by Selina (link)
Genre het, romance, drama
Pairings Isaac/OFC, Taylor/OFC, Zac/OFC
Length 37 chapters
Status Completed
It’s never really a good sign when the main character of a fic shares her name with the fic’s author. That’s the case in Dividing Reality, but I think it’s a very safe assumption to make that the character Selina has very, very little in common with the author Selina.
Within the first chapter, we are presented with Selina’s entire life history, which is one of extreme poverty and despair that seemingly ends when she is picked up by a madame and brought into her upscale brothel. On the flip side, we’re presented with three incredibly bratty and spoiled Hanson brothers, two of which think it would be hilarious to hire a prostitute (guess who) for their middle brother’s birthday.
What they don’t count on, of course, is that in spite of how little time they have spent together, Taylor and Selina quickly fall in love. Given that Taylor is constantly described as conceited and spoiled, I’m really not sure what Selina sees in him, although he doesn’t necessarily behave in a way consistent with that description. He does, however, learn absolutely nothing personal about Selina, choosing to ignore the nagging feeling that she’s hiding something from him, and I suppose that is pretty self-involved behavior.
It takes a long time for the truth to come out, despite the attempted meddling of a cardboard cutout villain who is also employed by the whorehouse. When the truth does come out, it’s all very easily resolved, including the complete dismissal of a sideplot that had caused Selina to break up with Taylor. There are a few other details like that, including the very name of the brothel, that the author can’t seem to keep straight.
That’s leaving aside how unrealistic the entire, presumably legal, prostitution bit is. It appears to be very organized and business-like, with a sideline in escort services so that Selina herself doesn’t need to do anything particularly dirty on screen, but there’s a darker undercurrent there that doesn’t seem to match up with that shiny exterior. It’s really hard to wrap my head around all of that, and between that and the abandoned sideplots and mixed up details, I’m somewhat inclined to blame the fact that the author is (I believe) ESL. It may be unfair to blame that, and I must admit that while it is overly formal at times and she does often use the wrong words, Selina’s writing has an interesting quality to it. With a little more focus on getting the plot right and a native speaker to polish up the grammar, I think future stories from Selina could have been much more compelling.
Review by Bethany (website)