Jun 19, 2022
I love your cover and title, I could easily see it being adapted as an anime or manga with that.
Overall the feeling and vibe you're going for is great. It's very oriented toward dialogue which works for this almost like 4-koma, slice of life style narrative.
There are some things that I will say make it a little awkward to read; most of which are situated around the dialogue. There is little consistency in how the dialogue is displayed. Sometimes it has its own line completely to itself, sometimes it's shoehorned into a paragraph of action, sometimes it's preceded by a colon ":". Having a consistent style on how the dialogue is displayed will enhance the reading experience dramatically. Also, I would personally be rid of all the colons in this piece altogether.
Related to that is the "she said this way" or "she said with this face" type dialogue separation done here. After a while it becomes a little monotonous, it would be much nicer if we were able to know these characters or what they would be saying to an extent within the framework of the scene to be able to be rid of these for the most part. Although that is just a personal gripe, sometimes it is done, but it makes the times where it isn't more obvious. The adverb used after "said" like "self-deprecatingly" or "passionately" could use a little more emphasis. Show me how it appeared that it was self-deprecating or what about her demeanour or speech makes me feel that they are speaking passionately.
A final thing I'll touch on is some grammar issues; most circulate around either a lack of punctuation like a comma or a full stop before or after dialogue, then others are a lack of capitalization after a full stop. Both of these issues happen again around the dialogue, but keeping that looking great is important with such a dialogue-heavy piece.
Overall, I know this may sound harsh - I really don't want it to be, I don't usually comment like this but I actually really love what you have going on here. You have a colourful cast of characters, a good setup, I love how you're tackling the more slice-of-lifey angle in novel form - I've never seen it done this way.
So I'm hoping that maybe my feedback helps in any way because I'm rooting for you!
