A tale of perseverance against the odds. Gozie managed to hold on to hope despite the loss of his parents, an abusive adoptive mother, and being abandoned by his adoptive father's extended family. Your story had promise and some solid ideas for development. It was an interesting read. There were, however, a few disconnects in this piece which could have been addressed in an edit: Gozie's adoptive parents were later referred to as his foster parents. Adoption and fostering are two different things and make a big difference when it comes to parental responsibility. You should stick to one or the other. Secondly, the aging of Gozie was a little confusing. He was sixteen when his mother died, and he later graduated (presumably at eighteen) and spent two years farming before being shipped out for adoption. At this point he would have been twenty years old and already an adult. This scenario is unlikely to have played out like this, as adults don't get adopted. Be careful when writing that you go back and reread your stories to ensure that they make sense all the way through. Seemingly small things, like assigning an age to a person, can have huge consequences for how a story is received when things stop making sense. An edit before publishing would also have caught spelling and grammar issues, allowing you to correct them before publication.
Thank you for writing in The Ink Well.
Thank you so much for informing me about the importance of maintaining consistency in terminology, character development, for a compelling storyline, I will be careful with that in the future.
I will get this fixed right away, I used to assumed the two meant the same thing but I understand the terms better now. Thanks for pointing those out. For my age miscalculation, I will be more careful in the future to put those into consideration for more clarity and uniformity.