Evangeline’s Ride is probably very fun to write, but unfortunately, it isn’t fun to read. The story of a young songstress getting an amazing record deal, meeting lots of cool people, and being just all around awesome is the stuff of idle daydream fantasies. There isn’t any conflict or drama, and Evangeline is so together and with it and sparkly that my eyes started glazing over.

The story is told in journal format with Evangeline relating all the cool stuff that happens to her. She has a loving group of friends and guys falling over themselves to be with her. Even her guy troubles are great. She has a rock star lover and a longtime friend fighting over her.

The story is hard to follow due to a lack of proper paragraph breaks. There is no indentation and spotty line breaks between paragraphs (sometimes there is one, most times not). She doesn’t separate out dialogue consistently, so conversations will take place in single paragraphs, which makes it difficult if not impossible to tell who says what. In addition, a predominance of telling and not showing holds the reader back from the story and contributes to glazing eye syndrome.

Overall, I’m afraid I can’t recommend this story. I wish the writer the best of luck and hope she continues to have fun writing.

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To me, this series shows a lot of signs of being an escapist fantasy. The heroine has plenty of good points and practically no bad traits, and she tends to have an over-abundance of luck in both the romance and rock music departments. This could be nice, at first, for readers hoping to fall into a story without too many problems. However, it did eventually lose me with its lack of obstacles to Evangeline’s success.

Evangeline herself is the sort of person that rarely exists outside of people’s fantasies. She has nurturing and unquestioningly devoted friends, is a supportive sister, gets a world famous rock star lover, and gets a dream contract for her band after running into a star at a concert – all without any struggles. It sounds great, but after several posts of this perfection I found myself having a hard time identifying with Evangeline. Everything seemed to be handed to her. It became hard to root for her, since there was nothing to root for. She seemed to get the best that the world has to offer in a matter of months, and from there things only looked up.

Even when she stood up to a health administrator, she didn’t face true opposition. Instead he seemed flabbergasted by her vast knowledge of health regulations, seemingly unaware of many of her points – despite being an administrator of an expensive and well known autism facility. That sort of ‘stunned silent’ reaction is a technique many writers use to prove a character’s wittiness, but I couldn’t help but get irritated at how unrealistic it was. I also found myself wondering how much it might have added to the story if a few levels of realism were applied to the situation – if, say, the administrator used society’s ableism as a shield that she had to actively and repeatedly fight against. It might have developed Evangeline’s character and her relationships in a stronger and identifiable way. Instead their single conflict had a foregone and easy resolution, which is something characteristic of this story’s plot.

Due to the nature of this story, it’s rare that a true obstacle steps in Evangeline’s way. Whenever she’s feeling down, she manages to find a way to come out on top in a relatively short amount of time. The few tragedies that do exist don’t tend to target Evangeline herself, and seem to be easily dismissed once their purpose as a plot gimmick is over. Almost everyone likes Evangeline, and she seems to be someone that is babied regularly, though unnecessarily. One such example would be when she has a mild cold. Her friends took turns babysitting her, to ensure that she got enough rest, soup and beverages. While sweet, it’s yet another example of nothing, not even physical illness, providing a conflict for the main character. This no-problem-zone follows Evangeline around through out the entire story, and, to me, got extremely tedious after awhile.

There are a few technical problems that I thought I’d mention, since they made it difficult for me to read certain sections of this story. The paragraph breaks don’t always show up, so sometimes the text is just a huge block of words. Also, the blog’s formatting means that the story is told in bright pink text on a dark background. After awhile, the contrast began straining my eyes to the point where I could no longer carry-on reading, and had to return another day to finish the tale.

Overall, it’s a story for those wishing to escape into a life of fantasies and what-ifs. Just don’t go into it expecting the heroine to triumph over trouble, as it never seems to enter into Evangeline’s sphere.

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