by Bethany (link)
Genre het, drama, romance
Pairings Isaac/OFC, Taylor/OFC, Zac/OFC
Length prologue, 18 chapters and epilogue
Status Completed (second in a trilogy)
When I began this story, I had somewhat high hopes for it. I held onto the hope that, as Bethany said in her notes, it was better than the first story, Listen To Your Heart. Since this one began four years down the line, with the prologue flashing back to the ending of the first one (a nice touch, I thought), I hoped the characters had matured enough for me to really enjoy reading about them.
While Zac and Bethany seem to have grown some, most of the childish drama and petty misunderstandings of the first story persist here. Despite not being executed incredibly well, I think the plot of Listen To Your Heart actually had a bit more depth to it that wasn’t entirely wrapped up in relationship drama.
I think the biggest problem with Don’t Look Back In Anger is that the characters all seem to always leap to conclusions. There are constant misunderstandings that wouldn’t happen if they sat down and finished an entire, civil conversation. Of course, its these misunderstandings that cause the drama that drives the story, and similar things certainly do happen in real life. Still, it gets frustrating to read over and over again.
Despite Bethany’s note, I actually think that I enjoyed Listen To Your Heart more than I did Don’t Look Back In Anger. I can forgive the immature behavior when several of the characters are still teenagers, but it gets a lot more tiring when they’re all supposed to be adults. On top of that, the writing itself is still fairly bland and the dialogue stilted. I’m not holding out a lot of hope for the third part of the trilogy to impress me any more.
Review by Bethany (website)