by Ella (link)
Genre het, romance, supernatural
Pairings Taylor/OFC
Length prologue, 74 chapters and epilogue
Status Completed
This is one story that I didn’t read when it was new. I’m not sure I was even in the fandom enough to be aware of it at the time, but I’ve certainly heard plenty about it since. I’m always a bit wary of stories that are wildly popular. Will they live up to the hype? For me, Catapult definitely did.
Many people are turned off by characters that read as obvious self inserts, but those are pretty much par for the course in hanfic. I found that all the characters in Catapult — original or otherwise — were so well rounded and fleshed out that I really didn’t mind the nagging feeling that Alley was based very closely on the author. Everything about this story seemed really well fleshed out to me, in fact. Maybe it’s because I’m from Kentucky (although I’ve never lived in Lexington and didn’t attend UK), but the setting seemed incredibly real to me. I always love stories where the city is practically a character of its own, so Ella gets bonus points for making the Bluegrass state such a prominent player in Catapult.
Perhaps my only complaint here is the prologue and epilogue, which I’m not sure were part of the original version or only added during a later edit. They tied everything up with a nice little bow, but I’m not sure that was necessary. I’m surprised that the large time skip (a year glossed over in just a few chapters) doesn’t bother me. Normally I hate to see authors take huge leaps forward in time in stories, but in this case I felt like it worked. In a story that’s already quite long, those few chapters move us seamlessly along to the point at which the plot picks up again.
Overall, this is a story I couldn’t put down and didn’t want to stop reading. I felt like I really knew the characters by the end of it. Even though it was long and at times moved slowly, the pace seemed perfect to show Alley and Taylor’s relationship growing — even if it seemed to go in reverse at times. There wasn’t a single point when I wasn’t rooting for them and feeling everything that they felt, and that’s what makes a great story.
Review by Bethany (website)