What is this? No your eyes do not deceive you. I'm back in action after a long hiatus that I have no excuse for other than my crazy life got away from me again. However it did give me some time to contemplate a few things...one of which is what reviews I wanted to do for this site.
I know that I'm not the only one out there who kinda HATES waiting for updates. I'm impatient and so many of you lovely authors just LOVE to end your chapters with those pesky cliff hangers. So I've decided that here on out all of my posts will be of completed stories. So for my first one I decided to pick one that is close to my heart and that is Real Women Have Curves by Truefan (or Truefan20)
Bella comes to Forks as the overweight, excessively pale, book worm. No guy wants anything to do with her. Edward Cullen is the popular, smart, athletic, honor student who all the girls swoon over, despite the fact that he's never expressed interest in any of them. What if Bella really had a reason to have self-esteem issues? What if Edward had a secret that no one else knew?
Pairing: Bella / Edward
Rating: Nc-17
I'm not going to lie, what drew me in was the title. I saw it in the most recent feed on Twilighted a few months back and I had to read it. I try to stay away from the Nc-17 stories that focus on them when they are in high school but every once in a while one comes along and it blows me out of the water. This is one of those stories.
In this story Bella moves away from Pheniox to live with her dad in Washington. She's met with the same problems as most new kids face. Trying to make friends and fit in, getting up to speed in class. Sound familiar? It should if you've read the books. However unlike in the book series where it seems Bella is self conscious for no real reason, this Bella has one. All her life she's lived with the stigma of being the "big girl". She's was teased and laughed at and basically run out of her last school so despite her being the new girl in Forks she's determined to stay as invisible as possible. That probably would have worked if she hadn't gotten partnered with Edward Cullen in biology.
Bella thinks that Edward is probably just like every other hot-shot athlete she met before but she couldn't be more wrong. Edward is almost immediately drawn to her for reasons he can't explain, every instinct screams at him to protect her to shield her from the way the others around him talk about her. When he gets to know her he quickly finds out that Bella is as beautiful on the inside as he thinks she is on the outside. His only problem is him trying to convince Bella of that, but damn it that boy's gonna try.
Now if the title is what brought me in it was the characters and the plot that kept me coming back for more. I said at the very beginning that I picked a story that was close to my heart to review for you and there's a very good reason why this one belongs there. There were times reading this story where I had to step back and wonder if maybe True had some sort of mystical mind reading power because it was as if the story came right from the pages of the diary that I kept in high school. Bella's life in Phoenix was my life until I went away to college. I connected with her more than any other character before because I know what it's like to be laughed at every single day, to feel worthless, and wish that for once you could disappear into the cracks. I know how it feels to diet and exercise till your exhausted and hungry only to be discouraged when the weight never comes off. I've cried in dressing rooms and I've never once felt beautiful. But as I was reading this story something resonated with me for the first time. I felt hopeful.
Now before you get all worried, this isn't a story of Bella laying down and saying "woe is me" or "I give up things will never change." This is a story of her standing up and being able to say, "This is me and I kinda like myself the way that I am." It has some empowering messages and some pretty funny conversations between the characters. One of my favorites being...
Oh," Jacob hesitates. "I just figured the way he acted around you the other night and how you were going to his party that maybe you guys were..." He trails off.
"Well, no." I clarify. "We are only biology partners."
"OH! I get," he nearly shouts. "Like benefriends."
"WHAT?!" I yell, "NO!" I pull the phone away from my ear and press the TALK button to end the call.
The phone rings again.
"No Jacob! That is NOT what is going on between Edward and I, AT ALL, you perv!"
"Bella?" Edward's voice asks.
And that's only one example.
This is one of my favorite stories and in my opinion it's drastically under-reviewed. With only about 600 reviews on fanfiction.net and slightly over 2600 on Twilighted it comes up barely cresting the 3000 mark and in my opinion it deserves much more. Reviews are like heroin for us authors and just because we click that little complete box doesn't mean we don't want your opinions any more. So do me a favor, if you've ever felt out of place in your life (maybe it wasn't for your weight, maybe it was for something else, having glasses, being tall, being uncoordinated) go and check the story out and leave my girl True some love.
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