My Two First Loves: Final Thoughts (Spoilers Ahead)
Last night, I finally finished the 100-minichapter slog that is My Two First Loves. I have to confess that I had gotten as far as Chapter 90 and put it aside for awhile, and I only picked it up to finish it because of Choices' get-diamonds-for-spending-diamonds event. Hey, if I played the whole damn thing, I want all the diamonds I can get out of it!
I had tried to play the book when it was first released and gave it up somewhere during the winter carnival storyline. I just could not take any more of that MC. Her whining and waffling got on my nerves big-time, and it didn't help that the book felt like it was getting nowhere with the five-minutes-a-day format.
During this past winter, I decided to give it another go. Maybe, I thought, it will play better if I can do it a couple of chapters at a time instead of one a day, and if I can put it down for a couple of days and pick it up again, rather than feeling pressured to play one microchapter a day. (Gotta keep up with the fandom!) As it turned out, it did play better. It had less of a herky-jerky stop-and-start feel, especially on the days when I splurged two bucks for keys and played five chapters back-to-back. The MC was a bit less annoying when I could just walk away from the book for a few days.
Is the book the trainwreck the fandom says it is? Well, yes and no. Its primary problem is the wrong character is at the center of it. MC is literally the least interesting character in the book, and yes, I am even taking her sister into consideration. She really undergoes no growth. Once she resolves her conflict with her father and decides that she no longer wants to be a cheerleader - which occurs in the book's first arc - she spends the rest of her time being indecisive about her love life. Meanwhile, the people around her are going through some major changes. Mason is coping with the gradual realization that his father is a criminal. Noah is slowly freeing himself from his brother's manipulation and overcoming his past. Ava is struggling with her sexual identity and her education/career path. The chapters from their points of view were by far the most interesting - it was always a disappointment to get thrown back into MC's POV.
There were some interesting story points in there, too. The reveal of what happened when Noah broke into Mason's house, leading to the take-down-the-corrupt-principal storyline, could have made for a book in itself. It didn't need to be surrounded by all that romantic drama and waffling, and the stop-and-start nature of the storytelling didn't help with the development of ANY of those plot points. PB actually squandered some real potential there.
The book's other major problem was the awkwardness of Ava's storyline. I ended up choosing her in the end as a middle finger to PB about how she was handled. It's screamingly obvious that she was shoehorned in as a love interest only after the book was half-written, when PB started getting feedback from players who were furious (justly so) at the idea of a book with two male love interests and no female. She was underdeveloped compared to the two boys and she didn't fully become a love interest until the book was three-quarters finished (HOW many makeout sessions with the boys were we offered before we got even one kiss with her?)
So the book is pretty much a hot mess, all right, but it could have been better, and this is how I'd fix it:
Dump the microbook format. There is room for such a thing, yes - but not a teen drama. A microbook is probably best used as a comic strip in visual novel format, where every day is a complete little vignette. (And please, have it ad-sponsored for us non-VIPs so we don't have to waste a key on a five-minute chapter.)
There is no central MC. Noah, Mason and Ava are all equal weight MCs, and the book is told through their alternating POVs. Each character has one offered love interest, the player has the choice of romancing the love interest or remaining single and just having the love interest as a friend. Miss Whiny Waffle is nowhere to be found, or at least is transformed into a more tolerable love interest character whose arc focuses on whether she really wants to stay in cheerleading.
The plot is primarily focused on the gradual reveal of the break-in at Mason's house, followed by the corrupt principal storyline. It plays out as more of a mystery than a romance. The title is changed to something like "The Secrets We Keep" to emphasize the plot direction.
I actually don't regret that I played this book. I did get to like the three love interests - Mason, especially, grew on me once I saw there was more to him than Jock Golden Boy. Noah . . . well, I liked him so much that I decided he deserves better than MC. It's just a shame that they were given such a bad MC to collectively romance.
By the way, my post-book headcanon? MC ended up meeting two or three people she liked in college, finally had the grand awakening that she is polyamorous by nature, and broke up with Ava, since Ava wanted a total commitment. MC eventually formed a polycule with two men and a woman. Mason met a female student at the Naval Academy, Ava met the single mother of one of her students, they all fell in love and lived happily ever after. As for Noah, my Ride or Die MC ended up transferring into his university. She saw in him someone who reminded her of Logan, without his baggage. He saw in her someone who reminded him of MTFL MC, just more stable. It's a match made in heaven.
