Response to Succulents

Succulents is a story about a guy named Michael and his relationship with a man named Armie and how their relationship affects Michael's apartment and desert plants in the window. The apartment and the plants are really characters in and of themselves and are an effective medium for developing characters and showing dramatic changes in attitude throughout the story.
Right off the bat, I liked the style. The first paragraph read almost like poetry. I actually used to collect desert plants and cacti, so I caught many of the plant names, but I feel like they should be capitalized to indicate they are Genus'. This may confuse some readers initially. I also like how the common name for Crassula is succulents; this works well as a title first of all because the plants are a main character in the story, and secondly because it's a word that has a lot of implications in relation to a new relationship. It's a seductive, fresh, juicy word. I think my favorite line in that opening paragraph though was the last: "Safe behind their glass, sheltered from the storms, they lavish far beyond their natural cycles."
I thought it was interesting that we were introduced first to the plants, then the apartment, then the newcomer to the home, and then finally the owner. It was interesting and refreshing and done in such a way that didn't seem forced.
I enjoyed the way the characters were introduced, because many times when homosexual characters are introduced, it is one of the first things you find out about them and it can alter a first impression. In Succulents, the characters already had their own personality and I already had images in my head for them before knowing that they were gay, which allows a reader to get to know the character before slotting them into stereotypes (which many people do). I very much liked the unique writing style and interesting way of developing setting, and how the setting adapted to the characters as their habits changed.