Popular BookTok content creator Haley Pham released her debut novel “Just Friends” on March 3, taking her love for books from vlogs to the pages of a contemporary romance novel centered on second chance love.
Pham has over 7.8 million followers across YouTube and TikTok, making her July 2024 announcement for the novel a centerpiece of BookTok drama far before the release of the book itself. This instant popularity attracted the high-profile publishing house Atria Books, but perhaps the prediction of the novel’s success was grossly overstated.
The short novel brings readers into the life of Blair, an aspiring author turned marketing specialist who moves home from New York for the death of her great aunt Lottie, the woman who helped raise her. In the small, coastal town she grew up in, she reconnects with her childhood best friend Declan, who happens to be the man she fell in love with four years prior.
While the premise of the novel has the potential to create a unique love story built around the intersection of grief and love, the characters’ lack of nuance and development makes the story feel surface level. Instead of displaying complicated internal battles, the monologue of Blair runs a very black and white line between the moments she is dramatically immature and those in which she opens up.
The story tells two parallel timelines, one from high school and one right after she returns from college. Despite four years of time for her to develop, the story reads as the same person, with very little development across timelines.
“The conclusion naturally: Sharing wasn’t safe. Opening up was a risk the emotionally unintelligent made. And, of course, people always leave eventually. If they haven’t yet, it’s because you just haven’t gotten to that part of the story,” Pham wrote.
This train of Blair’s inner monologue comes after decades of her mother and Lottie’s love and her lasting college friendships, yet she still preaches for protectionism, until she FaceTimes her friend and spills every thought, worry and feeling from Lottie’s death to her reconnection with Declan. Pham generally writes these extreme beliefs by telling rather than showing, signifying literary immaturity in the young writer.
Ultimately, Blair’s inconsistency comes from Pham’s desire for character development while trying to keep Blair locked into her mother’s example. Blair’s mother makes every sacrifice for her daughter, laying the foundation for a heartfelt premise, yet the very, very explicit verbal reclusiveness of her mother roadblocks a more nuanced depiction of a dedicated mother.
Many fans attribute the clunky storytelling to clear autobiographical editorializing throughout the book. The Daily Trojan wrote, “readers acquainted with Pham’s online persona will read these parallels as an attempt to vindicate her whirlwind romance with [her husband Ryan] Trahan, often criticised for its naïve outlook on marriage and their extravagant spending on property ownership.”
Outside of the story itself, the writing is very hit or miss. Several of the similes and poetic phrases seem out of place, making the sentence structure clunky and way too long. In just the first chapter, there are often two or three references in one sentence, crowding up the imagery.
“An overhand of trees makes it seem like the town is wearing a beret, and flowers in bloom seemingly all year dot the quaint cottages that look like they’re built by fairies,” Pham wrote.
At the same time, the moments without over-the-top imagery are the most touching. Pham fails to depict this in the love story between Blair and Declan, but the moments of grief reveal the emotional potential of Pham’s writing. Perhaps if the novel had gone through a few more rounds of editing, her writing could have been elevated throughout the story instead of shining in select moments.
The version of “Just Friends” that truly wrenches reader’s hearts and makes them fall in love with the characters is hindered by the seemingly rushed publication of the novel. In another timeline, this story could have been one of old love anew, grieving lost love and building a home to host all of these emotions. Unfortunately, this isn’t the book that was published.
