Galvanica_

Amazing

It was amazing, It was well paced, nicely written and it immediately caught my attention. I was instantly hooked on the first chapter. The characters were amazing, the childish mind of Connor (our main character and narrator), to... I can’t begin to describe Violet. The themes and ideas were consistent throughout the story and subtle at the best times and addressed at the best times. There were mysteries still left unspoken (like Connor’s parents) but the author did an amazing job of communicating things to the audience through Violet’s empathetic character.

Interesting so far

The story so far is interesting. The whole schizophrenia idea going on is intriguing but I can't say much about it as I haven't done much research on the topic.There seems to be a bit of filler throughout the chapters, and some paragraphs are whole chunks making it hard to read. There also seems to be an issue of the placement of dialogue but nothing that can't be looked past. The chapter pacing has been a bit slow for my liking, and i would recommend speeding it up a tad bit, perhaps by increasing chapter length to get more detail in at once.

Overall, I like how it's going so far and the direction it's headed, but there are some writing technicalities throughout chapters I'm not fond of.

Unsure

So far it looks quite interesting, however the first chapter kind of just dives right into the story without that much context or background information. It’s a bit of a shame there isn’t any more chapters, so there isn’t much world building and character background and information. So many things I’m now so very curious about. Who is “He?”? Who or what are the “Wanderers”? What are the character’s intents and relationships? Why do they have to go with “Him”?

Overall it looks interesting and has amazing writing. The characters seem to have an interesting relationship with each other, and there’s some mystery behind the lines too.

Beautifully Bittersweet

I just love the plot and the writing. Before the first chapter even ended, I was hooked, and the story did not disappoint. It was interesting to watch the setting build up, his fathers words playing back during the whole thing, and how, interestingly, they ceased sometime after meeting Bone. I love how difficult hunting is portrayed to be in winter and just generally integrated into the story, whether it’s the fox doing the act, or man.

But my god, probably may favourite part is the bittersweet ending. It was perfect. Sad, but perfect. From the start to the finish, the idea of it being in the direction of the setting sun, to the mantra of “West. Always west.” that’s included in, if not ever, then most chapters. But the hint of where this land is in the second or third last chapter with the dream... I immediately got a gut feeling and called the ending. But how does “Wanderer” visit several times? That’s what I’m confused about, it wasn’t that clear to me.

The epilogue made me want to cry, laugh, smile, all at the same time. It was short, but the last paragraph made a lasting impact.

Awesome

At first I wasn’t so sure. I was interested in the idea of the story coming from the perspective of a little girl who, it seems, to have had everything handed to her. I really liked the idea the author was setting up for, but the sudden time skip threw me off, especially when it dove into high school straight away.

So at this point, I’m interested for the setting up, and for what’s to come. I may not really like the plot in the middle, where our main character is now the Queen Bee, but was it really unexpected? No. What WAS surprising for me at least, is how... obsessive she is on making other people’s lives hell.

But what really got me hooked is how she still hasn’t gotten over her mother’s words and anger (and for me, it’s implied that the Mum is somewhat abusive to the dad) and how her childhood affected her up to this point. It’s sad that some people out there really don’t understand actions have consequences, whether it be the dad suddenly walking out on them and leaving them with little to nothing, the mother influencing five or something year old Olivia to believe that her dad’s new wife and daughter are in the wrong, to the stepmother’s own harassment, to Olivia’s over the top bullying and influence and so forth.