September 14th, 2013 at 06:49pm
It's so eerie. It's actually very wonderful. I love the way that it's not overdone. I guess it has a sense of simplicity. To be honest the way the characters are portrayed is wonderful.
You don't give too much detail away that can make me loose interest, but you give just enough for me to be begging for more. The description of the scene makes you think that you are in the story itself almost like watching a movie or a TV show.
Now on to the layout. I love it. It's not too much but it's not too little. It's in that perfect middle. I love the summary you have written for pulled me in the minute I read it. I love how you seem to make the lead character appear to be a man instead of a overly sensitive type of person. I say keep up the good work. I also can't wait for more.
And onto the story itself. I was instantly hooked by the first line. It was all very mysterious and so sudden - is he actually dead, or is he just so distant and emotionless that it seems as if he is dead? It's a great start when I'm asking those sorts of questions after one sentence. Reading on, I find that he's actually dead, but I still can't help but wonder whether it can have the dual meaning, like...in the past, he might have been dead in the psychological sense due to the drugs. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but I think that was a really clever touch. It all seems to intricate and woven already, with all of these tiny little touches that seem to interchange and wrap themselves around each other. You've got this recurring theme of dead and gone running through the entire prologue and I love that - the lost souls in the city, the house being dead, the brother actually being dead, the mother mourning...everything works really well together and creates this lovely sense of continuation throughout the chapter without constantly mentioning "the brother is dead" over and over again.
In the second chapter, you give more of a glimpse into the mind of the narrator. I like him already. Like Kurtni said, he has this fabulous cynical edge to his thoughts. Considering his brother just died, I would expect that, but the fact that he was relieved rather than distraught is a really interesting concept that you do continue on in the next chapter with all the talk of God and his incredibly downcast view of the world. It's almost more realistic than some of the more positive characters I see because he does bear the weight of all of the negative things in the world. The bad things that have happened in the past have actually affected him in the long term and I think that's what intrigues me the most about his character.
I'm really interested to see what the priest (should I call him that? Probably not) is talking about. I get this suspicious feeling he isn't going to be any good for Isaac, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. I could be wrong, I often am. I just like to speculate, haha!
Writing-wise, this is pretty much spot on. You describe the littlest details, but nothing seems to be too much. You use these tiny little things in each chapter that tie everything together beautifully but you only notice everything tying in once you reach the end of the chapter and that honestly makes me more happy than you could imagine. I don't know why, it just does, haha!
I'm really enjoying this so far! I'll definitely be subscribing to see where this goes because it seems like it's going to be right down my alley in terms of plot and Isaac just delights me as a character. Add onto that the fact that you've got such a lovely writing style and you can consider me hooked!