I'm Really Sorry About That Thing I Said When I Was Tired and/or Hungry

This autobiography of Deirdra "Squinky" Kiai (tubaist, graphical adventure creator) is delightful and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I felt like Kiai's best friend having a conversation with someone I've known my whole life. There is generous interaction written with an open and honest modesty and assured voice that never made me feel uncomfortable like a poorly considered personal Twine can occasionally do. Kiai allows the reader to proceed without delving deeper into every twisty anecdote, so I look forward to a second read. Even if you don't hit every node, it's an enjoyable conversation.

This is a spectacular example of an experience not possible in non-interactive fiction. Extra difficulty points for an assured rare tick in the IF autobiography genre that doesn't see much action.

I could tell it was fantastic, and it kept getting better.

This is essentially an autobiography, with a fun element of interactivity in that you can control some of the details; ages, names, and relationships of (relatively) minor details can be changed by the reader until you've progressed out of a scene, which fixes them for future copy.

Essentially, this is a story of a self-described gender-queer person growing up between different cultures and customs. It is well-written, engaging, and provides a fresh perspective to interact from. The interactivity largely influences the emotional aspect of a scene, in ways that may or may not be significant; I kept feeling like I was having a really solid personal conversation with a close friend, where everything I said was something they'd already thought of, and we were just clarifying our discussion and our deep friendship.

Kiai has a real talent as an autobiographer in making their story personal and relatable. Although it is vastly different from my own experiences, I found myself seeing comparisons to my own life, and feel grateful to have read this story.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the formatting, which was done quite well. I narrowed my browser window to make it a bit easier to read it in a flow, but the type-size, typeface selection, and color scheme all worked together well to make the experience flow nicely.

The subject matter was presented in a way that wasn't off-putting either. The author is very skilled and should write a book.