Review: Not Who You Think by Breath-of-twilight

The Story: Not Who You Think

The Author: Breath-of-twilight

The Status: WIP

The Pairings: Bella/Edward

The Rating: M

The Summary: Maria is broken and lost and living a nightmare beyond your wildest imaginings. By day she lives the life she has been handed. By night she dreams of another life. One that is filled with haunting sounds and bright green eyes. A life just barely there, in the dark vestiges of her mind. But what do the dreams mean? Are they just her mind trying to conjure up something happy? Or is it something much more? Something Maria needs to remember to know the real truth?

The Review: As is usual with Breath-of-twilight's stories, they come with a warning. Very dark & twisted is the norm for this author, which is why I heart her stories hard. This one does not disappoint.

The story opens with our characters at the ages of 5 & 8. The writing style is perfect. She keeps the sentences short & simple. I truly feel like I'm hearing little Bella's thoughts. Little Alice cracks me up. Emmett is Bella's big brother & Edward is Alice's. Their moms are Renee and Esme respectively. The families are a close knit bunch. A tragic event occurs at the end of chapter one so make sure you've got your big girl panties on.

Flash forward to 15 years later (and back again later), so be sure to pay attention to the time lines that are highlighted. A large part of the transition is conveyed via written letters between the moms. The dates space farther and farther apart, as happens in long distance friendships. It's a great segue, keeping you up to date to the characters, yet showing the passage of time.

Quite a lot takes place in the first few chapters, yet you don't feel overwhelmed with information or that you're missing important details. It's all there. There are only 6 chapters thus far, so I can't tell you much about the story (and I don't want to ruin the plot) except to say it's incredible.

I'm not really sure how she does it all. She has written quite a number of really great stories and while they are all dark & twisty, they're all extremely different. Her RL cup is overflowing yet she manages to organize holiday collaborations, like this current one for Halloween. (This isn't her first by any means.) You get one story per day for the month of October, all by different authors. Her one-shot, Scared STIFF, which won in the FML contest, proves she can write humor too. Wow. This is starting to sound like a love letter to her. But, since she already knows how I feel about her, how about you dive into her library, pick a story...or two...or three...and show her some love too?