by Kerry (link)
Genre drama, suspense
Pairings Taylor/OFC
Length prologue and 45 chapters
Status Unfinished
Sometimes I pick a story to read completely blind. Once Upon A Tragic Time was one of those cases. It was from the right time period and it seemed that I kept coming across it while working on the directory, so it found its way onto my list. It’s sometimes kind of fun to go into a story with no expectations at all.
The prologue is about as over the top as you might expect from a story with this particular title, hinting as all sorts of fraud and deception that’s about to shake up Hanson’s world. It’s a heavy handed way to begin, but it does serve its purpose — now I’m wondering exactly what’s going to happen. But like you might expect from older stories, there’s way too much time devoted to introducing the characters we all know already and random Author’s Notes breaking in and disrupting the already slow moving plot.
As it turns out, the “fraud” and whatnot have nothing to do with the Hanson family; it’s part of a big, complicated plot that Taylor gets kidnapped and brought into. It’s all pretty confusing and not really well thought out, but it is a unique idea. Other aspects of the story, such as the tales of child abuse and rape that belongs to other characters, aren’t so unique.
Like so many early, young hanfic authors, Kerry tries to do a lot with Once Upon A Tragic Time. There’s abuse, crime, depression… you name it, it’s here. The organized crime plot is interesting, but not handled particularly well. Once you consider the plethora of author’s notes, cheesy dialogue and the fact that the story isn’t finished, there really isn’t much to recommend it, unique plot aside.
Review by Bethany (website)