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Love Damned At Midnight - Detailed Feedback

Intro:

Love Damned At Midnight was written by qyooke. It is a mature novel that follows main characters, Garam and Jungseok, on their unlikely journeys. Jungseok has a dark story following happiness and protecting what little of it he has left, and Garam struggles with financial difficulty.

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What Worked:

The point of views are very clear and easy to understand. I appreciate that you use the method where you put the POV name in the chapter title. For my original stories, that's the method I like to use, and it's nice to see someone else use it. I honestly haven't seen many do this on Wattpad. It may seem like a strange thing to praise, but POVs being clear is imperative to a reader's comprehension of the story. I've read many novels where the POVs were unclear and therefore hard to follow, but this book doesn't have this problem, and I appreciate you for that. It made reading and reviewing easier!

In general, the story is pretty clear and easy to follow. You don't unnecessarily over-complicate it or keep too many things in the dark. You sprinkle hints in to help us understand some plot points, and the plot unfolds in a way that the readers can process without feeling overwhelmed. That's another reason why reviewing this story was so easy!

Jungseok and Garam are interesting protagonists. They have their own unique motivations, both of which relatable at least to some extent. If you were to ask me my favorite, I would say it'd have to be Jungseok simply because he has such an interesting background and the way he handles conflict is always fun to watch. Well, maybe not fun, but I think you get what I mean: entertaining.

While on the topic of characters, Jungseok's introductory chapter is super intense and gripping. I really liked the decision to start his character off as the polar opposite of Garam's with deep character struggle. While Garam is also struggling, his chapter has levity and fun moments that give the reader smiles and laughs. On the other hand, Jungseok's intro was dark. However, there was still a balance that didn't make the chapter feel like tonal whiplash or anything like that.

For that reason, right from the start we can tell the main differences between our protagonists and we can make inferences for how they're going to interact in the future. It gets us excited for their eventual discussions since we can tell they're going to have some disagreements and they'll challenge each other. In a way, they're foils to one another, and that makes for an engaging dynamic.

That's also why Jungseok is my favorite. His chapter is super intense and shows us who he is without you needing to give us too much exposition. I like Garam too don't get me wrong, I just found myself cheering a liiiiittle bit more for Jungseok.

The maturity level is consistent throughout, and I'm glad the mature themes in the story are taken seriously instead of played for laughs or anything like that. Like I mentioned earlier for Jungseok's intro chap, the tone was consistent. In general, throughout the whole novel, I didn't notice any tonal whiplash where we were feeling one emotion then ripped out of the moment and taken to a different emotion, which is important for a book like this.

I like the way the characters interact. While I do have some criticisms for the dialogue, even with those criticisms I still think you did a good job giving the characters interesting and believable dynamics. No character is exactly the same, so they bounce off each other due to their varying interests and ideas.

I mentioned earlier that Jungseok and Garam have an engaging dynamic, but I think that applies to every duo in the book. There are no weak interactions or groups of people that I think are less engaging than the rest. They all pull their weight and contribute to the narrative.