by Kate (link)
Genre het, romance, drama
Pairings Isaac/OFC, Taylor/OFC, Zac/OFC
Length prologue, 18 chapters and epilogue
Status Completed (first story in a series of three)
One of the oldest tropes in hanfic (or basically any young adult fiction) is what I’m going to call the ugly duckling. You know what I mean — the supposedly unattractive, unpopular girl who somehow attracts the attention of a Hanson brother because he can see beyond the surface. Just judging by the title, I have a feeling Not A Pretty Girl is going to be yet another of those stories.
Rather than just being “unattractive,” Kate takes it a step further by making Dextera an unconventional, hippie sort of girl who manages to sound superior to Hanson while also claiming to have been a fan when she was younger. She’s not the most endearing protagonist, which is always a big hurdle for a reader. The boys fit neatly into pretty stereotypical roles, too — Ike is the sensitive older brother-slash-best friend, Taylor is a self absorbed but still charming pretty boy and Zac is a douchebag.
Three guesses who Dextera develops an interest in, and the first two don’t count. But, of course, since there are two more installments, she and Zac don’t really get very far in their relationship, if one can even call it that. Since Dextera is an exceedingly difficult character, like I said, she puts a stop to things before they can even start on the sole basis of her appearance. It really makes no sense. Frankly, a lot of the story didn’t; Kate tries just a little too hard, not just with the plot, but with her vocabulary and sentence structure, and it all ends up making me roll my eyes.
Review by Bethany (website)