Some time ago I read this story, and I was hesitant to do the review for interpersonal reasons based on the reaction she had to me reading the story, and my initial inline comments, to begin with. To explain further, when you look at the events transpiring immediately after my reviews, it makes the review process look damaging. Yet I have been assured its not, so I've considered whether or not to do it.

TLDR; The original story has a mystery/angst phase followed by a drama/angst phase. It is very difficult to pinpoint the kind of story it is, but it seems to center around healing from trauma and hard-core drama. We are talking sitcom "You slept with my boyfriend now I kill you, but I actually won't because your mother's cousin twice remove was abusive" level of drama.

Main Characters: Mixed bag - First of all, it is hard to tell who is the main character and who isn't. The prologue presents one person as the MC, then the first few chapters present a different MC, then the chapters after that have a third MC, and you jump around a lot. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes a problem when the quality of the MC varies drastically. The female MCs are excellent, characterized well, pure drama and emotion wrapped up in angst and are paced well and make sense 90% of the time. The male MCs never make sense. Their motivations, dreams, flaws, personalities, and just basic character are attempted to be brought to the fore at the start, but are immediately brought into drastic contradiction of themselves as the first event occurs where everything you were presented before is thrown out the window and you are left with shadows of characters that can barely think, function, or have any idea what they want or what they are doing, and this plays a role into making their part of the plot very shallow.

Side Characters: As good as the MCs they interact with, for good and bad - The brother, girlfriend/sister, and barkeeper so far as I can tell are the only reoccuring Side Characters. They are excellent. They grow, they have depth, they have character, and the jerk you dislike in one chapter grows into a really cool guy later, and this is awesome. Random friends of a male MC encountered for a single scene as they are somewhat shallow and exist for a single moment are the exception. Single-scene characters aren't expected to have depth of their own, but to allow depth of the reoccuring characters, and they fail at this, not of their own merit, but because of the failure of the Male MC presented to resonate with them, at all.

World Building: Smashing! - The lay of the land is very modern so there is little world building needed. The story is centered on the characters and their personal relations and drama. Internal drama vs external drama. That is the core of the story and where it belongs. Yet, as I said with "The Signs We Missed" there is only so many scenes you can have with a limited pool of characters before it gets redundant. In addition, outside influences are very powerful in dramas as they force the characters to face themselves and reflect on the internal drama. Like when you have that cop show where two characters are fighting over several episodes, and they encounter criminals/bystanders/victims who are facing the EXACT same issue and they see a reflection of themselves in others forcing them to see their internal issue from a slightly difference perspective. (This is very common to do in television.) Eventually the story could use external influences, but for now it is fine. If anything, I have to give the author credit for slowly increasing the number of external influences and side characters over time so as to constantly keep a steady supply of potential scenes and perspective for the MCs to reflect on.

Grammar and Word Usage: Good - I don't recall there being grammar issues beyond the occassional basics. It could use a brief touch-up with Grammarly to scan for issues, but the grammar did not hinder readability that I recall. Feels like a second draft. The words used also are easy to understand while being intelligent. The way the paragraphs are structuered could use a touch-up as well as occassionally there are multiple topics presented in the same paragraph, and when this happens it almost derails the reader. Its not to a bad degree, nor did it hold the story back, but if the author reads outloud her own story and listens to the flow, she should be able to improve on the way the chapters flow.

Plot: Extremely messy, but solid at its core - This is the area that really was a hiccup for me. Generally I don't comment in stories when I read them. The more I enjoy a story, the easier it is to read, the more natural the flow is, the better paced it is, the less time will pass before I realize I've just read the whole thing. I commented a lot. Not because the story is bad by ANY means, I loved it, but it was extremely confusing. The reason is you are presented with facts early on. Then you are presented with more facts. Then there is a conclusion presented that doesn't make sense based on the facts presented, and when the conclusion is explained, its even more confusing unless you come to the inevitable thought that the facts were presented poorly, out of order, or just not presented to begin with. (Its like X+Y/Z=5. Where there is the rest of the alphabet somewhere in there and you aren't told where or how.)

The first part tries to be a mystery filled with angst, and I love that. But it stumbles because it doesn't seem to get the recipe right, and produces shallow/false angst and along with it ruins the mystery. This is purely because of the way the male MCs are written, presented, and are characterized. They feel angst, but we are never presented or hinted at why. Its fine the characters feel things, but its impossible for the readers to feel it with them if there isn't a hint presented at all or if you don't even know there is a mystery. I was left without the sense of mystery, but only confusing sense of contradiction, until later AFTER the mystery I learned there was a mystery at all, and half of the facts presented as supposedly part of the mystery were never used while the other half you are still confused by because of their contradictions. The Male MCs also don't help as they have these EXTREMELY HARD knee-jerk reactions to facts presented and events, but it is not elaborated on, pretty much ever, there is no explanation as to why the knee-jerk reaction was warranted or matters, and they don't make really any effort to figure out the mystery presented by said facts. The Male MCs, as I said, become a shallow version of their initial selves that becomes virtually nonexistant. Every scene that could elaborate on them, expand them, and offer the story something to lead the mystery further in a good flowing manner, is either cut short the instant the mystery even begins while also BEFORE facts are presented, or described offhandedly as having happened in the background with no clue as to what happened at said event nor how it concluded or took the story forward or expanded on them... in any fashion.

To a huge degree it actually feels like the Male MCs are incredibly confused people with no understand of what is going on and absolutely no iniative to make sense of their realities beyond knee-jerk reactions that offer nothing, and in the process, they make me confused as well. I genuinly think you could remove every single Male MC POV scene except the first one and the story would be just as good, if not better as easily 80% of the confusion would be removed with it.

After the initial mystery. After the first handful of chapters. After you finally have concrete facts to work from without contradiction and in the hands of solid characters, the story takes off beautifully and I truly hunger for what comes next. The plot, when you get past the mess cause by the Male MC scenes, is beauitiful, dramatic, tense, and emotional. People are manipulated. There is hints of deeper mystery and trauma (proper mystery this time as the Male MCs arent the POVs) and I imagine there is going to be a lot of juicy stuff in the future.

Overall: 2 smashing out of 5 - The story is good and many characters are excellent, but the Male MCs turn it into a gigantic mess of "wtf is going on" until someone finally irons out the details and builds up the story from the ground up so you know what is actually going on and you begin to realize there is a mystery here. That there is more underneath the surface.

If the first few chapters can be ironed out and the Male MC scenes fixed, then the story has potential of being 3/5 or even 4/5 easily.

I'm out with a smashing!

If you are interested in learning to write, mastering the craft, want some really good reads, or just to chat and hang out with a mature group of adults, feel free to hit me up for a smashing discord book club that has lasted years.