Although I have not had to deal with intense grief in my life yet, I do struggle with anxiety about death and losing my loved ones, and so this novel hit me like a murder of furious trucks on a highway.
It made me despair, cry, smile, hope - all at the same time - together with its characters. The way it weaves such extreme and often opposite emotions in a realistic fashion is its highlight, and could only have come from personal experience.
I extend my thanks to the creators for challenging this difficult, yet important, topic. This piece of art will definitely stay lodged in my brain for years. Awe inspiring.
Oh, and the yuri pairing (this is technically a yuri game, right?) is unfittingly, but welcomely cute.
Sidenote:
The focus here is on grief as experienced by a young adult. Obviously, people in other stages of life would be affected differently. The novel even hints at it with the mother character.
It is interesting to think what a story like this would look like if it dealt with, say, children - "Kindergarten Girls". Could "Retirement Home Girls" offer the same hopeful ending? I like to think that it could.
Technical(?) issue (version 1.1):
Why is there a noise in the background of "Scribbles" - the music played in the main menu? At first, I thought it was an audio glitch, but I checked the .ogg file, and it is present there too. Is this intentional? It sounds horrible...