They were best friends growing up, until that summer full of mistakes they couldn't fix. Now, he's the boy who never dates; she's the girl that all the boys cheat with. And they're both clutching onto the pieces of their sanity in the only way they know how.
Banner Credit: Arden
Ali Thinks: “Fades in the Summer” is centered around the two things I hate in stories: angst and a love triangle. Tara’s in love with Dylan, her best friend from forever who lives two doors down. But, they don’t really speak anymore— not since her fraternal twin sister/Dylan’s girlfriend at the time, Talia, died. When they do speak, it ends either in sex or a big blow-up of an argument. They know what they’re doing isn’t good for either of them, but both are still drowning in the pain of losing someone the love and they’re the only ones who understand the heartbreak the other is going through. They’re drawn together just as strongly as they try to repel each other. See, angst… love triangle…I was hooked.
I don’t know what it was, but dear-llama caught me right from the beginning like a starving fish to a big, fat worm. And there was no looking back, much like Tara and Dylan’s… rocky relationship. A lot of times when people have that sort of I-want-you then I-can’t-be-on-the-same-continent-as-you relationship I can’t help but think just get on with it, already because their problems are easily solved, or it’s just so drawn out, but this wasn’t the case with those two at all, which is hilarious considering the length of this one-shot. Plus, both of them were so well developed that even though the whole thing is written in 1st person from Tara’s eyes, I would have understood Dylan just the same if it had been written from his point of view.
Now, when you open the page for this one-shot, you’re probably going to have the same reaction I did. You’re going to bug-eye, and I’m not going to tell you exactly how many words this has because I don’t want to take that experience away from you. I thought reading this would be a drag— so many words with only line breaks to chop it up? Oh lord. But nope, I read the whole thing at 3 in the morning and as I type this at 5:30 I have no regrets. It seems long, it looks long (mostly because it is long) but I didn’t even notice until I found myself creeping slowly toward the end. As I kept close watch of the sidebar, I wished it was back at the top so I’d have more to read, and I’ll tell you why—
“Fades in the Summer” is centered around the two things I hate the most in stories, but I’m going to read it again. When I look at my favorites to find an old love to re-read, I’m going to read it again. I’m going to do this because despite my bias toward angst and love triangles (which lessened a lot after reading this), dear-llama also managed to touch upon everything I really love about a story: flawless writing, amazing characters, realism and a lovely, original story that’s definitely going to stick around in your mind and heart for a very, very long time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment