Dark Corners, Bright Spaces: 1.2 (Luna)

Hello!! :D

Back to reviewww

Yay! We have some homework action going on here - so glad! I may be wrong about this, but I remember when I mentioned When I Was Anna not having enough homework scenes in it, and it felt less realistic. Very happy to see the realism here with the homework! ^^

It was a personal rule of mine to finish my homework before I started in on any work for L.L. Technology.

Me everyday before I start anything I want to do but end up breaking my own rule xD but bro yes do it

I didn’t mind staring at the screen. My eyes were probably designed special to withstand hours upon hours in front of a screen without getting tired.

omg Luna same

Broccoli and sweet potatoes must have been on sale this week.

help oh my gosh this is literally my mom xD

She beamed at me.

Aww proud momma :3

My mom and dad may not have understood what exactly I did to computers, but they understood that I loved it, and I was good at it, and it was a way for me to make more money than our family had ever seen.

I'm loving how Luna is thinking of her family as well when it comes to her career, and not just herself, but at the same time, she's doing something that she's passionate about and also thinking about her family. <3

I backed his files up to an external hard drive, just to be on the safe side, and started a clone of new drive. While that worked, I got started on the second computer which only needed an antivirus installed and the computer scanned. I backed that computer up to a second external hard drive and began the download of the antivirus the customer selected.

I have no idea what she did like I said, super unfamiliar with tech lol but that probably means she's doing good xD Also yay! Glad Peter's computer is out of the way!! low-key wanted something messed up to happen to it so Luna wouldn't know what to do and Peter would hate her right from the start

Not that I didn’t love Aunt Tia, she just tended to bring chaos wherever she went. And the thought of my two little cousins, four and six, tearing through the house and possibly touching the desktop I built or any of my client computers, made me feel sick.

@_@ rip

Three computers done tonight, not too shabby at all.

eyyyy go gurlll

~

Okay okay, nice chapter! I don't have much to say about the big chapter since not much happened here (at least for someone who's not familiar with tech lol) but it wasn't too boring. We got a little bit (quite a lot, actually) of insight on Luna's daily routine. Come home, freshen up + chill, homework, dinner, homework, ~tech~. A couple of very interesting things were discussed over dinner *looks at Aunt Tia and her problems* This family obviously has a low budget, and Luna's dad cares a lot about saving up money for future things, and keeping it simple.

Before I wrap up this review, I want to say something real quick: I already mentioned the description thing in the last review, so I won't go over that much, but I would definitely want to see some emotions from Luna! I know this was a simple day, and nothing super out of the blue happened, but I feel like this part of chapter one was a little dry due to not much emotions coming from Luna. How did she feel when she was chilling with her mom? How did she feel about helping out with dinner? How'd she like the food? Stuff like that, y'know?

That's it for my review! I'll get to the next chapter tomorrow hopefully. ^^ Hope this review helped! Lemme know if you have any questions!

Wishing you a singing, dancing good time <3

~Lib

Hi I'm back <3

I never found the computer science classes to be too difficult, and they made me excited for the classes I’d have next year in college.

So which is she more interested in going into, computer science or IT? They're actually pretty different, enough that they're usually different majors. All of the computer stuff she does in this chapter is firmly IT. Of course, a lot of the time people who like CS like IT and vice versa, so it's totally fine if she's planning on going into computer science in college and she's just leaning into the IT side now to make money, but I'm really curious what it is. If she's in this for the money, I would say that CS definitely has the perception of paying better than IT, and though you can get really high salaries in IT and CS, my general impression has been that starting IT salaries are lower.

My eyes were probably designed special to withstand hours upon hours in front of a screen without getting tired.

This is a MOOD and also I wish my eyes were this resilient lol.

I have a lot of feelings about Luna and her goals, especially because they're so similar to my own. In general her conscientiousness and ambition reminds me a lot of myself. I also went into CS primarily because it was something interesting that would pay well, and although I'm very fortunate that my parents could have helped me pay for college if really necessary, I knew in high school it was my responsibility to earn the money myself. So I chose an inexpensive school, I got a scholarship, and I've been working.

And all of that played really well into my perfectionist side. Even in high school, I was always super stressed out about grades and felt like I never had enough time and I wouldn't be able to do it all, and that anxiety hasn't quite gone away in the years since. Navigating my productivity and goals and balancing my personal energy is a daily, constant computation.

