The Autumn Door - «3.1 St. Anthony»

Okay.

It took me like two weeks to get through reviewing this and I had a long review, which YWS kindly deleted out of the save box for me. And while I am now frustrated with the system and might want to shout "the patriarchy" from a rooftop, let's talk about your chapter.

Note that the time span that I listed previously. It's half put down to my laziness/depression and the other half is put down to how the chapter is structured. A thing I remember from my original review is talking about how it all starts, with the information about faeries. It's interesting to the reader and it certainly starts to build into how Jupiter is going to be helpful.

The character introduction from the previous part leading into this was a bit rough. It starts with just Zelda's jaded comments towards Jupiter and then suddenly we're in her head thinking about faery paths? I see why it's necessary for her to be processing what's happening, it just continues to come down to feeling too sudden from my perspective.

I am really starting to like the character of Jupiter because she doesn't have the same whiny tone that was apparent in Zelda. True that Zelda has all those things going on in her family but she was still under the impression of being better than other people. You're just as much of an outcast dude, don't judge others.

Then the sudden shift back to Zelda's POV bothered me? I guess that it was necessary for the readers to see what was happening inside her mind when she's stuck in the other world, it just seems like a story for a better time. Or maybe something the mother could be seeing? Or even Jovian?

The Grey family is such a nice addition, on an overall scale, to the characters. Because everyone else was so goddamn clueless or just completely lying about the outside world. It does seem a bit weird that everyone is slightly aware of magic being a thing but everyone is constantly dying.
So maybe just finding a way to better integrate the details is in the future.

That's all I've got for now.
I had more but nvm that.
- Lizz <3

Heyo.

Alright so remember how my edit said that introducing Jupiter didn't need to happen earlier and instead you needed to just move Scott's kidnapping later and that would fix everything?

... I'm going to recant that, or at least modify it. Jupiter's PoV needs to be introduced before Scott's kidnapping, because something about your LMS thread didn't quite prepare me for Jupiter Grey.

First off: this is fascinating, and I can't wait to see how all of these pieces play together. The voice itself isn't bad, the way everything is woven in isn't bad. It's really good, actually. I love seeing that clinical eye to magic in a way that's modern instead of the fantasy relying-on-internal-pseudoscience-rules-but-screw-science.

Now that that's out of the way.

The voice is caught between clinical and kid, which is a good setup (you know how much it's in Cat Steps lol) but because this is a new voice for you, it was whiplash. And because it's so high stakes, we don't get to savour the voice and instead are in a rush.

The biggest thing that stuck out to me early on was how Jupiter didn't know Scott was missing at first. As a result it's a narrative backstep that is really hard to pull off, because it's new on unreliable narrator and as a reader, it's really difficult to handle unreliable narrators that directly contradict known facts in the previous chapter.

There's just So Much. We haven't really gotten a chance to explore all of the bits and pieces of threads that Jupiter's PoV treats as fact, and she really should treat them as facts— but we've literally only been introduced to the whole "people regularly go missing" thing in the previous chapter. And there's no real Otherness to those vanishings, because when people go missing they do just vanish into thin air.

I feel that this chapter introduces the Magic you need to have hints of in Zelda's PoV for Jupiter's PoV to feel like a relaxation instead of an over-enthusiastic hug. Because Jupiter's PoV should act like a balm towards all of the weirdness Zelda can't explain, with Jupiter going "no this is real and this is bad".

But instead, as it is now, it's "it's gonna be okay I know how to handle all this weird magic stuff!" and had I not read your thread it would've been "what weird magic stuff?" But since I have read your thread, I know there is a lot of weird magic stuff, and Jupiter is the confirmation to questions that should be present in the text, but aren't.

You've pulled good pieces onto the table. I want to learn more about them all. But they're still Beginnings and now this is a trying-to-be-middle, and I'm a little too saturated.

