Hey Surviva,

I'm about half way through part 1 of 3.

First things first, I'm enjoying it. Which is of more importance than anything else. It's also piqued my curiosity.

My plan is to read without thinking too much and just try to enjoy it as a piece of literature on my first read and then have a second read and try to think of something constructive to say.

But having never done this before I'm a little scared to give an opinion. I'm not sure if this is a fear of demonstrating my own inadequacies or if the fact that you've exposed yourself by stating your lofty hopes has left me feeling uncomfortable at playing judge.

Either way, I'm not looking for you to tell me that it's ok to comment regardless, but rather pointing out that I'm looking forward to someone else starting the discussion.

In spite of all the above, ie my intention not to comment on my first read and my uncomfortable fear and/or uncomfortableness, I'm about to comment about one thing that has jumped out at me several times. I'd like to preface my comment by pointing out that I'm currently taking diazepam which will of course excuse anything I say that makes me feel foolish at a later point in time.

Some of the footnotes seem unnecessary. I'm assuming the point of them is both humour and because you feel adding them directly to the relevant sentence would detract from it's lyricism. Often this works.

However in some cases adding it to the sentence would imo improve the lyrical flow.

Example: page 48.

Feeling as sure as I was going to feel....

Maybe that isn't the best example but as I said I hadn't planned on commenting yet and that was the first example I found where this may apply going backwards from my current point in the manuscript.

It's just a random thought I had and I figured I may as well get this thread started even if my opinion has little value and makes me feel foolish when I read it later.

So, what's your reasons for using the footnotes? Have I missed something important?