Thank you a lot for the comment dayfly! It means the world to me to receive this kind of thoughtful feedback.
You mentioned tons of things there! I really like that it made you think this much, that was the idea in a sense. To think and question while having a good time, that's all I ever wanted out of this and knowing it did for you is great. Especially if at the end it left you with some sense of loss, but still hopeful (for a reason hope is the final message of the game!).
The beginning being lacking is something that I thought about. The idea was to make a huge contrast of it with the rest of the story to make clear it is a different story and narrator, but I think I could have handled it differently. Probably my biggest mistake of the book now in retrospective, but as you say it also filters out people which was probably for the best on the long term.
Anyway thanks a lot, listening to your ideas was great. Let me know if you ever give it a second run :)