by Auto (link)
Genre cest, drama/angst
Pairings Isaac/OFC, Zac/OFC, Zaylor
Length 14 chapters and epilogue
Status Completed
With this story, the author wastes no time tugging at your heartstrings. By the end of the first sentence, I know that Taylor is dying. It’s a pretty bold way to begin, but not a bad way. What I’m less fond of is the entire structure of the story — a strange mixture of Zac’s “writing” and narration in italics — and Auto’s far from perfect grammar. Still, there’s something in her style that wouldn’t be bad with a little polishing.
Just For Us manages to combine two topics that lots of people don’t want to read about — incest and cancer. I have no problems reading about either, but I do think that a lot of cancer stories don’t handle the subject very well. Zac’s “writing,” the book he’s writing about his life, details the past and explains how he and Taylor came to be together, while the present narration deals with the last weeks and months of Taylor’s life. Most of the actual cancer details are glossed over, and I think that’s a good way to handle it.
There’s still a lot of drama in Zac’s past, though, and a lot of melodrama in his present. All of that could be handled with a lot more finesse, if you ask me. I find that stories with a lot of drama, when they don’t work, fall into one of two categories. Either everything is technically perfect, but the plot just doesn’t move me, or the plot is good in theory, but the writing isn’t up to par. The latter is Auto’s problem. While some of the twists and turns this story takes tugged at my heartstrings, the strange structure and poor writing kept it from being all it could be.
Review by Bethany (website)