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Some time ago I read this story, and I was hesitant to do the review for interpersonal reasons based on the reaction she had to me reading the story, and my initial inline comments, to begin with. To explain further, when you look at the events transpiring immediately after my reviews, it makes the review process look damaging. Yet I have been assured its not, so I've considered whether or not to do it.
TLDR; The original story has a mystery/angst phase followed by a drama/angst phase. It is very difficult to pinpoint the kind of story it is, but it seems to center around healing from trauma and hard-core drama. We are talking sitcom "You slept with my boyfriend now I kill you, but I actually won't because your mother's cousin twice remove was abusive" level of drama.
Main Characters: Mixed bag - First of all, it is hard to tell who is the main character and who isn't. The prologue presents one person as the MC, then the first few chapters present a different MC, then the chapters after that have a third MC, and you jump around a lot. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes a problem when the quality of the MC varies drastically. The female MCs are excellent, characterized well, pure drama and emotion wrapped up in angst and are paced well and make sense 90% of the time. The male MCs never make sense. Their motivations, dreams, flaws, personalities, and just basic character are attempted to be brought to the fore at the start, but are immediately brought into drastic contradiction of themselves as the first event occurs where everything you were presented before is thrown out the window and you are left with shadows of characters that can barely think, function, or have any idea what they want or what they are doing, and this plays a role into making their part of the plot very shallow.
Side Characters: As good as the MCs they interact with, for good and bad - The brother, girlfriend/sister, and barkeeper so far as I can tell are the only reoccuring Side Characters. They are excellent. They grow, they have depth, they have character, and the jerk you dislike in one chapter grows into a really cool guy later, and this is awesome. Random friends of a male MC encountered for a single scene as they are somewhat shallow and exist for a single moment are the exception. Single-scene characters aren't expected to have depth of their own, but to allow depth of the reoccuring characters, and they fail at this, not of their own merit, but because of the failure of the Male MC presented to resonate with them, at all.
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