As a fellow indie author, I know how much negative feedback and less than a 5-star review can hurt someone's chances of doing well, so I will not be posting this review publically.

I am DNF-ing this book. The writing style as well as basic spelling, punctuation, and so many missing words make it nearly unreadable. I cannot connect with the characters, as they are written as if speaking from a script rather than from their hearts. They all talk about heavy topics like depression, anxiety, insecurity, etc. without emotion, without soul, as if it is a scientific textbook discussion, rather than the illustration of someone's incredible struggles. I was able to get through about 2/3 of this book before the dread of picking it back up kept me from reading anything at all.

It has potential, but then again, everything has potential. This story needed so much more before it should've been published, let alone put on Netgalley.

An enjoyable, interesting, and insightful short story about the everyday struggles of someone living with PTSD and depression.

I loved the different timeline narration, which can be read as a description of previous events as well as taking part in someone's flashbacks. Great concept.

I also very much like the educational side of it, especially when the therapist explains for the protagonist how brain chemistry works - in sort-of - laymen terms, but I have a degree in psychology myself (like the author does). I am not 100% convinced those layman's terms are as layman as the author thinks they are, but I can't step back from my own knowledge. So that is for a true lay(wo)man to judge more precisely. That said, I think it makes a great entry point for someone who would like to understand how the brain anatomy and chemistry side of things works, they only would need to look up certain terms to gain a full understanding. I also have no idea how interesting this might be for a reader with absolutely no background in brain anatomy and chemistry or if they might find it off putting; I like it when writing gets educational and even challenging. If that is your cup of tea or not ... you decide.

On some occasions the writing falls a bit short and feels unnaturally cut off - mainly when it comes to the dialogues - and gets rather simplified, due to the nature of a short story (and, perhaps, also due to the nature of the subject), plus the story could do with a bit more proofreading and editing (nothing major, but a few minor hiccups).

I think this would make a superb novella or even a full length novel.

Between 3 and 4 stars for me, due to the current technical state of it I am favouring the 3 stars over the 4 (on a more refined scale it would be between 3.25-3.5), although the story concept itself is absolutely 4 stars for me

#TheBoywithTwoHeads #NetGalley

Thank you to netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this novella. Although it is a short read and oftentimes rushed, I thourotly enjoyed the plot and concept