All six files read. Here is the critique.

```text
VERDICT: REVISE BEFORE CHAPTER CARDS

FINDINGS

1. blocking — Ten characters, one joke engine: the voice cards are epigram generators
   evidence: June: "That's a chair making several bad decisions." Ruth: "That sentence is
   doing unpaid labor." Odile: "You are painting an excuse with elbows." Luis: "That easel
   wants a shim, not sympathy." Sam: "That was a locked door with better grammar."
   (style_and_voice.md:33, 314, 126, 202, 354). Same engine every time: object personified +
   dry diagnosis. Theo's card bans "polished aphorisms about care" (style_and_voice.md:100)
   while his exemplar IS one: "I kept choosing the version of honesty that made less work for
   me." Sam's card bans "aphoristic teacher speeches" (372) two columns from "Labels are for
   folders until they are for safety." The spec binds Emily Henry at 60% banter density
   (master_spec.md:26); these exemplars are 100%, cohort included.
   why it matters to reader pressure: chapter cards will be drafted from these exemplars, and
   the drafter will match their density. Result: a book where the retired signal maintainer,
   the physical therapist, and the copyeditor are all undefeated at wit. The reading guide's
   own rule — Odile "gets the best lines and the fewest" (READING_GUIDE.md:23) — is
   mathematically impossible when Mara's purse "has weather systems." And blind-POV fails at
   the source: June/Ruth/Odile/Luis are one voice (dry-exact-diagnostic), Theo/Ben are
   another (logistics + self-mockery).
   revision order: per card, replace all but 1-2 quotable lines with modal, functional,
   unquotable dialogue — the line the character says when nothing is being performed. Give
   June two lines that are plain to the point of flat (her card already licenses this at
   style_and_voice.md:52; the exemplars ignore it). Cut the explaining clause from Theo's
   confession-adjacent line: "Do you want coffee, or do you want me to stop being the person
   who guesses?" — everything after the comma narrates the device the book spent 23 chapters
   building. Reserve epigram license to Odile, plus Ruth capped at one per appearance.
   acceptance test: strip attribution from all example lines across all ten cards and shuffle;
   a cold reader must re-sort ≥80% correctly. Count quotable lines per card: Odile's density
   must exceed everyone else's.

2. blocking — The rupture's stated injury contradicts what June already knows
   evidence: premise.md:47: "June believes he is a stranger as roped-in as she was — that they
   are equally exposed." But skeleton.md:39 has Ruth misreading the lie as "Theo, the gallery
   manager, dating into his boss's final class" — so the whole class knows Theo works for
   Odile. June met him managing the opening (skeleton ch 01) and borrows Odile catalogs from
   him for wall labels (ch 14). She has known since night one that he is the teacher's
   employee with standing she lacks.
   why it matters to reader pressure: the rupture is the book's load-bearing wall, and its
   stated logic — "she alone risked humiliation while he had a safety net" (premise.md:58) —
   is half-known to June before chapter 17. If the discovery only confirms a known asymmetry
   plus a surname, the break reads as overreaction and the seven-chapter repair corridor
   collapses under it. The injury must be re-anchored on what kinship alone changes: an
   employee cornered by a formidable boss is a sympathetic co-conspirator; a nephew could
   have ended it on day one at zero cost, which means his mortified ask in chapter 2 was
   itself staged, which means she may have been material in family theater.
   revision order: write one paragraph stating exactly what June believes about Theo's
   relationship to Odile from ch 01 forward, consistent with the opening, the diner, and the
   catalog loan. Rewrite ch 17's function line so the break names only what that paragraph
   does not contain. Theo's ch 02 ask should explicitly lean on the employee cover ("I can't
   embarrass my boss at her own opening") so the reader later feels the lie inside the truth.
   acceptance test: the ch 17 chapter card can state June's grievance in one sentence that
   would be false on day one knowledge alone and true only after the acknowledgment page.

