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 Review #4796070 |
| Hi, Satuawany  ! Overall Thoughts First impressions and general/developmental feedback. Okay, so I read this one early last week (shortly after reading "S'Old" and re-reading "The One"—I'll probably end up re-reviewing that one eventually, since I have some new thoughts!) and of course I had just read your folder description again after the thematic connections I noticed between the first and second stories (constructed realities, power dynamics, nearness that harms) and was reminded that you mentioned that the stories are indeed connected. (And, re: your email, specifically after reading this story, I 100% considered that the stories could be different situations 152 was throwing Dave into! This story both made me feel like that theory was much more possible and also made me doubt it a bit.) In this one, the character dynamics felt quite different, but still similar enough: a variation on a theme. The dynamic was different. It was angry, fierce, where in the previous two the tone was one of care. There's not really a theme of constructed reality in this one, but the shape is the same: one character "made" another, and the other ends the story by giving in to the same sins of their creator. Dave made 152, and 152 ended by entrapping him with that same flawed and twisted love. The unnamed vampire cultivated a habit of making new vampires and abandoning them, and the main character ended the story by making the same mistake. While the circumstances were quite different, the theme was similar: a story of the created inheriting the creator's flaws. And that would certainly be enough of a connection all on its own: a series of stories exploring themes of generational trauma and constructed reality and choice. But I like the idea that it's 152 throwing Dave into a variety of different situations! I've got some thoughts brewing on this but will let them simmer as I read further in the collection! — Character/Plot/Pacing: Back when I first considered that the stories could be situations 152 was forcing Dave into, I started looking for connections. One I like it that—at least so far—the POV is consistently first person, which feels like a thread pulling the stories together. And the ending!! It was so good. I mean, objectively it was horrid, but it was such a perfect, right ending for this story and left me unsettled in a good way. The whole "inheriting the sins of their creator" thing. Oof. Really interesting. — Description/Style: I ran into some repeated language that didn't quite feel like it fit. I've described it in my line comments below! However, this could totally just be a me-thing—evidence that I'm an imperfect reader. I've mentioned it in case it's useful.  Digging a little deeper:Line comments—sentence-level and scene-level feedback.  There he is with a new girl now. This is what he does. It's what he did to me. — Immediately evocative. The short sentences show emotional intensity and you have me enthralled right away.his teeth are human-shaped, human-sharp, human-safe. — Ohhhhh Chy. I LOVE this. The consonance and assonance (the long A in shaped and safe, the "sh" sound in shaped and sharp) add an almost hypnotic loveliness to the line.her arm around his waist, over the leather jacket. — Oh, wait. Didn't Dave wear a leather jacket in the first story? 152 mentioned it repeatedly. For some reason I think its age/smoothness was also mentioned in that story. Could be coincidence. Could be that you just like leather jackets. Maybe I'm grasping at straws. In any case, you have my attention and the theories are spinning in my head. He said he couldn't help it — first of all, I want to punch him in the mouth. Second of all, I like that you're carrying through this idea of compulsion from the first story, though in the first story, Dave seemed prisoner to his addiction, where in this story, the unnamed vampire ex is the aggressor and there are unsettling themes of non-consent. These, of course, add evocative specificity to this story and make it an absolutely incredible read (I LOVED it, in case that hasn't been clear)...while also making it feel a tiny bit less likely that these characters could be versions of 152 and Dave.I've played the blood game, too, to get a meal, to help them shake off the experience once I'm done. — It was almost easy to ignore this on my first read and accept the self-delusion, that it was to help them. To believe that the MC went into this with good intentions. After another read, it stands out as excellent foreshadowing for the choice the MC makes in the end.Now you just have to keep going, and keep going. — The theme of "keep going" is woven very well into this story, but it also feels like it's thematically untethered from the story. The core story feels like it's a tale of becoming the monster we mean to slay, but the idea of "keep going" and the repeated phrase of "water under the bridge" and the image of the bridge don't feel connected to the story as a whole or the themes of the collection overall. And I wonder if maybe that's because the title of the song demanded that the title (keep going) be present, even though the story veered away from it and didn't quite connect. I actually just went and checked to make sure, and indeed both the title and the image of blood under a bridge were elements of the song lyrics. So this story does connect to the lyrics, which is great! But they don't feel like they connect organically to the story, in the same way the soul-selling in "S'Old" was a clever connection to the song title but felt a bit sudden/disconnected in the story itself because I lacked enough build-up to have a meaningful sense for why the interrogator would sell his soul. His eyes widen as he looks from one woman to another, finally really seeing us. Maybe for the first time. — Love this. It stands out as a parallel to the other stories: two beings truly seeing each other for a moment, though in vastly different contexts. He just told them to keep going. I showed them how. — So this is where the title and the theme started to feel more connected and present in the story, and I quite like it. But it still kinda sticks up, if that makes sense?“Keep going. We could use more in our coterie. There aren't quite enough of us to kill you yet.” — Oh, brutal. This could be such an effective way to stop him, by showing him that what he's doing is simply building up an army against him. but he would take one or two of us with him, and he's taken enough. — I love this.  It made me wonder... it doesn't seem like the MC was the first he's ever done this to. Couldn't the group just seek out some of his older victims and enlist them in the fight without having to make new ones? Couldn't they just seek out other, unrelated vampires? At first I thought of course they couldn't; the goal is to turn his victims against him, and enlisting outside help would ruin the poetic justice of it all. But then when the MC turns the girl at the end, the theme has already been broken: the group already contains one who's not like the others. If there's perhaps a sentence you can add in to say that the MC hasn't been able to find any older/previous victims, or that the ones that came before chose in one way or another not to "keep going" and are long gone now, I think it would iron over this blip and make more sense of why the MC makes that choice at the end of the story.This is how we keep going, I tell her. — Ahhhh this is so awful and twisted, but in a way that works really well for the story and effectively highlights the horror of the MC's choice in the same way the ending of Dave's story did for me! Excellent. Summary Thoughts and Suggestions:A fascinating story overall, really strong all the way through. Some repeated elements felt a bit inorganic to me on the first read, and when I read again (and finally looked at the song lyrics) I discovered that the bits that felt inorganic were drawn from the lyrics. But despite those small blips, the story was a taut and wonderful read, with a throat-punch ending, and I had the absolute best time reading! I'm really glad you shared it. Write On!  This review is being sent for the amazing speculative fiction critique group "WYRM" and in affiliation with "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group"  My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 01/21/2025 @ 2:13am EST