by Myra (link)
Genre het, romance
Pairings Taylor/OFC
Length 25 installments
Status Completed
Despite the fact that Myra was a popular and rather prolific writer in the early years of hanfic, I’ve somehow managed to entirely avoid reading any of her stories. I was definitely interested to see what all the hype was about, although cautiously so, since overly hyped stories often turn out not to be as good as expected.
Each “installment” appears to actually be several very short chapters grouped together. I’m not really sure the purpose of this, but it’s rather annoying. Likewise, the writing style is rather short and choppy. Every now and then, Myra lands on a nice turn of phrase, but it’s mostly pretty bland.
The plot of Your Own Kind seems to be just your typical high school drama — cliques, stereotypes and teenage angst. None of that is necessarily bad, of course. It’s practically a Disney movie waiting to happen — Taylor the poor rocker and his rich cheerleader love interest. The only major flaw here is that I can’t really relate to said cheerleader. But that’s just me; I’m much more the rocker type, so I would be on the other side of this clique drama. Still, despite being slightly overblown, the drama does ring true. While a little trite now, it would have been perfectly enjoyable when I was a teenager.
It isn’t all a perfect little Disney movie fantasy, though. There are some darker elements to this story, and while they aren’t all handled incredibly well, I’m glad they exist. I can at least appreciate Myra’s attempt to add in more, darker drama. The slightly choppy writing style and the constant changes in point of view make a little difficult to feel the full impact of any of the drama, though. Some scenes are skipped over, or placed slightly out of order so that they’re already resolved by the time we see them, and that’s a little tough to swallow, too.
Still, the story truly isn’t horribly written, Taylor and Bailey’s relationship is fairly believable, and it all ends on a sweet note. Your Own Kind might not have been everything I hoped for, but it wasn’t a total disappointment, either.
Review by Bethany (website)