Hey guys, can I get some critique. I am working full time and also trying to write a book. I will post 3 sections...

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I will post the author's preface---I am writing under a pen name with a "persona". Mind you, I do not necessarily agree with all of the things that my pen name's persona is writing here. But I think it is important to read this, and actually yes---you are spot on about this book having 12 year olds or high schoolers as its target audience. I think this should be required reading in middle schools across America.

The goal in my book is to have people be able to think "two thoughts at once, three thoughts at once, etc". You see, I am a HIGHLY optimistic person, and yet I am drawn to dreadfully bleak, depressing stories. I can't communicate it, but part of the reason I stay so optimistic while being full of ideas of depressing, dreary stories it hat I think multiple thoughts simultaneously, parallel to one another, and I think by the end of my book and keeping the preface in mind, one can master this.

Part 2 of the preface. That is all. Any comments would be appreciated.

Why? It’s not good. Sorry, but the cynicism is cliche. It doesn’t feel honest. It doesn’t feel like you looked at the world of high school with a measured eye. Instead, it feels regurgitated. The writing feels fake, and shallow.

To me it feels very forced, It starts with bold statements on the uselessness of the school system and states everything from a very annoying point of authority. "They know they have a bright future ... they got stickers ... The idea of being... what exactly?"
Who's saying this? To me it's not sure and it looks like these are the notes you have for writing your actual story. It reminds me a lot of the way I used to write until I realized my story was a clipboard of loose preachy notes and rapid unrealistic developments of non-existing plot. Describe, don't tell. Fuck, bud, you could make a proper thirty page short story on the importance of a sticker at school, you could also make it something a child gives a quick glance to as a small student walks by, his little brother, an old trophy he won, how he'd have little competitions about who got the most stickers with his friend and how this lead to some sabotage shenanigans or maybe real motivation for good behaviour that he tried for a long time but can't quite seem to capture anymore nowadays, whatever.

A text like this doesn't make me want to read on, simply because it's the equivalent of someone walking up to you and starting:
"The school system sucks! Stickers! what the fuck do they mean, EH!?"
Whereas I definitely agree there are things wrong with your/our school systems, and even though I don't know your opinion, I might even already agree with you, but I'm a lot less receptive of dogma when it's being presented as cynical, not necessarily interesting, literature.

If your plan was "But that really shines through later in the novel", people need the motivation to get there.

Write your story, mate. It's also written for you to look back on later. So regardless of what we say, if you quit you'll never get better at something you clearly want to do. If you continue the worst that can happen is that you stop liking it at which point that's just life and you can find something else that you might like doing. No need to get discouraged.

Man, don’t get caught up in the over-engineering-of-writing meme. There’s the taxonomy of writing (genre, analysis, etc) and there’s the creation of writing. The latter should come from the heart; it should come honestly and truly. I don’t want to read your propaganda.

If the cynical school thing bothers you, skip past that and go to the car crash or Jared, what do you think of those parts? I admit, I knew that part in particular needed some work.

vocaroo.com/i/s0IFAttShATM
narrated a bit for funsies

disgusting melodramatic hook

i absolutely see what you're trying to say, and i even agree fully with the message... but to say it so on the nose, so hamfisted, completely turns me off

SHOW don't TELL

Okay, everyone ITT has given criticism of the first page, which I understand is the weakest and needs a lot of work, but did you read any of the rest of it?

if your first page sucks, why do you assume people are going to read the rest?

point me to the post with car crash and i'll check it out

Starts with this post below. This was originally going to be the opening, going to completely rework (or take out) the "stickers" part.

"Do you really want to be forever young"
"KILL KILL DESTROY"
If they were actual songs, you could've picked something that says the same but with less THIS IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY, like a lyric celebrating life or whatever tone you want for your book. Now I just think of "forever young" by whoever wrote that song, you know which one I mean. (was Jay-z on there? I can vaguely recall his voice but then he's appeared on plenty superfluous records in recent years.) But I'm digressing. I'm genuinely not trying to be a cunt btw, just trying to explain why it doesn't captivate me, none of this critique goes beyond the words you wrote down.

Back to the sounds:
If it's the sounds that the cars make (KILL KILL DESTROY), make that exciting. I already know exactly what the car is doing now, and whether the radio or the car is making heavy metal noises doesn't matter because I already know they're going to crash. I've known this for five paragraphs now. The fuck do I care where the noise comes from if the radio option isn't funny or interesting and the car option says nothing but needlessly extends a moment of suspense that has been over for a long time?

I like your ideas, and I think a lot of people get discouraged or scared of judgement based on their core beliefs/ideas/thoughts/feelings (at least I do), it's really not that though, I see nothing wrong with what you want to write about, I just don't like how you're telling the story at this point in time, because, and I'll make an unwarranted leap in judgement here:
You feel you have a lot to tell people, a lot to contribute, a lot to say. And people really need to be pressed on the facts. Which leads to one sentence stocky statements about topics that are too huge to properly critique in an entire book. I want to live your character's life, or be able to accept his thoughts as that of a new "friend" or life compagnon, whatever you want to call it. Everybody thinks and feels things, and writing that down doesn't make you a novelist, you have to lull me into thoughts, as portrayed through the characters.

Bit of a long post and it's early so forgive me if it's callous or just silly.
That's all I got for you now, mate. Keep writing.

honestly i'm not your audience at all, this aimed at young adults i assume? i have no idea how to judge it based off that since i've never read a YA novel in my life... for all I know the stickers hook may speak with gen x

for me, i'd rather see billy's broken home, see him steal one of his dad's bottles of hard liqueur and go for a joy ride

i'd like to see the girls comfortable life, their complete lack of awareness for the suffering going on around them, or the kids at school

and then i might care... i'm not big on prose, i'm more into story and characters, motivations... give me something to care about!

but overall, i'd say you have potential and to absolutely keep writing... again writing is so varied and market so wide, there's no definitive way to do it, maybe you know who you're writing for, but it ain't me

I feel like you're trying to sound more clever than you are. Yeah, we know what cars are. No, cars aren't "launched". Yes, it's absurd that we drive these heavy things pretty fast without much thought, but damn, you're not having the thought of the century here.

The personification of the car/highway doesn't work for me. The demarcation lines on a road aren't "lines of love", because that doesn't make sense. I'm not saying you can't use metaphor, but the metaphor literally doesn't fit. They're lines SEPARATING the cars. If anything, they're a boundary to love. The foreshadowing doesn't work for me either.

I feel like you just wanted to write something that sounds clever. Every sentence is some spin on usual description. You can't seem to just write, "Three teenagers flew down the highway in a flimsy VW Beetle." It's all purple man, the prose is purple as hell.