My general thoughts:
The strength of the characters is what keeps me interested. There are no real 'filler' characters. There's a depth to all the personalities we've been introduced to, which makes me want to play all the paths. I'm sure a manwhore path with have interesting problems, but a monk path will as well. It's those details that really help this hit home for me - even if I'm not interested in a particular LI, I
want to see what happens on their path, because their characters are so convincing to me, as well as each of them reflecting a different part
of the extended trauma around Ella. I'm still trying to work out how Hailey fits in with that, I guess that'll be more apparent in the next chapter. My pet theory is her dad might be the disgraced orphanage caretaker. Fanciful maybe? But I'm curious anyway.
THe other thing I love is the coffee cup. Not just because I drink so much coffee, but because there's those moments of the story where words are not needed, and the coffe cup is a great symbol for all those moments. A big strength of the stroy is the levels of inference, that we're required to make the connections from what we've seen, that the different paths are actually quite entwined, everyone is connected by low degrees of separation.
Regarding the LI's, Hailey's mixture of naivety and drive is adorable. I'm most interested in
finding out what degree of separatiion her trauma has from Ella's as I mentioned. Sarah's already a comfortable fit, she just manages to sneak in for the hug, like it's the most natural thing in the world, and bam! it's on. I'm most interested in seeing
what happens when the MC and she realise how they're connected by the hospital. Lisa's path I think will be very interesting, because her mother
has interests that affect Hailey's work on the project, and there's hints she knows who the MC's father is, which we're seeing a decent amount of foreshadowing about. Lisa in some ways was the least interesting to me initially, but this chapter really warmed me up to her. In some ways, she's a lot like the MC, and as she's a similar age, I suspect their interactions will be quite different to Hailey's infatuation, with her letting her guard down more and more.
And the end scene of the chapter, well.
