Title: When You Wasn't Famous
Author: slincoln
Rating: T
Genre: Romance/Humor
Status: Complete
Library Category: Romance
Pairings: Harry/Ginny
Summary: A/U: When you're a famous boy it gets easy to get girls. It's so easy you get a bit spoiled. But when you try to pull a girl who is also famous too, it feels just like when you wasn't famous.
Link: FanFiction.Net

As far as Harry/Ginny stories go, this is a fun and fluffy one, and I would say one of my favorites. Set in an AU where Voldemort never existed, they are both world-famous Quidditch players with a bit of history between them. Both Harry's characterization as a somewhat spoiled rich playboy son of a famous father and Ginny's as a headstrong and independent young woman with strong ties to her family comes off as being eminently believable, and I quite like the way it's written with the alternating POVs. There's nothing here that's terribly ground-breaking or surprising, but all in all I found it to be a very enjoyable read.

One thing to note though is that the author is an obvious sports fan, and considering the story setup quite a bit is devoted to Quidditch. This may be a turn-off for some people, and there are some real-world sports references that non-sports may not get or appreciate, but I don't think it detracts from the story greatly - the author doesn't seem to over-project his sports fandom like some others (TheEndless7 being the most notable example that comes to mind).

I'd give it a 4/5.


Edit by Minion:
Based on the reviews below I am moving this into 'Almost Recommended' instead the Trash Bin. A quick calculation (including Lungs' and Pollie's reviews as 0/5) I come to 2.5 alltogether.
It's borderline, it has a pairing that tends to get voted down, thus 'in dubio pro reo'.

 

When You Wasn't...

 

Well, it's the title and lyrics of the song that this story was apparently inspired by. I did check out the song and did not care for it, but while this may not reflect well on the author's taste in music, it doesn't really reflect poorly on his grammatical skills either.

 

Decent time waster, but no real conflict. I know romance stories aren't going to have the same type of excitement as action/adventure, but you expect the human drama and to be frank there wasn't much of that besides Ginny's unresolved anger, which wasn't really given that much focus. That and the relationship for itself was kinda of taken for granted, as in the author didn't want to waste time showing the relationship form, but instead 61 thousand words of their friends and family all play matchmaker. 2/5

 

This isn't the kind of fic I'd go for so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It isn't a classic and it doesn't try to be one. It keeps things simple and focused, something I have seen a lot of good writers fail to do. With as many things going on in the background it would have been very easy for the author to lose their way.
It is cliched make no mistake, and yet it never quite made me cringe. Its a 3.5/5 from me. Short, sweet and enjoyable while it lasts which is what it set out to do.

 

I wanted to like something like this but there's just something super flat about the characterization that really puts me off.

 

Cute story, works like a charm for a quick guilty-pleasure fic. The biggest problem I have with this one is, like others said, the characters. There's no growth in a story where growth is needed.

2.5 rounded to 3/5

 

Perfect guilty pleasure fic, and a great example of wish fulfillment. I read through it in a day and was happy to do so. Very light hearted, no real conflict or growth, and yet at the end I didn't look back and say boy I wish it had more angst or boy I wish there were some dark wizards involved.

It also made me want to read some more stories in the same vein, and wish that A Game of Style and Brutality was updated more often.

3/5

 

Take away Voldemort and Harry becomes even more of an everyman than he already is. There's nothing distinctively 'Harry Potter' about this fic at all. Harry lacks Harryness, Ginny lacks Ginnyness... flat, boring, has no place in HP fanfiction.

 

It's acceptable, but def not Library level quality. It's an easy read and all... but that's it.

Biggest thing is that the characterization is on life support. I'd point out how Shets, Winstmore (or whatever his name actually is), and Cabbage (close enough) were lacking in having much character definition, especially as OCs, but fact is the canon members of the side cast needed just as much help if not more. No way I would've remembered anybody in Harry's entourage or been able to tell them apart if they weren't canon characters. Meanwhile, Hermione's boiled down to "the responsible friend" and Luna is "the one that says weird stuff". The main two were better, but not too much better. Definitely didn't feel like full people, but maybe like a knockoff store brand version.

And while there's nothing that sticks out as exceptionally aggravating about the prose, it's pretty average and barebones. There's really nothing inventive or unique about this fic, though I will say there was a spark or two in the Quidditch sequences where occasionally some knowledge of how to sport shone through.

Fact is, this is a casual hyper-wish fulfillment fic. And something easy and light hearted is fun to read from time to time. Despite its flaws, this fic does that job rather nicely. That's good and totally worth something, it's just definitely not worth Library quality at all.

3/5

 

I thought it was a decent time waster, which seems like it was the point. 3.5/5 from me.

 

I thought it was cute enough. I appreciated that it avoided most of the clichés I associate with bad rom-coms, and while mistakes were made by one of the characters, I didn’t get the sense of demonizing that some fics fall prey to - it was just that, a youthful mistake, and the characters treat it as such. It was good light fare, although it ran a bit on the long side, for what it was.

There were some typos throughout, but not nearly enough to make it unreadable. Like several others, though, for me it fell a little flat when it came to the characters. The side characters tended to blend together a bit, and Harry seemed rather generic. Again, it wasn't a big enough problem to make it unreadable. My biggest problem was in the first four chapters - it was inevitable in such an AU story, but there was a lot of info dumping that made it drag. Once I got past the opening chapters, though, it got better. Overall, I'd say 3/5.

 

It's alright, I suppose. It has a high enough level of Guilty Pleasure stamped all over it but the characterization was just bland.

There is nothing wrong with how it's written (except for the occasional typo) but it isn't special either. It just didn't grab my attention as much as it should have.

Even so, I liked it. 2,5/5 which makes it a 3