Half a Man at Best (Sequel to VALERIE)

About the series...

I was almost finished typing this on my phone when somebody called without me saving the whole thing first and everything got deleted automatically so I had to start again (my hands are already limp). So if you read this, you're absolutely amazing!

I didn't do this on the first two books so I did it here, being that this is the last book in the series.

VALERIE:

I am aware that this book has same settings with few other books, wherein the main character is hired by Modest! Management to pretend as Harry Styles' girlfriend. However, I didn't copy anyone's idea in the whole process of writing the book. It was merely coincidental and I can assure all my readers that the plot of the story is originally crafted by me. Some are based from my experiences, some from the shows that I watch (with little twists), some from random thoughts that hit me.

I've also incorporated few real life events in the boys' lives last year (2013) chronoligically. E.g. the TMHT, Best Song Ever MV, Zayn's engagement, the VMA, the This Is Us premiere and whole lot of other things. So if you knew all these stuff and others that I haven't mentioned here but you identified while reading VALERIE, then you have been in the fandom for so long. Hahaha!

I can say that I am proud of this story because it isn't the cliché type of story where the girl just falls in love with a guy and that's it. Here, I add the complications between Valerie and Harry's character.

I've always been fond of love stories which started from being archenemies. Harry and Valerie despised and annoyed each other in the beginning. They used to ruin each other's day which eventually led their feelings to evolve to something special. Although it was already obvious that they're madly in love with each other, they still chose to live in the shadows of their pretend relationship. Oblivious and in denial about it, that's why it took so long before they finally became official.

In addition to this, as @narrypa claims it, this story isn't about a girl who ran away from her abusive parents, met 1D and fell in love with them. Then the parents haunt them just when they were already happy. In this book, the main character is also the villain, decided to run away from her old self to start over anew.

Valerie instead is adopted by a rich and loving couple, who ran away after finding out about it because of the shame from maltreating/bullying her brother whom she thought was the only one who's adopted. She ran away and changed her identity to white out the guilt from her past.

This story also entails lessons behind varied situations that Valerie encountered throughout the book.

Valerie's evil...

Valerie is her brother's bully, but she didn't do it just for the hell of it. Bullies may also have stories to tell of how they came to be one. She loved her brother, she had always defended him, especially when he was deaf and mute. But when he finally gained back his hearing and speech and thinking that she was the biological child, she was threatened when her adopted brother performed better in school than her. She was subconsciously pressured by everyone around her to do better but she ended up frustrated when all her efforts were just futile attempts. So she dumped all these grudges and disappointments to her adopted brother.

Standing up to bullies...

We all despised Dana for making Valerie's life a living hell. But the truth is she helped the main character to change and realize all the awful things she did in the past to her brother. What she did to Valerie wasn't even half of what Valerie did to Vitaly, but they were enough for her to realize that they were painful. She felt bad that she was able to stand up to Dana but Vitaly didn't to her. She learned that her brother loved her way too much to not hurt her the same way she always did.