I think you need a school day in here for draft 2. Because a school day will show the dynamics of everyone and the superstitions of everyone and who's missing and who's scared and it's all either the Fairchild's or the Grey's fault, and townspeople don't know which but it's all to be mistrusted.

Did there used to be more than one school, but too many kids went missing? Or more than one section?

Dunno. I just feel like Jupiter needs a much stronger introduction before her PoV, and her PoV needs to come at a lull in the narrative where the strangeness in Zelda's PoV has become unbearable. But right now the strangeness isn't unbearable, so Jupiter is Extra Strange, and as a result she feels out of place. Her amount of eccentricity isn't justified by an equally eccentric narrative, cause right now all of the urban fantasy elements are too easily explained.

I need hints magic is real before Jupiter tells me it is.

You know where to find me.

~Rosey

Heyo, Raye! I'm back here for another review.

I really do love the notes at the start, the background it gives into Jupiter's life and upbringing. I really love the idea of her parents sitting her down, going through lessons about faery paths and how to avoid them -- it's such a nice visual. I also love how she's just throwing all of these lessons away to chase after Zelda, despite the fact that they're estranged. It really endears me to her character.

I also! really love! the fact that she bought grapes for the ducks! It's a little note about how thoughtful she is. She's being kind to the ducks even though they're behaving like greedy children. She's kind to Zelda despite their past -- she's consistent, even in the first few paragraphs that we know her.

Here's a minor note: I don't necessarily understand the comment about Jupiter having to sneak out from her house? I guess it makes sense for there to be no repercussions right now (Zelda's life probably takes importance over being scolded), but it doesn't really... feel like her parents are all that strict yet? I'm hoping that more details regarding her parents will be added in later chapters.

Her parents tried to get her to make friends, but no one wanted to come spend the night at the creepy house on the hill. They liked to pretend she didn’t exist.

In that way, Zelda was almost better, because at least she acknowledged Jupiter was there.

So she was running down a faery path after the one friend she’d never had.

Jupiter wasn’t good with people, but she was good with emotions in a split-second context

and a big black-eyed baby was found in his bed the next day.

Another face on a milk carton hundreds of miles away, one that might be glimpsed in a crowd of revelers at a music festival, but would disappear the second anyone looked too hard—

All she had was Jovian. All she had was her little brother—but all he had was her. He relied on her. His fingers slid along the smooth cotton of her shirt as he leaned into her side, craving the heavy touch that neither of their parents could afford to give.

LOVE
10/10
THIS CHAPTER IS THE BEST
OMG
this is like everything your notes gave me hope for
not that the other chapters weren't good but OH MY GOSH wow okay

HOW DO I LOVE THIS CHAPTER LET ME COUNT THE WAYS

The witchiness of the Grey family and the way Jovian has like visions? of the future??? or something??? and into other worlds??? idk exactly what's going on but omg whoa. I love finally digging our teeth into the magic and faerness of this world after getting all the hints about it in previous chapters. But for tipping us deeply into magic for the first time, you maintain a good balance of magic and real-world - it's not jarring that we suddenly have all this open knowledge of magic, because we're still grounded in a world that has high school and track teams and nuns.

Speaking of nuns oh my god what's this about Mother Superior??? She knows about everything doesn't she 10/10 for nuns knowing about magicky things.

ALSO OKAY total sucker for ex-best-friends who still totally care for each other oh my god. They're obviously going to end up as best friends again by the end of the story right??? because if not that would be #tragic and p.s. I can't wait to find out more about their ~friend angst~ and what they did to hurt each other and not be best friends anymore.

ALSO the faery path and oh god what's wrong with Zelda like she's obviously going to be okay at some point but??? what exactly is wrong with her??? why is she trapped in her own head??? how would the faeries get her out of there if they wanted to steal her???

Jupiter's mom??? do I even need to say anything else???

Her mom had taken one look at the sleeping girl and let loose a volley of curses. “Can’t believe these—she’s a child,” she spat with a hardened glare towards the trees. “A child! Don’t you have enough of those already?”