3. high — June's story goes static at chapter 18 and waits six chapters for Theo
   evidence: ch 18 "she declines Philadelphia for herself"; ch 20 "June names what she wants
   from art and New York"; ch 22 "she chooses the possibility of staying before receiving
   Theo's apology" (skeleton.md:82-86). Confession is ch 24. Three chapters re-make one
   decision that is functionally complete by ch 18.
   why it matters to reader pressure: yearning requires an open question. June's closes five
   days after the rupture; the reader then sits through ~15,000 words of vocational
   reaffirmation waiting for the diner booth. Worse, declining a genuinely good offer DAYS
   after her New York life detonates — when flight is most attractive — is the safeguard
   visibly overriding psychology. The earned-stay armor is protesting too much, and
   sophisticated romance readers smell thesis protection.
   revision order: keep the decline-before-confession ordering (it is the right safeguard) but
   move the decline from ch 18 to ch 22. Ch 18 becomes pure rupture (scarf, boxes, dodged
   group chat); ch 20 keeps Ruth/Sam care and the naming; ch 22 carries the decline, citing
   June's own ch 15 insight (Philadelphia repeats the art-adjacent trap) rather than anything
   about Theo. Then give June live, unresolved wanting in the corridor — missing the cohort
   as scene, not summary; painting toward the joint piece alone.
   acceptance test: between ch 17 and ch 24, exactly one chapter has the stay/leave decision
   as its primary function, and every June chapter in the corridor contains at least one
   unresolved desire beat.

4. high — Staying in New York is chronologically safeguarded but materially unfunded
   evidence: canon: lease ends mid-December (premise.md:85). Philadelphia offers "keys, a
   paycheck, and a wall you don't have to ask permission to use" (style_and_voice.md:391).
   New York, per the map, offers: ch 20 "names what she wants," ch 28 "city/art chosen for
   herself." Nothing in 28 chapters answers where June lives, paints, or earns in January.
   why it matters to reader pressure: the reader does the math. If staying = no apartment +
   no studio + Theo and his adopted social circle, the ending reads as staying-for-a-
   boyfriend no matter how early she declined the offer — the exact failure the reading
   guide's earned-stay test names (READING_GUIDE.md:86). Decline ordering is a chronological
   safeguard; the test is material.
   revision order: plant and pay off a concrete New York scaffolding that June acquires
   through her own competence — her install/fabrication network yielding a studio share or
   sublet, seeded in ch 09 or 15, landed by ch 26. It must not come through Theo or Odile's
   gallery, or the Odile-knew reveal retroactively makes her whole stayed life a thing Odile
   arranged.
   acceptance test: by ch 28 a reader can answer "where does June live and paint in January,
   and what pays for it" without naming Theo or Odile.

5. high — June's POV is severed from every intimate assignment
   evidence: chapter map (skeleton.md:64-92): June focalizes Weeks 1-3 (ch 03, 05, 07); Theo
   focalizes Weeks 4, 5, 6, 7, and the showcase (ch 10, 12, 16, 19, 27). After Week 3, the
   painter protagonist never focalizes a Tuesday again.
   why it matters to reader pressure: June's entire desire channel, per her own card, is
   painterly attention — and the architecture removes her eye from precisely the assignments
   where attention becomes desire: hands, memory, fear. The reader never watches June paint
   Theo from inside her head after ch 07. The "most dangerous Tuesday" (Week 6, premise.md:71)
   happens entirely outside the POV of the lead it most exposes. Her half of the attraction
   is reduced to one early class and a kiss.
   revision order: re-deal one mid-ladder Tuesday to June by swapping class/off-Tuesday
   functions, not alternation. Cleanest option: make ch 13 (June, midpoint week) the Week 5
   class — she receives Theo's childhood-drawing memory in HER pov, witnesses the showcase
   announcement, and the cover kiss lands the same public night; ch 12 (Theo) becomes the
   off-Tuesday where he decides which memory to give her.
   acceptance test: at least one of Weeks 4-6 is June-focalized, and June paints Theo on the
   page in her own POV at least once after Week 3.

6. high — The lie is never in jeopardy on the page; the genre's core pleasure is unmapped
   evidence: the objective is "survive eight Tuesdays without exposure" (master_spec.md:60),
   yet no chapter function in the map contains a near-miss, an improvised cover story, or a
   contradictory answer to "how did you meet." The only clocker, Ruth, misreads AND is
   neutralized inside the architecture itself: "Sam thinks intervention would violate the
   privacy they themselves rely on" (skeleton.md:39). Additionally the 26-day gap between
   the offer (Sept 24) and Week 1 (Oct 20) is covered by one Theo chapter (ch 02); the
   cover-story-construction scene — prime fake-dating real estate — doesn't exist, and June's
   POV vanishes for a month of story time right after she says yes.
