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Evaughn - Detailed Feedback

Introduction:

Evaughn was written by angiee019_. It is a mature story tackling heavy themes, and it follows the protagonist, Evaughn, as he struggles to find his place in the world while his ruthless uncle makes his life hell.

Just a disclaimer that I didn't read the second book. I only read one book for an author at a time, so I voted on it but did not read it as to be fair to other authors. If there is any criticism in this review that is addressed in book two, please disregard it.

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

On Wattpad, it's rare to see stories that actually go the extra mile to depict a terrible situation in such a visceral manner. Even in modern entertainment it's rare. At the same time, the story doesn't feel like it's dark just for the sake of being dark, which is great. Darkness and angst are purposefully used to create a compelling character for Evaughn and it isn't just thrown around to force a reaction out of the reader.

Many times, an author will do one of the following: 1) Go too dark, 2) Shy away from darkness. This story strikes a balance between the two. I would say it's significantly darker than most stories on Wattpad, but as I mentioned earlier, it's there when it needs to be there, and there are still spikes of hope, mainly through Luka's character. His personality brings a sense of comfort to certain scenes, and it also made for a wholesome moment near the beginning of the story when Evaughn and Luka were interacting at the party.

I typically don't like getting into endings because I want to encourage anyone reading this to go read the story and find out for themselves. For that reason, I'm not going to spoil anything, but I do like how the first book concluded. It wrapped up some core character arcs (mainly Dimitri) but left enough open for a sequel to be possible. I wouldn't call it a major cliffhanger, but it definitely leaves a lot of suspense behind and sets up book two well.

Neo is very hate-able, but I think that's a good thing. Sometimes we need a hate-able character that enrages us every time they're on screen, and this story succeeds at doing that. His actions are always brutal and described in such a way that it was easy to imagine albeit hard to read. However, I think that sense of realism was necessary to convey the themes in the story, and due to that, the themes were elevated. Neo, as much as I may dislike him (as I'm sure everyone does), is a challenging antagonist that poses a real threat to the main cast. And perhaps the thing I like most is he provides both a mental and physical threat for Evaughn.

In general, the antagonists in this all play different roles that make them stand out. They're not all completely hate-able, and some of them are even sympathetic at times. For example, Dimitri. Him and Neo are the two I would immediately think of if you were to ask me about the antagonists, and although Dimitri was undeniably a bad person who did awful things, there were a lot of moments that gave him more complexity. Neo is like the hate-able villain while Dimitri is the one you end up feeling bad about hating. Well, maybe not completely because what he did to Evaughn was pretty messed up regardless, but the layers added make him more understandable, even if we don't agree with his actions.

The environments throughout the narrative are quite interesting. The first thing that comes to mind is the party scene early in the story, but also the scene where Evaughn and Dimitri share a special moment near the end. Environment plays a major role in how the story is told, and I think that was a great decision. The more we can connect with what's going on around the characters, the easier it is to immerse ourselves in the scene and visualize what's happening. By extension, that makes it easier to imagine what the characters are doing, which allows us to connect to them more.