NEO HYPER BOOK CLUB #4 (9TH July - 30TH JULY)

[The Vision]

Alright, I want to start off by saying I enjoyed the read. I really did. The following review may end up making me sound like I didn’t like it, but it was a lot of fun.

I’m going to start with the things to fix. There were a few typos, and I didn’t even really notice them the first time through. Sometimes you switch tenses, but it’s not for any longer than a sentence. Things like “Rovin rose (raised) a brow” or “She (Her) authentic smile”. But mistakes are mistakes, whatever. The nitpicky thing that I see you keep doing is when you end a quotation:

“Mr. Wayward?” She asked under her breath.

You capitalized the “she” even though I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be. But that’s so unimportant, so let’s move right along.

I also want to mention there were some places where the wording could have been tighter, but I don’t want to dwell on it because I’m not good at it either.

...from the sheer wave of emotions that plagued her.

You described a tsunami-like surge of emotions. Those don’t usually plague you, they overwhelm you. Also, plague implies that these emotions were bothering her for a while, but really they seem to have bothered her for about a minute as of that moment.

Being a solo story, this thread (I presume) was to highlight certain aspects of Isabelle’s character, at least your interpretation of her, as well as pave the road for character development. I’m not sure I see too much room for change, rather than possible further jading. However, this story really showcases what kind of dog (?) Isabelle is.

Let’s look at a bit where we see it:

She sighed and gave a little prayer of protection in this trying world. She’s just happy her new friend was at least good company.

Not that she could 100% fully trust him.

We can feel the innocence there, in the prayer for protection, and how she’s just happy she has a friend. There’s something dependent and childish about that, which lines up nicely with her dependence on the Mayor.

She’s also street-smart and refuses to trust the people in this city, a trait which was apparently pre-Omniverse, though I have no idea where she got those smarts from the village where the highest stress is not being able to afford that one sofa that could really add a nice touch to your house.

Through the whole story there are times when we see the naivety, like when she participates in the race for the sake of grabbing the Mayor’s attention, mixed with the self-awareness, like when she understood why the man giving the medal didn’t want her in the races anymore.

While the duality is interesting, I wish it was more clear-cut here and there. One thing I thought to myself was “Maybe she’s just that innocent doggo when the Mayor is involved?”. But when she prepares for this supposedly extremely dangerous race without really thinking twice or even being nervous, that screams childishness to me, though the Mayor is only slightly involved. Or when she meets Mr. Steady. She describes him in exclamations, in the way a child shows amazement.

He was huge! It was difficult to tell from him sitting, but he must of have been 8’0” at least! He was wide, too! He was almost triple Isabelle’s width!

I will say I don’t feel that strongly about this and I was already pretty intrigued by the duality in her personality. Even the story contains that duality, in the bathroom scene or when she considers prostitution. I don’t want to quote it because it already makes me super uncomfortable. But the childish Isabelle, who is such a kid-like character that we don’t want to see her doing anything that could taint her purity, needing to think about her privates (which makes US think about them) is a great way to really juxtapose her innocence with the world full of [M] topics. It’s also a great way of making the reader uncomfortable. Seriously, I squirmed the whole time reading those scenes.

Speaking of discomfort, let’s talk about the Mayor. I’m actually scared of the Mayor, to be honest. It doesn’t help that I’m used to seeing him as a psycho killer, but even then, since we feel so much more sympathy for our canine protagonist, it’s hard not to be wary of him. We’re all familiar with the “devoted lover gets hurt by the one they love because the one they love turns out to be an asshole” story. And this story has all the ingredients for it. The pleasant flashback where the protagonist gets all the right reasons to think “OMIGOD HE LOVES ME”. If we’re getting the happy flashback now, there’s no tension in their love story later!

Isabelle’s devotion to the Mayor is kind of a gold mine for drama because of that. At the same time, I wish you had given us more cues to tell us what we should think of that relationship. As it stands, it’s an unhealthy relationship but not so much that it’s cause for alarm, more that it’s just uncomfortable to watch. I kind of hope he turns out to be a psycho, or he’s just as devoted to Isabelle, because that would help retain that innocence in Isabelle. However, if I were you, I’d take it towards “the Mayor likes her a lot too but she is a little too clingy” because in that case, there is no right-or-wrong. It’s a really good way of showing the maturity Issy needs in her daily life, despite being this beacon of innocence.

...Alright, no more fancy talk. I wanna get down to what I really think, which was I LOVE THE CHARACTERS. They live in the slums of a city and thus need to live a rough, not-for-the-faint-of-heart lifestyles, like being prostitutes or needing to beat up an anthropomorphic puppy to death because she ruined your business. But those Pulp Fiction characters are realllllly wacky. I’m thinking of Heart Candy, who I understand is basically a sentient cloud. I’m thinking of the slime racer, who I imagined as a pile of Jell-O in a race-car seat, not even touching the steering wheel, just psychically moving it somehow. I’m thinking of Mr. Steady, who I literally saw as one of the faces on Mt. Rushmore growing a body and becoming a mob boss. These are pretty wonderful characters and they keep the reader’s imagination running.

I’d say you could have gone even further with it! Maybe stretch out the actual race, talk about some of the other racers and how fucking nuts they are. ONE OF THEM COULD LITERALLY BE A BUNDLE OF NUTS. I see a perfect opportunity here:

...displaying small clips of each racer.

SHOW US THE CLIPS I WANNA SEE ‘EM

The cars in first to fifth place all tried to attack each other at once, creating an immediate five car pile up in the middle of the road, creating an obstruction in the track. Some hit the pile up straight on, joining in the already large mess.

Talk about the racer’s reactions a little! Maybe a giraffe slams down on the steering wheel in frustration, and her neck gets cricked in the process. Maybe a two-headed sentient beer bottle spills some beer and the car starts smoking or something. You could have gone WAY crazier. But I appreciate the already-present craziness.

I like the glimpses of the Prime/Secondary existential crisis, all coming to a climax with Rovin basically leaving her in the street because of her reckless behavior. I wish he had said more! I wish he was even more brutal in his critique, really rub it in the doggo’s face. It would make the downfall of Isabelle even more heartbreaking. I’m not sure if that would have improved it, though, Rovin was already pretty brutal and maybe too much more would have turned it into a lecture.

Okay, wow. I was gonna make this short but I wrote over 1000 words. Sorry it’s so long. I don’t even remember half of what a lot of it says so take it with lots of salt. Again, loved the thread! Buuuuut since it doesn't fulfill the requirements of Great/Exemplary, I'm afraid I can't nominate it for anything.

Can we nominate threads that aren’t finished yet? If so...

[spoiler]Link to topic – Twinkle in Sweet Repose
Total character count including spaces (excluding bbcode, images, etcetera), please make sure this is per character, not as a whole: The Vision, 67011+. Goku, 21820+.
Total word count (excluding bbcode, images, etcetera) please make sure this is per character, not as a whole: The Vision, 11188+. Goku, 3999+.
Quest or Personal Storyline? Quest
Participating characters (please list): The Vision and Goku. Disregard Marcus’ post.[/spoiler]