Drake's Thursday Reviews #7 · 11:15pm Feb 28th, 2019
As promised the week before last, time for some Everfree Northwest stories!
The events of Fame and Misfortune prompt AJ and Pinkie to find out if they're related, because they still wanna know.
This... eh. There's a lot of talking heads in this fic, which I wouldn't mind if the dialogue was funnier. And I don't mean that in "This is boring, where are the jokes", I mean that the topic of genetics just isn't funny. Occasionally we get a joke that works, like just seeing Pinkie ramble about recessive genetic traits, can be fun for an instance, but not a whole paragraph. Then this fic gets into the events of Perfect Pair for its climax, which is interesting but more than a bit contrived. Frankly the best part was finding out that Bright Mac and Pear Butter were distant cousins from an ancestor that had married into the Apples before them. Applejack really is southern isn't she? 
Recommendation: A neat bit of headcanon wrapped in a poor narrative.
The Drifting Chariot by WritingSpirit
At its core, this story is about a couple that is separated, for reasons that are eventually explained, and their daughter is trying to deal with it and understand why her family can't be a family, and her parents have no better explanation for her than "adult stuff". The emotions of that central plot are good, and you really feel for this OC little filly named Melody.
However, that emotional core of the story is bogged down by a lot of overly flowering prose that actually gets in the way of enjoying the story. This is especially true of the opening, where we have no context for things beyond "A filly and her mother walking in the woods" and several pages of narration describing what the forest looks like - narration that is ultimately meaningless.
In its final moments the story strips away pretenses and shifts its POV to the parents to directly address why they aren't together, and I could have done without that. I see in another comment the author says they wanted this story to come across as a fairy-tale type of story, but laying out the mysteries of the backstory in plain view like this totally ruin any immersion that styling could have provided.
Recommendation: A bit bumpy but overall not awful.
A Slice of (Cake) Life by Epic Yarn
This is just so damn perfect and adorable, a first-person POV story told entirely with the thoughts/words of Mrs. Cake as she handles the chaos of children. It flows perfectly, painting a scene without Mrs. Cake sounding like she's expositing or describing things directly, it really does seem like these are what she's saying and thinking. It's fun and heartwarming and intense and frantic and just very, very well-composed.
Recommendation: A perfect portrait of child-raising (not that I'd know)
Epic Yarn hasn't written a lot, but it's all great. ;D
Thank you so much for the glowing review. I’m so glad you enjoyed my story. :)
5021473
I’m totally blushing now. You’re too sweet. :)
5022741
You're too good! :)