10/7/2010 c2 4jammi
See, the opening scene is one of those sections where things get confusing. I know it opened with him going to his room thanks to his stomach then he shows the section where his family meets janie but the switch back to the room feels really abrupt. I'm not sure what you could do to make the transition smoother/clearer though.

I actually really liked that whole wedding scene though, and his mom is amusing to me, lol. His little sister is annoying but funny.

I don't see his relationship with that Sophia girl ending/starting well at all, lmao, especially since he took her money to pay for her to go to the movies while he was willing to eat pepper for Janie, lol.

Her panic attacks are something else, though what is causing them? I know that the box toyed with her claustrophobia but wouldn't the fact that she was enjoying herself sort of distract her from that aspect and make it easier for her to be there? Not harder?

In regards to that alien convention of course Aliens are Anti-American, I'm fairly sure it's somewhere in the galactic constitution.

And LOL at him threatening his sister by saying Janie's dad will eat her, because that's not a comment she might repeat at some point, hahah.

Also, for this sentence:

[The fact that this was such a success (she jumped about two feet in the air) or that I got to cop a feel – I don't know which is better.]

I'd move the 'I don't know which is better' to before 'The fact that this ...' bit, the way it is currently reads awkwardly to me.

I really like the interaction between him and his parents, and that I can imagine how they look but when I try to pinpoint where I'm getting these descriptions from there's no moment or info dump, it all came in smoothly with the story and the way you make him interact with them.

9/22/2010 c1 6Gilee7
I've been meaning to read and review some of your stuff for quite awhile now, but I'm terribly lazy and unmotivated, and it takes me a long time to get around to doing anything I say I'm going to do. Anyways, I'm finally here. I figured I'd choose this piece since it's your newest.

Reviewing as I go along . . .

[Janie Zimmerman has only just invited me into the den on the second floor of her house where the infamous curtains that she told me about reside.] That's quite a mouthful of an opening sentence. Try cutting it down. Maybe: "Janie Zimmerman has just invited me into the den on the second floor of her house to see the infamous curtains."

["…makes sense." Not at all.] *Makes* The "not at all" part made me chuckle.

[she would take the trash can to the street] *trashcan*

[her hair is chocolaty] I like that word as a description. And the way Matt describes her, Janie sounds like an absolute knockout, especially her body. Plus she seems a little off upstairs. That's a sexy combination!

["Jake is Jewish, too. Jake Cohen. He hangs out with Roy and Nick and Dennis."

"Um… thanks."] I don't get why he says "thanks" here.

["I really like Jews." I nodded and bit my lip while she fidgeted with the strap over her shoulder.] I know this is Janie talking here, but the following sentence should be on a separate line, because it implies that it’s Matt speaking instead.

Okay, for some reason I was envisioning this whole scene with the trashcans taking place outside their school, since Matt starts the flashback by talking about the private school he goes to. I was like, what’s up with this school? Don’t they have janitors? I mean, making students take out the trash? Then Milo steps out the front door of his house and I realized where we’re at. That initial segueway could definitely be a bit clearer, though, to avoid confusion for idiots like myself.

[I go to Sampino School for Advanced Studies, the only private school in the city (if you'd call this place a city) that isn't Catholic.] See, this is the sentence that caused confusion. You could cut and paste it before the next transition: [“Sampino is pretty standard for a private school.”] It’d work perfectly there.

The description of Dennis sounds almost identical to a guy I went to highschool with.

So far the descriptions of all your characters are quite well-written and vivid, while also being strangely humorous. Kind of like Matt’s mocking them, but in a nice, friendly manner.

[Roy raises his eyebrows and shifts his pupils to the left, over his shoulder.] How ‘bout “shifts his gaze” instead? Your current wording makes it sound like his pupils actually float off his eyeballs, Looney-Toons style.

[a football player called Elmo] I don’t know why that’s hilarious, but it is.

[According to Roy, Nick used to be a popular guy on the football team but as soon as he got an Xbox everything went downhill.] Another victim of that terrible Xbox.

[Nick stares at the back of Janie's head grumpily and mumbles, "How did a piece of ass that hot end up being such a goddamn nerd?"] Really? I don’t think she comes across as a nerd at all so far. Just a weirdo. There’s a big difference, Nick.

LOL, what’s up with this guy just casually stealing stuff? . . . Oh, he’s a kleptomaniac, okay.

[This misunderstanding was quickly resolved because I don't wear shiny butterflies in my hair.] LOL.

[Jake is the only one who knows anything about my family other than the Zimmernans] *Zimmermans*

[There's got to be a god or supreme being, but whether or not his son came down and died for my sins is in the air. I flip-flop.] This also made me laugh.

["What's your name?" she asks courteously.] Adverbs, especially when used in dialogue tags, are almost always unnecessary, and are generally seen as an act of laziness on the part of the writer. You’ve used too many already, but this one’s especially pointless.

["Okay, then." She picks up a random sheet of paper that had just printed without looking at it and heads for the door. "See you later, Matt."] I’d like to know what her expression was when he turned her down. Sad? Disappointed? Ambiguously aroused?

[We go to the pan-Asian place and Janie lets me taste her taro bubble tea] I was hoping that was a weird sexual metaphor.

[so I coyly suggested that we sit beside each other in the booth] *suggest* [Janie didn't mind much] and *doesn’t mind*.

The ending of the chapter is kind of flat. I didn’t care for the whole sushi dinner scene at the end. It felt like a forced attempt at humor that wasn’t funny and just felt kind of . . . pointless.

There are a few awkward shifts in tense, a few too many adverbs, and you could probably cut down on the length just a bit to tighten everything up, but overall this is a very solid start. I worry that you may have tried to introduce too many characters early on, but each one is so unique and you do such a great job of describing their little quirks that I think I’ll be able to remember each one with relative ease— Although, I admit, some of Matt’s guy friends have kind of blended together. I’m such each one will develop their own identity in subsequent chapters, though.

I really enjoy your dialogue. The humor is natural. Matt’s sarcasm is kind of cute. If I didn’t know you were a girl, I’d assume you were a guy. Writing in the voice of the opposite sex is incredibly difficult, I think, but you seem to know how we guys think.

One thing I’ve noticed so far, however, is that Matt comes across extremely bland in his interactions. His humor and personality is evident in the narration. We hear his sarcastic remarks to everything and the way he describes his friends and the different situations and whatnot, but when he’s actually interacting with the characters, he seems to lose that humor and personality. He seems like a different person in the first-person than he is in the third-person, if that makes any sense.

This is shaping up to be a very fun story, though. I look forward to spending more time with these characters. And I’d like to meet Janie in real life, too, if you know her— LOL.

Write on, Loly. I’ll try to review the next chapter tomorrow.

9/8/2010 c1 7Your Execution
I...I don't even know how to react to this. Ok, moving on the the 2nd chapter with suicide silence as my soundtrack.

I must say I've missed your writing ;_;