   why it matters to reader pressure: complicity under fire is what bonds fake couples and
   what readers buy the trope for. Without exposure pressure, every cohort scene is pure
   warmth — pleasant, saggy — and the dramatic irony has no voltage. The dinners become
   slice-of-life with a premise label attached.
   revision order: map 2-3 jeopardy beats: one pre-midpoint near-catch where they must
   improvise in sync (Mara's card already holds the ammunition: "You two are very good at
   looking as if you discussed things in advance" — make that an on-page interrogation, not
   a card ornament); one beat where Ruth's misread surfaces obliquely to Theo; one post-
   midpoint beat where performing is harder because the feelings are real. Map at least one
   June-Theo contact scene inside the September-October gap (not the diner — skeleton Q7
   binds the diner as cohort commons first), and open ch 03 on the cost of having said yes.
   acceptance test: at least two chapters before ch 13 and one after contain a beat where
   exposure is plausibly imminent and the leads must collaborate to survive it.

7. medium — One kiss in the whole map, it's fake, and it has no aftermath
   evidence: ch 13: cover kiss. Ch 14: "Theo lends June Odile catalogs." Ch 15: Philadelphia.
   Ch 16: fear class. The kiss is never metabolized between them. The confession (ch 24)
   specifies "plain apology, plain confession" — no physical beat anywhere. The heat spec
   promises "kisses on the page, written with full attention" — plural (READING_GUIDE.md:28).
   why it matters to reader pressure: a closed-door book lives entirely on charged proximity
   and the gap between performed and real touch. Mapping zero post-kiss awkwardness wastes
   the midpoint; mapping zero real kisses means the genre's physical payoff never arrives.
   revision order: ch 14 opens in kiss aftermath — Theo replaying it while performing
   logistics is voice-true and cheap to add. Specify a first real kiss in ch 24 or 25,
   written with the full attention the guide promises.
   acceptance test: ch 14's function line includes the aftermath; one non-cover kiss appears
   in the map before the showcase.

8. medium — Two of three cohort couples run on Theo's axis; the mirrors are labeled as mirrors
   evidence: Luis's card states it outright: "mirrors Theo's usefulness trap without
   lecturing" (style_and_voice.md:224). Luis's care move is fixing/carrying extras = Theo's
   move. Ben: routes/contingencies, "logistics recognize logistics" (297). Priya: quietly
   managing conditions. Four characters plus Theo express love as practical competence.
   why it matters to reader pressure: when the rupture lands on usefulness-as-self-erasure,
   two cohort couples will have already played that theme in miniature, and the cohort reads
   as a hall of mirrors rather than people. The "without lecturing" guard on Luis's card is
   the tell — the design knows the scene will tempt thematic dialogue.
   revision order: differentiate at the care-move level, where the premise requires ownership
   anyway (premise.md s.5). Reassign Mara/Luis's move away from repair (their arc is
   translation/visibility — give them a move on that axis); keep Ben's planning but strip
   Priya's to something non-logistical, or vice versa. Ruth/Sam (space-making) are fine and
   are the only couple whose theme — privacy vs. cover — earns its mirror.
   acceptance test: list the four storylines' care moves and thematic axes one line each; no
   noun repeats.

9. medium — The repair answers Theo's arc, not June's wound — and the painting takes five days
   evidence: June's grievance: "she fears she was material in his management of his aunt's
   feelings" (premise.md:58). Theo's gesture: a painting OF HER (skeleton ch 23) — formally,
   more of her as his material. And the calendar gives him Nov 24 rupture → piece started
   "early Dec" (ch 21) → finished by ch 23, before a Dec 8 showcase: his first finished work
   in YEARS, completed in under a week while running a gallery.
   why it matters to reader pressure: if the confession leads with the portrait, it reads as
   a romantic offering answering a vocational arc, and the actual injury — asymmetry — goes
   unanswered; readers will feel June forgiving too cheap. The speed also deflates "first
   finished piece in years" into a plot-convenient breakthrough.
   revision order: the ch 24 card must sequence the confession: asymmetry answered first
   (what he did about Odile and the archive, ch 21/25 material), painting second. Seed the
   painting earlier — let it grow out of Week 3 or Week 6 material he never showed, so ch 21
   is resumption, not genesis.
   acceptance test: in the ch 24 card, June's forgiveness pivots on a line about the
   asymmetry, not the portrait; the painting's origin predates the rupture in the map.

