by Emma (link)
Genre het, romance, drama
Pairings Isaac/OFC, Taylor/OFC, Zac/OFC
Length 29 chapters
Status Completed (with sequel)
The website this story is on is one of a few that seems to haunt me when I work on my directory; it just keeps popping up over and over again, linked here, there and everywhere. Even though it isn’t one that rings any bells with me now, it was evidently popular back in the day, and so I decided to give Neighbors a try.
There’s little to recommend the story to begin with; although the writing is proficient enough, it’s the typical next-door-neighbors plot with absentee parents and some switches in point of view that don’t have distinct enough voices or purpose to work. The female characters are varying degrees of Hanson fans, which allow for a few little callbacks to the fandom that don’t feel totally pasted on, but Emma’s portrayal of the boys doesn’t feel quite right to me.
Neighbors continues in the teenybopper, wish fulfillment vein for quite a while. What drama Emma does throw into it (which isn’t minor – someone gets shot and Taylor turns out to have a crazy stalker) often seems to get blown off quickly and never have much of an effect. It isn’t until the end that any of the drama seems to matter, and I actually like that Emma was brave enough to have Corinne and Taylor’s relationship end–even if she did begin to write a sequel.
Emma’s writing is quite decent, with even a few good turns of phrase every now and then, and her ideas aren’t all bad. Although there are a lot of eyerolling moments in Neighbors, there are a few decent ideas, mostly related to the boys’ fame and how they’ve handled it. It isn’t quite enough to make me recommend the story, but I do feel compelled to read the sadly incomplete sequel.
Review by Bethany (website)