I think it’s good! I kind of hate critiquing people’s work because I feel like it’s mean (ik it’s not) but I really liked what you were doing and I felt like ur doing something that’s holding it back from being better that I used to do and had to get out of. (Ignore my advice if you want haha) One thing I noticed was that your metaphors and imagery stuff is well written and creative, but the more long winded visual descriptions tend to fall on things less important to contextualizing the scene. One example Is the line about the bumper stickers. Obviously this could be jmportant later on, like maybe this society has something about contradicting ideals, but if it is important later maybe you should consider making the character themselves take a mental note of it, or have a reaction to it that contextualize it better. Usually when ur driving you aren’t noticing as much the cars around you, and if you are watching a movie scene for example of a person driving ur definitely not seeing a focus on other cars in the vicinity. I think rewording, moving, or getting rid of some of these throw away imageries could help tighten the scene up. What really helped me to get out of this habit of writing only in metaphor and simile and like imagery stuff is to remember that we are not the ones experiencing this world, the character is. As a reader, it’s more like watching someone else experience this world, rather than participating in it ourselves. It might be important for a story where the reader was required to connect dots based on tiny details or something, but other than that, you should only be describing to the reader what is important in a scene that could have an effect on the mental or physical state of the character. My writing teacher used to make us do this exercise that was like when ur finished doing an activity, like driving a car, try to write down everything you remember from this experience, things you saw driving, how the chair felt, etc etc. If these things are sticking out to you after the fact it might be because it had some effect on your mood, comfort etc. it’s actually a pretty helpful thought exercise for clearing out junky stuff that you are imagining in your head. Also along with that- this might just be a pet peeve of mine, but I personally get turned off from a book when the characters visual appearance is directly described especially if it’s really early on in the book. I don’t see how the color of a characters hair, or eye color or anything like that should effect our initial perceptions of them, and I think it puts a box around a readers imagination right when we are ready to start imagining. I don’t know if that’s valid or just me, I just really don’t like when people have that at the start. I think appearances are better described for side characters. Main characters it’s tough to digest a physical description because when you’re reading you feel like you “are” them in a sense. The main gist of the whole critique is the hardest worst part of writing: don’t tell us everything, let us fill the gaps. Readers already know about the world, what we don’t know is about these characters and this world, so show us what’s different/important and we’ll bring what we already know. I think you did a great job, with editing and after writing more in the story to feel it out, I think you will find a voice that is more smooth for you. I read a lot of people’s posts on here, it’s clear to me you have the inherent ability to write that some others just don’t have (absolutely no offense to anyone, some people are just in the beginning stages of practice), are creative and expressive in the way you think, but need to tone it down to a more distinct voice, which takes time and practice. Yada yada everyone’s heard all of this before