by Shelly (link)
Genre het, romance, drama/angst, suspense
Pairings Isaac/OFC, Taylor/OFC, Zac/OFC
Length 60 chapters
Status Completed
A few years ago, I read and loved another story with a similar premise to this one, but I suspect that Hush was, if not the absolutely first, certainly the first massively popular hanfic to feature an interracial relationship.
While the racism in this story doesn’t feel like it’s handled with much grace, there’s a whole lot more going on here than just that, er, black and white plot. From the beginning, there are hints of dysfunction in the Hanson family, Zac’s outbursts of emotion and anger hinting that there might be a familial cause for that temper. The character he got that temper from–not naming names, but I think you can all guess–is somewhat of a caricature, as is his accomplice. Even seeing part of the story from their point of view (not to mention Jessica’s, Taylor’s, Isaac’s and even Diana’s) doesn’t help to flesh their characters out very much.
Hush takes so many complicated twists and turns that I can barely keep up enough to tell how many plot holes there are (at least some of them seem to stem from what I think are missing chapters in this PDF), but at times Shelly definitely does strain credulity. There are some fundamental misunderstandings of contracts and police procedure, incorrect details about Hanson’s lives, more conveniences than you can shake a stick at and some pretty ridiculous plot twists.
A tighter focus and less point of view switches, plus a lot of editing to rid the story of some really strange grammatical mistakes, would be a vast improvement. That said, there’s just something about Zac and Celia that has me hooked, and it’s not enough to necessarily overlook the story’s flaws, but enjoy… well, parts of it in spite of them. A story that ditched all of the suspense and murder and focused just on Zac and Celia’s bond would have been so, so much better.
Review by Bethany (website)