So because she is so driven, and so conscientious, and reminds me of me, right now I'm looking at Luna and I'm honestly just scared she's going to burn herself out. I'm wondering if she feels the same things I do - does her homework ever take longer than she wants and then she goes to bed without working on her client's computers and thinking there's no way she can do it all? Does she ever feel irrationally frustrated that her mom asks her for help with dinner because it means she won't finish a project or a scholarship application? I'm curious how much she fears failure in any of these goals, and how she would handle it if she did fail, and if she thinks about that possibility a lot.

Upon reflection, I think these thoughts say more about me than they do about Luna, but as I was reading I did feel like there was something lacking with Luna's voice, and I wonder if it was her fears. She doesn't seem very worried about anything, and I can't tell if that's because she's generally not a worrier, or if this just happened to be a particularly productive day, or what. There just wasn't really a depth there that reveals how she thinks about the bigger picture.

In general, Luna's voice feels a little robotic to me, like she's just going through the motions, but maybe it was just a really normal day. I think the lack of conflict or tension in this part of the chapter was mostly what contributed to the monotone feeling.

I really like the little plot bits you seed in the chapter about potentially moving, as well as discussing Aunt Tia.

The computer stuff was kind of interesting, but there doesn't seem to be much exciting going on with Peter's computer. I'm a bit sad that everything was so routine, because I was excited to see how she tackles a real computer problem or something generally unexpected. I have a small quibble with her backing up an entire computer to a flash drive (since it's only a laptop and flash drives are pretty good nowadays, it could *probably* have enough memory, but she'd have to be buying pretty high-end flash drives). External hard drives make more sense, especially because they'd be a lot cheaper.

All in all, I'm pretty invested in Luna as a character already, though I'm excited to see more depth from her and see how she faces challenges that I've definitely experienced along this path. She's definitely different from me too, and I'm eager to see how that plays out. Normally I don't relate to YA characters that much, but I definitely relate to her situation and so even though her voice isn't quite clicking yet, I'm loving it.

I think this review was a pretty big ramble, but hopefully it helped! I'll try to have more coherent thoughts as the story goes on. Let me know if you have any questions. <3

I joined my mom on the couch for an hour, cuddled next to her while we watched one of the mindless talk shows she loved so much. Then I dragged my backpack and school computer out to the living room to work on some of my homework as the next talk show started.

I like this little glimpse of family life, it sets up Luna's character nicely.

I got through my nightly AP Statistics problems and the French 4 verbs I had to conjugate quick enough. I grabbed a snack from the fridge and worked on some of my computer science homework as the first hour of the evening news started. I never found the computer science classes to be too difficult, and they made me excited for the classes I’d have next year in college.

Being super nitpicky here, but all your sentences in this paragraph start with 'I'. Maybe change it up when you come to edit.

“What are we making?” I asked. We kept things pretty simple and cheap around here, but my mom was a good cook and an expert at feeding us on a budget.

“Barbecue chicken with roasted vegetables.”

Broccoli and sweet potatoes must have been on sale this week.

I like how this immediately juxtaposes her with Peter so I'm keen to see what his family life will be like. It's often easier to make the kids that come from a less privileged background more likeable in writing so I can't help but wonder if I'm going to like Peter...

Back in my room, I queued up my phone to play the next movie score on my list: The Social Network from 2010. I was slowly working my way through Oscar nominated and winning movie scores while I did my computer work. Silence became dull after a while and anything with words broke my focus. Movie scores were long enough to not have to think about them much and were more fun to listen to then the same old sonatas.

Well. This is me.

He wanted a solid-state hard drive put in his laptop to make it run faster and smoother.

Could Luna do this for me too?

My dad arrived home from his shift and changed his clothes without me hearing.

Um, what? Does she often listen to him changing? I don't quite understand the purpose of this line.

Ok, I've tried not to pull out the small things because I know you'll be going back and editing this (but hopefully not until you've re-written Liz & Zac because I am dying to reread those crazy kids) - but if you want another pair of eyes when you're doing line edits then I'm your girl!

Overall I think my comments are similar to that of the first half. Luna has a good voice, and I think we're seeing a good amount of her character here. What I'm struggling with is there's no real reason for me to read on (other than that thing with her aunt which I hope we're coming back to). Luna seems sweet, and her family seems lovely but I wouldn't normally read on just for niceness. I think this is just something to bear in mind for now, because I usually find it's easier to change up flow and pacing when you've written the entire thing because you have a clearer idea of where things are going to go.

Right, now I'm caught up and ready for chapter two! Bring on Peter!

Hope this helped <3

Icy