AnieOnie

Rating: B+, pretty damn good.

Let's start with the good stuff, like I always do. Your characters are the best part. They're believable, they're touching, and they're so human. They're great. The best hook for any story, despite what adventure or exciting elements you have inside, will always be good characters. The mother is my favorite simply because she tries for improvement in the family and is beaten for it. She wants to be a good mother, and she wants to protect the innocence of her child with such a messed up world and situation.

Furthermore, I do think you made the right decision using in medias res, or starting the story later and then bringing it back with a flashback. It really fleshed out his character and his history.

But despite this, there are always areas in which to improve. Maybe I didn't hit them all, but I never do with any writer. Some are more obvious than others. I am curious as to where you bring this story next, and where you're planning to bring it.

While reading I started to notice a trend in your grammar. Here's a good example that I pulled out: 

"He then went to his bed opened his shirt threw it on the ground and fell onto his bed."

This type of writing is very common throughout, specifically with the lack of commas and awkward language. I would recommend you get a line editor to go through and correct the little things here and there. If I were to change it at all, I would make it something like this:

"He then retired to his mattress and unbuttoned his shirt, throwing it to the floor before he collapsed onto his bed."

It doesn't have to be like that exactly, and the great thing about written language is you can change it in any real way you want as long as it obeys the rules.

Another area of revision I would tap into would be Varun's habits. Maybe I don't do it as much as I should in quarantine, I lift weights and workout. Whatever training he is going through, every smart lifter knows how to work every muscle group and use every exercise to be well rounded in terms of a balanced strength throughout the muscles of the body. This way you don't end up having rock hard abs and weak triceps, or the other way around, or in any configuration of disproportional muscles. Where I'm going with this is that if Varun went through special training for his body, then it wouldn't be a bad idea to incorporate the vocabulary of weight lifters. Specifically how you would do that I'm not 100% sure, but that's something you can figure out haha.

This is a tough topic to explain, the habit vocabulary. Let me give an example just because I would regret it if I didn't. I'm a highschool wrestler. If ever I pin someone to the mat and I tell my family how I did it I don't say 'I picked up his leg and tackled him. After that I turned him onto his back and held him down.' What I really say is this: 'I did an outside single-leg takedown, and when he was down I got a double-butcher in and I cranked it into the tilt and pinned him.' It's the very specific way of talking-- the habit vocabulary I'll call it (a broader term for this is dialect)-- which helps make the story and character a little more real. This does require some research, and in your case maybe that research includes learning muscle groups and working out or learning exercises, but it pays off.

Now all of this I got from your first chapter, and so maybe you do use dialect and habit vocabulary (my stupid little term lol), but I didn't see that from what I could.

I hope you keep writing, and I hope this review was really helpful. Good job.