May 9th, 2013 at 06:44pm
Unlike the Desert story, this one is more whimsical and mellow. The strong part about this story (which is you're strongest point in attracting readers) is your inspiration: People are like cigarettes.
You've written in a different point of view -that of a man and it didn't fail your readers because it was a good story. The description was well written and the story was straight to the point.
I like dividing my reviews into segments that allow me to focus in one thing at a time.
I'll start with the layout. I have said this to several authors in here and I will say it to you too: I love simple layouts. I love the banner and how it relates to the title; the background is also a lovely pattern and it's not distracting to the eyes.
Summary
I like how you got inspired by a phrase a friend of you said. It's a gorgeous quote and it proves as a very nice summary of the story. It also sets this sort of melancholic sad/angry feeling to the story (which I also got in the narration).
At first I was a bit confused with the part in which you say this is part of a series, mainly because I thought it was not a "stand-alone" piece, but I read and it read perfectly well as such.
Content
Like I sad on your summary, I love the feel I get from the narration; it's this melancholic feeling, this sadness/anger feeling that the narrator has over the relationship he had.
I think this is a realistic portrayal of a lot of people who get into relationships for the fun of it, without realizing that it's damaging and destructive for the other part.
Her leaving shows at least a bit of concern and respect for the narrator; the note, the concern that she was hurting him. It's there, but it's not exactly how one wishes to end a relationship.
She sounds like quite a character, perhaps impulsive and with very little empathy towards others. All of this just from one letter; I think you made an amazing characterization based solely on one letter this character left behind.
Overall
I think this story is amazingly written and is very realistic. Often relationships end because there's no communication of what each other expects in the relationship and this seems to be the case. He thought they were okay, but she realized she was only setting him up and he was going to get hurt. I liked how well this played with your prompt on the summary.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.