Reviewer: Pedroca045 Signed
Date: September 30 2023
Title: Chapter 2: Chapter 1: The Beginning-4 Years Later
I read the whole story several times yesterday and I can say I'm loving it so far!
In this chapter, we got to see a bit of both Max and Lucy's school lives. They both dream of popularity, but in different ways: Max wants to perform a song in front of the whole school, but has trouble coming up with lyrics (I wonder if this will be important later wink wink 😉). As for Lucy... I'll get to her later.
Anyway, we also see both kids being bored in class and not having a good relationship with their teachers. This really exemplifies what you'll say later in the story, about younger siblings emulating their older siblings' behavior, even if unintentionally. As an older brother myself, it made me wonder if I was a good role model to my sister...
Which brings me neatly to my next point: the characters are extremely relatable! I've been on Max and Lucy's shoes in different moments of my life, so it's really interesting for me to look at this story from both sides: as the older brother and the kid who didn't want to grow up.
Jumping ahead to talk about their mom: she doesn't seem like a bad parent to me, just really focused on her job. At first I thought their parents had divorced or their father died, which would explain why Rebecca has to work a lot, but I'm glad this isn't the case. Still, Lucy's clearly been affected by this even if she doesn't want to admit it.
Now we get to Footstool: I love this dog! His interactions with Lucy were very cute, and it's nice to see her actually caring about a smaller creature.😅
As for Lucy's room, there's something there that caught my attention. You mentioned she has a huge painting of the Disney castle, so I was wondering: did she paint it herself? My headcanon is that Lucy has a secret talent, but hides it from others because she's afraid they'll find it "too childish". Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I think this would give more dimension to her.
Anyway, that's all I have to say for this chapter. I'll definitely be adding more reviews to this story, so I'll talk about other stuff later. Great chapter! Great story! Look forward to what the future holds for this characters.👍
Author's Response: Thanks for the in-depth review! Here's what I have to say.
Both Max and Lucy are essentially growing up and that's the main message I wanted to convey in this chapter when I gave an insight into their school lives.
As someone who grew up with 3 siblings, I can safely say siblings imitate each other a lot, especially younger ones 😅
Rebecca (the mother) has essentially transformed into the work-alcoholic mother who wants that extra cash so that was the main portrayal I wanted to show here.
Footstool will become interesting later on in the story. I am not sure if you are into giant animal content but yeah Footstool is going to be seen as somewhat of a threat as well. I decided to include a dog that Lucy loves because I didn't want her to become completely one-dimensional...
Lucy Disney's obsession is yeah by the age she is (11) has become childish to most of her peers. As for her secret talent well I guess we will have to wait and see...
Let me know what you think of her best friend's character when you get up to chapter 3, I won't spoil anything if you haven't read it 😅