Let's Talk About . . . October Picks!

Love Me To The Bitter End Midnight Blue
Chasing the Bad Girl by Melissa LaVone @MelissaLavone
Learning Control by Bethany Woods @BethanyWoods
Unexpected Truth by Ashley Elizabeth
LOBITA by Rude Inception @RudeInception
Saving Grace by isla

Have you read any of these, if so which is your favorite? Do you think any of these don’t fit the shelf theme? Does the summary misrepresent the story? How about the cover?

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So I’ve read, Love me to the bitter end- but her INK version really really really long time ago. She also changed her author name.

Anywho, I did stop after episode three because it’s not my type of story. But if you like Bad Boy stories, this is going to be an excellent story for you. I recall really cool hand overlays, and three love interests. Since there is no theme, I’d say this does fit the shelf. Yes, the summary is accurate. The covers are new, and they are very pretty- and I guess they represent the story? It’s been so long I really don’t quite remember.

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I read and nominated Chasing The Bad Girl!

I LOVE IT SO MUCH IT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORIES EVER :sob::heart::heart::heart:
She updates fast and the plot and directing are great

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I haven’t read any of the stories yet but I just wanted to comment that out of the six stories on the shelf, three had less than 10k reads when I looked this morning (and one even had <1k!).

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I only read LOBITA so far and I have to say:

FINALLY!!!

@RudeInception is extremely talented and she deserves it!

The story itself it’s engaging and different!

Breezy (MC) is definitely a strong woman character!

This story also featuring Hispanic Traditions, I saw a preview for a scene in the next episode and it’s mindblowing! :heart_eyes:

It’s 5 episodes long so far but I can’t wait for more!

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I read Saving Grace before it was featured :blush:
It definitely deserves to be up there, because the story is LGBTQ+, includes lots of diversity, beautiful & heartbraking narration and was extremely underrated for a long time!

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Congratulations to @RudeInception on getting featured! LOBITA is an amazing story. I’m glad that they featured her since she’s one of the few users that keep the directing category safe and calm. It was time that they gave her what she deserves :kissing:

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EEEK, thank you for supporting my story, CTBG. I am beyond grateful.

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LOBITA

I’m really happy to see RudeInception on this shelf to start off with. She’s been helpful to the community, so it’s nice to see her story featured.
I read maybe about half of the first episode before the shelf, but it was late at night and I was sleepy and there was too much information for me to retain that I got worried and left it in my favourites shelf until I was prepared to actually focus on details… Turns out it’s really only that first episode where you really have to be focused, the rest was easy enough for me to follow late at night while being semi-sleepy.
Jazz is easily my favourite character.
And I think the way gangs are represented in this is probably one of the most accurate portrayals on Episode (like seriously, gangs have jackets! And Rude’s pulled it off! Take notes, people)

Learning Control

This seemed really interesting when I read the description and I quite enjoyed the first few episodes. I ended up reading all 9 published episodes, it was a pretty easy read. The premise is that MC has anger issues and lost it so her parents send her and her brother to live withe a family friend in America so she can go to therapy and learn who to deal with her anger. I think the summary and cover are both misleading in their own ways though. After the first few episodes, the whole anger-therapy thing sort of takes a back burner, hence why I think the summary is misleading. Whereas the cover is MC and LI, which I feel doesn’t represent the first few episodes, but does represent the last few. I guess in the summary and cover sort of compliment each other because it shows both sides of the story Anywho, despite a lot of unrealistic senarios that had been thrown into the mix, I found this one pretty good and would probably recommend to anyone who wants a easy read.

Saving Grace

Aww, this one was sad… Nicely directed and narrated, but sad… I won’t continue it only because sad :disappointed_relieved:
I do think it would be a good read for people who like tear jerkers. It was also good to see an LGBT+ story on the shelf. Though, from the FAQ, I’m assuming that the author’s already gotten complaints about that. SIGH!

Chasing the Bad Girl

This one didn’t really pick my interest from the first episode, but I’d recommend it to people who like action (I’m pretty sure there’s romance too, but later on) with a female lead, I got the feeling there’s also a bit of a mystery to figure out too, and to anyone that likes long episodes. Episode 1 felt pretty long to me, so I don’t think you’d be wasting passes on this one, so to speak.
Summary - didn’t really represent what I read, but it probably is more accurate to the majority of the story, considering I only read one out of 13

Love Me To The Bitter End
  • I really liked the opening scene to this, I think mostly because it had to have been an overlay or custom background, but it didn’t look overly edited. If anything, it looked like the author must have had access to exclusive clothing/props. Haha. Story line didn’t really grab me, so I probably won’t stick with this one.
    Summary- I don’t think it gives away much detail, but I do think it’s the kind of summary that lets you know what kind of story it will be.
Unexpected Truth

The summary for this one was pretty vague, so… I don’t know if I’d say it was misleading, just that there wasn’t enough. I liked the way the author introduced the characters… Most of the first episode was hinting that MC had a secret, which I believe was revealed at the end of episode one (and was like… a little sad, but not as sad as the other story on the shelf), but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s another secret MC is hiding from everyone (including the reader) too.

Interesting Facts
  • Only one of these stories was in LL, but even the one in LL has an INK version available.
  • 3 stories were dramas, 3 were romance… <-- I am surprised. I know we just had the thriller contest, but I still thought there’d be some horror stories up there since it was the October picks (not sure I can say this means they don’t fit the shelf though, since there’s not really a theme for the editor’s picks anyway)
  • As mentioned already on this thread, three stories started with less than 10k reads (which has basically become the unofficial cap on whether you can call yourself a “small” author.)
  • EVERY story on the shelf had an author’s note in the first episode.
  • I could be wrong with this next one, but I’m pretty sure none of the stories had choices that significantly mattered… Or many choices at all for that matter either. There were a couple that may have altered a scene or two, but I didn’t feel like any choices I came across were all that crucial (but I could be wrong with the ones I only read the first episode for).
    Fun fact: I’ve actually noticed this has become a bit of a growing trend on the shelves - a lot more stories are getting featured that have little to no-choices available.
  • If you hold your phone at arms length while staring at the shelf 4 out of the 6 small covers look identical. Lol. …Same poses, I’m meaning of course. They don’t look exactly the same.
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@Sydney_H, this shelf is now down. You can close this thread.

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Topic closed by OP request. :wink: