Glad to have a new chapter up!

Your dialogue has such a natural feel to it, and it really adds to your characters' personalities. The only thing to "fix" that really stood out to me was this:
[He could have easily sided with his best buddy but he'd managed to remain as neutral as Switzerland.]
I understand the simile, but find myself wondering if Mila would use Switzerland, a land so far removed from her life, as an example. To me, it seemed a little out of place with the style of the storytelling, but ultimately of course it's your decision what to write.
Great cliffhanger. I was not expecting Lola back so soon in the story!

Rule 10:

Type your review for thI am utterly in love with this story… and I’m only on chapter two.

First off I loved Mila the first half of the story. I loved how subtly you portrayed the chaos of her internal monologue. You really let the reader navigate those emotions with her. Also, I like the connections that you create between physical and mental intimacy, the “come, come” was lush and wonderful.

I didn’t so much care for the latter half of the chapter. I feel like you started on a really high note and continued into the crescendo but the morning after was awkward, and I don’t mean that in a good way. I feel like we lose a lot of the power that came with the pain that was expressed in the opening, and it weighed the piece down. Keep up the good work, can’t wait to read more.

Much love,
Juliet.
is chapter here...

Strong intro you have here. I think Mila's voice comes across really well, highlighting the cruelty of her situation through the eyes of a child, and bringing in all the little details to make her experience gritty and believable. The dialogue is smooth, natural, and nicely placed to give some clues into each of the characters' personalities and backgrounds. Uncle Kelsoe's in particular was very telling (though I suppose that makes sense since he did most of the talking).

Mila and her Mama's relationship makes my hackles bristle, to be honest, and I think that's a fantastic show of how vividly you portrayed the situation since in the end that's what you want: to wrap the readers' emotions up into the situation. Even with Mila's voice trying to defend her mother's actions and cling to hope, it's potently obvious that her mother is a disgusting example of a parent and Mila is probably better off without her. It will be interesting to see how things develop for her in the coming chapters. Very nicely written so far.

- Moonstar

Wow let me just start out by saying this is phenomenal stuff.

First off I loved the voice of your narrator. I could feel the drawl of the voice intermixed with wide eyed innocence and a fierce knowing: "ghosts eat tears" lush, positively.

I do feel like the despondent mother figure is a bit clichéd in tales such as this. But I thought that your rendition had a lot of meat on the bone. All of your characters were fascinating. Keep up the good work.

Much love,
Juliet.

This is a great first chapter, I'm already wondering what's coming next! I think you did a great job with the dialogue and style of speech when the characters speak. I understand that the narration is coming from Mila, but I found some of the incomplete choppy sentences a little distracting. They worked well for descriptions, but I didn't like them as much when they were describing action. The setting was well-described, I really liked hearing it from Mila's perspective. This played out like a movie in my head-I could hear the engine starting up!

You have a really good voice going here, the writing makes it easy to picture Mila and her thoughts, her constant reminding herself that her Mama will change her mind/be back really helps picture the scene and gives good depth to her character. The dialogue itself is quite good, it's believable and gives the character's more personality.

One thing I would critique is a tiny one, that Mila and her mother are not really described well. Perhaps just a tiny more description would help in my opinion.

Anyway it's a good hook and a great chapter.

Great read. Lots of depth and character development. Seriously...I cried. Too real.

I... just... wow. It's taken me about two hours to read all 14 chapters and I'm still not sure how I feel about this story. All I can seem to come up with is "what in the actual f!#k?“ You have a definite knack for imaginative story telling. The descriptions of their surroundings, their appearances all jump off the page. And I must thank you for writing a male lead who manages to be introspective without sounding droll or specious. All that said, every chapter feels like a Rorschach test. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into the wrong things? These people seems so foreign and bleak. I... just... yeah.

This is very intriguing. What grimy, bewildering, contrary, capricious, hilarious and/or morose thing will they do next? I hope you update soon.

Addicted to this story!

Thank you for writing. I love this story. It is fresh and the characters are so vivid.

And we're back to the ghosts. It's been a while since a flashback. And now we hear the aftermath of the haircut too, although I don't quite like its placing. I think it was a little too delayed. I would have preferred it at chapter 11; the chapter after the actual haircut. It feels somewhat disjointed here. Another memory would have done just as well for the next part.

[One thing is for sure; nobody will ever get to her like that again] - colon, not semicolon.

On the other hand, I like the then vs. now Mila image. The different types of strength and weakness that are portrayed. You've done it well, and staying out of the cliched "something goes wrong and girl goes vengefully crazy".

Ohana from the Review Marathon (link in profile)

Ooh, a pearl. Interesting way of saying it. I really like the beginning of this -the focus on Mila's reaction to the previous chapter, to Acker (which I've been waiting for since chapter...5 I think). It shows the flipside, which is important and entertaining at the same time, and also portrays a balance of confusion, character and desire. Nicely written.

And there's the werewolf reference. *howls right back*

I also like the placement of the fugative gator. Just when things start climbing...but it's not the cliched interruptions of someone just jumping down on them or a parent walking in or anything like that. It's not really an interruption, but more of a continuation I guess. But the placing was good. The similarities between its situation and that of Mila and Acker's, especially the line {their fugitive is seriously cranky, having had his holiday cut short.] Really ties the gator imagery to the broader aspects.

I like the metaphor of the storm here. It's interesting; it's a very basic idea, the whirlwind of emotions, the storm of uncontrollability brewing, and yet it's not that basic, or cliched, the way you've written it. I think it's the language, the /way/ you've written it as such, that makes its effect so powerful and beautiful. And the moral barometer - related to weather, but not so common imagery, particularly as a metaphor.

[He dreams of water. ] - I don't see why that sentence has to be italicised.

I also like Acker's character this chapter. There's something about it that makes him stand out of the other chapters. More depth, more feeling...overall more development.

[Darren Twilley, local hero, US. Airborne Staff Sergeant killed two years ago in Afghanistan, right at the tail end of his tour of duty] - that first comma should be a colon as far as punctuation goes.

Sorry it took so long for me to finish this.

[Hungry ghosts restless ghosts, looking to move in, to take her over] - the narration of this is rather odd. It doesn't really fit the voice of the rest of that segment, nor the previous chapters. Perhaps it was on purpose to punctuate it like that, maybe not. I'd rewrite it as [Hungry ghosts, restless ghosts; looking to move in...] in terms of grammer, but there's something else odd about that that I can't quite place. Something that makes it fall out of the narrative voice. It's a small thing, but when you're this far into the story, it's somewhat important.

[her eyes, her eyes.] - a fullstop doesn't seem like an appropiate end there. Something more dramatic, like a dash.

I really like the imagery of hair-cutting in this. There's something really powerful about it, something unconventional. The power of changing or recognising change from such a simple action...it reminds me of that episode of xxxHolic with the twins. Cutting her hair was the price for one of the twins to have her wish fulfilled.

And the link between then and now is more explicit here. I like that as well. The incorporation of childhood fears into adulthood life is a powerful tool, but one that is commonly overlooked and/or undermined, but you've made it a good focal point of this chapter, and nicely too. Particularly how you use that fear as a basis for highlighting relationships and giving us a little more on the characters' pasts.

I'd stay away from the werewolves and banks. Yeah, it is a little long, but it's my fault for leaving it on my browser for who knows how long. Maybe then I wouldn't be trying to read everything before Monday when uni starts again. Eurgh.

Ohana from the Review Marathon (link in profile)