by Jen (link)
Genre het, romance
Pairings Taylor/OFC
Length 23 chapters
Status Completed
It may be unfair of me, but I’m always wary of stories posted to random archives. They aren’t likely to attract a lot of readers, and so they aren’t likely to be written by anyone well versed in hanfic. That doesn’t necessarily mean the story isn’t well written, but it usually does.
From the very first chapter, I’m not impressed. The dialogue is stilted, the chapters are short and really–Hanson hiring a fashion consultant? I just can’t buy it. The typical falls-in-love-with-his-best-friend plot is more believable than the event that brings said best friend on tour with the band and leaves me wondering just how well the author knows the band she’s writing about.
It doesn’t get much better from there, with the low points being the handful of pathetically short chapters and the plot involving Taylor’s conniving girlfriend. A villainous character can be interesting, but when the cast is already full of cardboard cutout characters, a character like Megan just makes me roll my eyes.
It’s clear from the beginning (and title) that Taylor and his best friend Ashley are going to end up together, and everything I have to endure to get to that point is just tedious. The big confrontation between Ashley, Megan and Taylor happens all too soon and leaves the rest of the story for Ashley and Taylor to go back and forth before finally, you guessed it, ending up together. I almost hate that my preconceptions about A Friendly Love were proved correct, but they definitely were.
Review by Bethany (website)