Excerpt from a sci-fi novel, please give feedback?

[THEtonlytlePineyapple]

Maggie followed her parents who seemed all too delighted to leave the doctor’s office. After they left the glass double doors at the front of the building, the three of them were greeted by a crisp breeze that rattled the yellow, orange, and brown leaves hanging by threads from the branches overhead. There were also many of them scattered over the empty drive. Some leaves were in small piles, suggesting that someone probably tried at a futile attempt to tame them. They’d only stay for a moment until the wind picked up again, kicking them up into another mess. Each of Maggie’s footsteps was accompanied by a loud crunch as she walked with her parents down the drive and toward the main street. She found herself clinging tightly to her father’s arm as her eyes would shift from left to right, surveying the houses that they’d passed. She didn’t know if her parents had noticed it, and if they did, they were doing a splendid job at not showing it, but the one thing about Headland Township that kept Maggie on her toes were the residents she shared it with. Except to buy groceries or pick up refills on their prescriptions, her neighbors rarely ever stepped out of their houses. Despite that, it seemed that everyone in the town knew what their neighbors were up to, except Maggie, who could spend hours wondering about her neighbors’ lives. She’d been raised in Headland all her life and still, the only thing she knew about its residents was that they didn’t like ‘outsiders’ and outsiders didn’t like them. When she was young, Maggie would curbside in front of her house on the main street and watch cars go by. The cars of people passing through Headland to get to the city on the other side were always fancy ones, not like the rusted, powder blue pick-up truck her father drove to work. The cars of the city dwellers would never slow down when driving past. In fact, they would usually race through as fast as the speed limit would allow. Occasionally, she would find a few younger drivers bring their cars to a steady crawl as they peered out their windows to observe the dainty houses with their A-roofs, flower boxes, and timber picket fences. A chill would wrack their bodies as they noticed the town seemed a bit too perfect. Then, more often than not, the driver’s eyes would meet with Maggie’s in mutual discomfort before they would press into the gas pedal and haul tail out of there. Even now, several years later, anyone passing through Headland would still follow the same pattern, only Maggie no longer wished to sit and watch.

xx

I was told previously that my stories tend to be a little too description-heavy and take away from the actual plot, so I tried to keep in mind to take it easy on the descriptions and leave some things up to the readers' imaginations. Please tell me how I did.

Also, please give feedback I can use. Things like "Wow this is so good keep writing" are flattering and I'm grateful, but I need to know what I did well and what I can work on to make better. Thank you!
Thank you so much! I'll work on it
Wow, I didn't know that about "sci fi". Guess I'll be careful to call it science fiction from now on.
As for how it's related to science fiction, the town is a small part of the setting, which takes place sometime in the future. It's a little bit like 28 Days Later, where a disease spreads throughout the town. This is only the exposition.
Well, looks like I'll be cutting out the ode to leaves. Thanks guys.
Ah, and it may have slipped my mind to tell that this is not the very beginning of the story (don't shoot me). But most of the advice here could probably be applied to the first paragraph as well.
By the way, is there anything I can work on starting from the point where she's checking out the houses?

 

[weavingserpentsintodreams]

Break it into smaller paragraphs. You've created a wall of text, and it crushes the dreams of most who would dare to scale it.

Think of your first sentence as a hook. It's there to catch eyeballs. What have you baited your hook with? Sure, the sentence technically does it's job, but you can do so much more...what's more important than the fact that she's following her parents?

You already know you added too much description for the leaves. [ There were also many of them scattered over the empty drive. ] This sentence is one of the reasons why we notice. It's like you're tugging our arms and pointing out all the exciting leaf action you forgot to include in the previous sentence. We're not ready to talk about leaves yet. You still haven't told us why we're supposed to be interested in the main character.

But it's not all bad news.

By the end, your eye for detail serves to give us a mystery.

A town that's too perfect has been done before.

You're the first author I've seen who gives a sense of what it's like to grow up in one.

I may have escaped the hook, but not the net...

 

[Julie]

I agree that it's a little description heavy. I don't think how the leaves fell or what kind of clusters they are in are really relevant to the story.
A little less description would let the story flow a little bit better.
And, to me, it's only the first part of the story that's too descriptive.
The rest of the story sounds great.
I'd definitely read it.
Keep going
=]