflict is a Man vs Supernatural considering there’s only one conflict near the end of the story.  The conflict is questionable with it being a 50 50 conflict, as nothing bad happens.  But then it is a conflict because of the reaction of them running to hide,  as evident by the end of page two and the whole of page 3.  The view is from a third person limited, as I suspect with the story being fiction as it refers to a ‘Sential’ that’s a non fiction/not real creature.  As it’s written in a quite low descriptive third person limited.  If it had more feelings and descriptive text it’ld make the story more interesting and it’ld have more content.  Other than that it has a basic to follow storyline.

In my opinion I feel the story’s too basic in grammar and should be expanded into a more detailed plot and characterization. It has a easy to follow storyline though doesn’t give enough focus on the characters emotions that made me part way through the book forget the names of many characters and personalities!  It gives a goodish setting, but doesn’t expand and explain other item and things in the area.  Off making this review I’ve noticed many flaws in the text and feel it needs to be expanded or redone in finer detail.  I'd be reluctant to recommend this book to someone in my age group, but for younger ages it’d be more suitable!