The Move By: Christopher McGoldrick

There is just something about young love. It is fierce and burning, yet fragile and fleeting. Actions and reasoning are frequently clouded by a haze of passion and the perpetual fluttering in the stomach caused by an army of butterflies. Indeed, it was Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince who described the condition succinctly: it is a terrible thing to be always thinking about.

Christopher McGoldrick's short story, The Move, takes those butterflies seriously. The story follows a seventeen-year-old protagonist caught in the middle of a first relationship, and it is the age itself that gives the narrative its energy — the intensity, the missteps, and the very real possibility of getting it wrong.

The Story

The tale is brief, which is part of its charm. McGoldrick does not spend pages on setup; he drops the reader into the emotion of the moment and lets the prose carry the weight. What emerges is a warm, honest picture of young love: the euphoria of it, the small betrayals of ordinary conversation, and the way a single decision can redraw the emotional map of an entire year.

What stays with the reader is the authenticity. The dialogue sounds like seventeen-year-olds actually speak, and the interior moments — the hesitations, the second-guessing, the sudden surges of confidence — are rendered with a clear-eyed affection rather than sentimentality.

Final Thoughts

For anyone who enjoys short fiction about coming of age, The Move is an easy recommendation. It is a quick read, and a generous one — the kind of story that costs you an hour and leaves you with considerably more to think about. The emotions land because they are honestly observed rather than overstated, and the young protagonist's journey carries a weight that far exceeds the length of the telling.

If you enjoy honest, character-driven reviews of independent authors, there is plenty more in the reviews section of the blog, including titles on historical fiction, dystopian fiction, and romance.

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