Response to "Baking Cookies"

To be blunt, I really liked this short story. At the beginning it had a good setup to establish the characters. There were only a few instances where I felt like the language it used did not completely fit the young childish voice, but for the most part I thought it was done quite well. For instance, when he says that something was his "favorite type of blue", i felt like this and moments like it really captured the voice in its simplicity very well. As the story moved on it slowly started to have weird moments that made me worry that something was up but I didn't know where to place my fears. The moment when the abuse actually happened still caught me off guard and was incredibly charged, bringing about a large conflict that wasn't spelled out for the reader but introduced within the flow of the story. The characters were very well developed, both the mother and child, and it really felt like the reader was in the head of the kid. The pacing was done well as it brought you along without going too fast or slow at any point, and I liked the way little things were revealed through the thought process of a child. Overall, excellent story I thought.