Feels like the story is trying too hard

Omg hi again
I really liked this story; would you like to listen to my explanation and perhaps have a changed view on this?? (=・ω・=)

Absolutely, I'm up for it. I'd love to hear about the story further and hopefully get back into it.

I started this work bcz of a post on Reddit where it said the work was complex and was a good story bcz most people don't read it cause of the incest tag.

I could see that with the fmc but midway, i just feel like the story tries too hard to give everything to the fmc, where she's weak for one moment and then suddenly a strong willed but also mentally unstable type.

I was too w that cringe mb twin but basically I like it cus its a really good representation of vicious cycles but its not a fav enough to be added to my list lol anyways

I like it as I think the story is a very well made representation and warning fable of vicious cycles. We can see that through the cycle of abuse between annette and idris/john carrying on through lifetimes that destroys them both ultimately causing the end of their lives in the first lifetime. Another example of a cycle are the wish sarcophagi. They grant holders their wishes in twisted ways so that they either die or come back to amend their wish however as we see from annettes mum, none take back their wish but make more to benefit the one already made so they keep coming back til they die.

Expanding further from the cycle of abuse, it is also portrayed through annettes desires to return to a prison as thats all she's ever known and therefore comfortable in which links into why giovinetta ducommun keeps returning to xavier and even trying to resurrect him as his abuse is all shes known. To find this familiarity again she tries to get idris to step into that position because now shes lost the main thing that shaped her life, she's also lost her identity.

I think that to directly show the dissociation and loss of self the mc is experiencing the storyline gets very distorted and confusing for the reader to follow (that might js be my speculation lol) as we go along this story told from annettes perspective (we know shes the narrator as the whole story's told through her letters to kretschmann) the story first starts off very two dimensional with one plotline however as we progress, annette and john discover more context behind their identities the story quickly snowballs. As annette is the narrator, I believe that her recollection shows her deteriorating mental state as she jumps around into different characters such as the abuser, the victim and bystander as she also lost her identity, the tower she was trapped in. Thats why i think the story goes back to being simple and easy to follow once she returns to gustave and shuts herself in the tower as she returned to her oppressive surroundings and finds comfort again.

Sorry for the essay lolllll

I think your last paragraph makes sense, i haven't completed reading the story yet, I'm still at the part where it's her narrating the story so i think her being confused about her identity, as you said makes sense.

I think I'll continue reading, i think you made it a bit clear why i felt like it was just too much going on. Thank you for explaining, I'm gonna continue the story