Wednesday

A long and heavy read, but I did enjoy it. You managed to clock it in at exactly 4,000 words, well done. I like most of the visual imagry you bring to the story and kudos for choosing the name, Maddox, for your character, if only because of of my submitted stories involves a character named Maddox.
I feel you could tighten the story up a bit. Making it more concise will make it more engaging. Also, and this is just me being an ass and not to be taken too seriously, I would like to read a story on here that doesn't involve androids. It's a ubiquitous theme here and many other raters seem to be blasting non-android stories. Oh well.
Read my 2 stories if you like and send me some feedback, please.

(Beware - big spoilers)

Another story that promises more than it delivers (I seem to be saying that about most of them, though, so don't be disheartened). On the whole, I like the idea of an "X" series android protecting a human child from abusive father and human-android war. I just wanted to believe it more, see the action rather than backstory, and feel the world was more real.

You use a lot of description words but I don't feel their effect. Sometimes less is more with these things.

I had several possible mis-readings of the opening paragraph, but that's probably just me. However, the song is presumably on "repeat", not "replay" and her head does not turn by itself.

Why refuse to name your viewpoint character until page two? It doesn't achieve anything. In fact it misleads the reader and wastes an opportunity to intrigue. This is (mostly) a non-human point-of-view story - grab me with that hook, don't waste it!

I'm not sure Wing would address the android as "woman".

The viewpoint shifts into Wing's head and back out quite suddenly, and only so that you can put in an infodump backstory. There are more of these infodumps - apparently to provide the reader with the correct perspective to build our emotional response. It would be far better to show and let the reader decide. I began to feel the main narrative was quite separate from the world the infodumps tried to construct.

There are places where Maddox has human thoughts - even phrases like "if she were human" cropping up. That feels like an author remembering after the event that the character is supposed to be an android. It's difficult writing non-humans well. It's especially difficult writing them as the viewpoint.

I get the feeling you're trying to hint at some significance to Maddox, some world-wide uber-plot that hangs around her, but I see no sign of it materialising.

Hi Aly!

First off, kudos for pulling together a story of this length. I personally find it very difficult, so, I want to congratulate you on that. I think the story has potential to have a really deep resonance, especially given the theme of abuse, and the android protecting the child. Though, admittedly, I had trouble connecting emotionally with the characters--I think if you showed more (as opposed to telling, as Rob said) I think we could connect more deeply with them, and feel for them.

Also, I was confused by not knowing the character's name until further into the story. When you did introduce Maddox, I wasn't sure if it was the android or not. 

The POV switch to Wing was confusing too. I think I just wanted to stay in the android's head and observe the situation more, and give the reader a chance to develop a connection. 

Keep going! It often takes me 10-11 drafts to get a story right, and I think your idea is worth it. :)

-g

Very nice story. I liked the basic idea of it. It explores some interesting questions. While I liked the idea of seeing the situation from the android's POV, it bogged down the story at times. Too much information just being presented. I think the whole story would benefit from being tightened up a bit, with some of the wordiness eliminated. I think a little more movement in the story would be good. 

A couple of mechanics things I noticed:

Page 4, where Wing finds Maddox in the dumpster, you say "an android’s body, to be exact and despite his instincts tell him to leave it alone, his curiosity won." Should that be telling?

And the last page: "He clings to his meaningless exists and simply survives each day instead of living." Did you mean existance?

I liked this story, it has a lot of promise, I think, like a few other posters here, that more action and less telling would do this story ALOT of good. Its a sad tale and I like the character of the android so why not keep all the perspectives in her head rather than switching around. She can give the same information and then its not so jarring to go from her to the father - who you very clearly paint as a louse of a father. Your voice is very clear here and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. Nice job and keep writing, this has the potential to be a really stunning piece I think.

I would suggest going back and re-reading parts, there are a few wording/spelling errors that made things confusing (a couple are pointed out in the review above) so another editing pass would be good. 

Nice job and good luck!

I love that last line!  There's so much tied up in that one statement, so many possibilities for what could happen next.  You've done an excellent job of putting your reader into the Wing household and showing just what kind of people live there.  Just out of curiosity are you a Jack White fan?  If so, you might want to go with sixteen saltines rather than fifteen.  I had to stop and think about that for a moment when I read it just to be sure how many crackers where in the song.

As far as  things that tripped me up, the only thing that caught me as one word choice issue.  You used exists where you should have used existence on page 10 in the sentence that starts with: "He clings to his meaningless exists and simply ..."  There might have been a similar issue but I was reading on my phone and didn't have a way to take note of it.  Either way, another read through would probably catch most similar mistakes.

Excellent work!