10. medium — Chapter 21 is an unspecified hinge that can leak the ending
    evidence: "Theo confronts Odile's manipulation without learning final reveal"
    (skeleton.md:85). Unstated: what he accuses her of, what he discloses (does he tell her
    the couple was fake?), what she admits, how she deflects while staying reread-consistent.
    why it matters to reader pressure: drafted blind, this scene either telegraphs ch 28 or
    forces Odile into a bald lie that sours her reveal. Every Odile scene must survive the
    reread test (READING_GUIDE.md:83); this is the scene most likely to fail it.
    revision order: add a three-line information ledger to ch 21: disclosed / admitted /
    withheld. Suggested shape: she admits the public offer was a trap for HIM ("you needed
    prying loose") — true, partial, reread-consistent — and withholds that she clocked June
    and tightened the couple rule.
    acceptance test: the admitted portion, reread after ch 28, is truthful-but-partial, never
    false.

11. medium — The wall label is the speech the design says the painting must not need
    evidence: the joint piece must "carry the coda without a speech explaining it"
    (READING_GUIDE.md:75); the revision plan flags "over-explained wall-label sentiment"
    (revision_plan.md:13) — yet ch 26 has June "writing the artifact-borne truth into the
    wall label" and ch 27 discloses "through underpaintings/label" (skeleton.md:90-91).
    why it matters to reader pressure: a label narrating "we began as strangers" is the
    banned speech in print. The coda's pleasure is the cohort reading the painting — Ruth,
    the indexer, is sitting right there built to voice the inference.
    revision order: draft the label text now, at architecture level: title, names, dates, one
    line maximum. Load the disclosure onto the visible underpainting and the cohort's
    reactions; let Ruth read the omission aloud.
    acceptance test: label text ≤15 words, zero relationship narration, written into the
    ch 26 card before drafting.

OPEN QUESTIONS
- What precisely does June believe Theo's standing with the gallery/Odile is on night one,
  and what cover story does Theo give in ch 02? (Feeds finding 2; cannot draft ch 02 or 17
  without it.)
- Where does June and Theo's gap-period contact happen, given the diner is bound as
  cohort-commons-first?
- Does Odile's ch 28 reveal include the partner/pair→couple card history, or is that left
  for rereaders only? (Recommend: rereaders only; Odile explaining her own plant breaks her
  voice card's "no oracle monologues.")
- Ch 27 showcase is Theo-focalized — where does June's painter-eye get its one look at the
  finished cohort work, ch 28's emptying gallery? Specify, or the coda loses its best lens.

KEEP / DO NOT BREAK
- Same-night fusion of fear assignment and discovery (ch 16-17). Best structural decision in
  the skeleton; resist any note that pads recovery time between them.
- Discovery via Theo's own care move (the lent catalog). Self-inflicted, undeniable,
  non-contrived. Fix the asymmetry logic around it (finding 2), not the mechanism.
- Decline-before-confession ordering. Keep the order; fix only the timing and motivation
  (finding 3).
- The suspended-order confession device at the diner. Keep the device; cut the dialogue line
  that explains it (finding 1).
- Ruth/Sam as the unlabeled couple and the privacy-vs-cover argument. The one cohort thread
  that earns its mirror; Ruth's silence having a cost is what keeps her off wise-NPC duty.
- Two-panel structure of `After Class` (leaving-eye / kept-ready-for-return). Guard it from
  its own wall label (finding 11), but the image is right.
- Private reveal, class never learns the nephew. Correct restraint; a public Odile reveal
  would convert the coda into the banned grand gesture.
- The risky choice of a 26-day setup gap: it is forced by canon dates and should stay — but
  only survives if finding 6's gap-pressure beats are mapped, which is why the revision
  plan's own flag on it must not be quietly dropped.
```

The verdict is driven by findings 1 and 2: the voice cards will contaminate every downstream chapter card if drafted as-is, and the rupture's emotional logic has a knowledge contradiction that chapter cards 02, 14, and 17 cannot be written around. The rest are repairable at the chapter-card layer, but 3, 4, and 5 are much cheaper to fix in the skeleton table now than in prose later.
