Angie leaning out of her booth to keep her nose in it.” —> Not sure I understand this!

“dripping in neon apparel and in return the bar would drown them in neon lights “—> Like the watery description

“the mode average “ —> felt a little clinical for the conversational tone. “Typical” or just “Average” would probably do.

“Vibes” twice in two sentences

“I’ve never seen this personally, but if you caught her in the latter, you’d better not interrupt her.” —> Insert anectdote about how she kicked someone out who hit on her when she was working etc.

Confused about who was where when oscar was speaking to Jireh at the bar

“‘Jireh, I get that this is hard and my goodness, those years were brutal!’ Angie came round to give Angie a bear hug, lifting him off the floor. She softly spoke to him, as a mother would to her favourite son who had just lost his favourite Stone Cold Steve Austin championship belt. . ‘You built something amazing, and myself Oscar, all of us are so grateful.’

‘Thanks Angie, it’s just hard finding my way…’

• Angie then let go of him and spoke to him like mum would to her bratty toddler who had poured milk over his sister’s Lego dungeon. ‘But for fucks sake Jireh, grow some ovaries. Your life would not be what it was without them, so are you going to sit and drink, or are we just bitching?” —> “*Could consolidate and make it clearer)

Liked the break in the scene to introduce the Choose your own adventure book, although was a little Jarring transitioning. Just one line to say segue at the start of the paragraph would be enough! Similarly Jumping AGAIN to talk about the football club feels like 3 different intros for the reader. Might be better to swap the 2nd Half of the Oscar talk with the Club talk or move the club talk later on and keep the personal bits

bffffggg

“it was too late to back track to a previous path” —> LOVE this.

“ Hansel and Gretel needed crumbs bring them back home. And Theseus needed the red thread to get them out of the maze” —> Liked this alot! Although I might suggest rephrasing it.

“clapped for the festive decorations and the joy emanating from the crowd was barely palpable. An experience only matched by a midday bath at the perfect temperature. “ —> Chuckle

Narrator Jireh is quite mean about himself / condesending (not bad thing)

Slow the conflict down between Oscar and Jireh —> let it build a little more “Jireh should probably give oscar the benefit of the doubt”

“Why do we just keep going around in these circles? I’d argue that’s what you’ve done. I can’t just leave the people behind. That was something we built, that’s not an easy thing to just move on from.” —> Love this counter.

“Everything that needs to be said today has been said. Everything else that needs to be said would have to wait.” —> Love that

Still struggled with the dialogue —> Need more names associated.

Love the closing couple paragraphs —> but thought the game book metaphor and film roll metaphor could be clarified.