On March 3, influencer Haley Pham, known for her book content on YouTube and TikTok, published her debut novel, Just Friends. The cozy romance features Blair and Declan, childhood best friends who reconnect after years apart. After Blair’s great-aunt, who is essentially a second mother to her, enters hospice care, Blair returns to her hometown and begins working at Declan’s coffee shop. As they rekindle their friendship, they explore what it means to cope with grief and find love again after a miscommunication.
Although her novel was only recently released, Advanced Reader Copies were sent out several months in advance of the publication to allow for early reviews. Almost as soon as the ARCs were sent out, Just Friends began receiving scathing reviews. One viral TikTok featured a reader criticizing Pham’s stilted vocabulary and supposed self-insertion as the (annoying) main character, among other things. In this TikTok, the creator @ilanaslibrary mocked an old video of Pham’s in which she didn’t know the word “banal,” going on to repeat that Pham must have written much of Just Friends with a thesaurus in hand. I do think it is valid to criticize stilted writing, but this TikTok came off more as a personal attack against Haley Pham — especially since the reviewer went into the book with the expectation that it would be bad.
This reviewer also discussed how Pham’s popularity likely allowed her to receive a lucrative publishing deal, whereas most writers attempting to publish their debut novel receive little to no help from the publishing industry. Towards the end of the video, she stated, “There are so many authors who write fantastic books and spend a long time on them and get the right editors to make it good, and then have to work to get an agent and a publishing deal, and this just fell in her lap because people like her videos on the internet.”
The creator went on to create a second video apologizing for her review, explaining that her intent was never to personally attack Haley Pham, but the damage was done. The comments had already flooded in. In response to her notes on the writing and the publishing deal, commenters attacked Pham’s education and work ethic. One commenter remarked, “respectfully haley didn’t even graduate high school … ofc she can’t write a book that’s like coherent & good.” Another commenter wrote, “It rubs me the wrong way that her main motivation is to become a NYT Best seller, when she doesn’t have the passion or work ethic to be deserving of that title.”
Beyond this TikTok, the other ARC reviews went similarly. After reading and watching several reviews of Just Friends, I wanted to give it a shot and see if the criticisms were valid. The reviews made me think it would be a barely coherent mess of a book. It proved to be the opposite: It was a quick, cozy read, fairly similar to the other romance novels I’ve read. Setting aside my thoughts on Haley Pham and the publishing deal, I thought the book was extremely ordinary. It doesn’t stand out particularly from the multitude of other trending romance novels, aside from the focus on Blair’s coping with grief. Even then, I thought the development of this sub-plot was mediocre at best, abandoned far too early into the novel.
Personally, I don’t enjoy the miscommunication trope in novels — I believe it allows authors to sidestep real character development, ignoring character flaws and destroying the foundation for any plot points that came before the big miscommunication reveal. Found all too often in enemies-to-lovers and second-chance storylines, the miscommunication trope feels shallow and underdeveloped. I think Pham’s story would have worked better as a reexploration of Blair and Declan’s friendship after years of growth and change. Had Pham reflected more on how the characters’ struggles had changed them, I think the novel would have hit significantly deeper.
That being said, I will reiterate that Just Friends was completely, utterly ordinary. All the problems I had with Pham’s story, I have with most other contemporary romance novels. The stories don’t contain much substance, the writing is overly simple and I finish the book unchanged. Just Friends wasn’t any better or worse than the typical romance novel, yet it received so much more hate simply because of who the author is.
There is a line between literary criticism (centered on a piece of work) and personal attacks against the author. When reviews stop being about the content of the novel and instead become petty comments against the author’s education level or work ethic, they cross this line. While there is a point to be made about the ease with which influencers can acquire a publishing deal in comparison to the average writer, these critiques should be made against the industry, not the individual who takes the opportunities put before them. While Haley Pham’s novel isn’t anything spectacular, it is a debut. Just as we would give other debut authors grace, we should give her grace.
Katherine Winton is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a staff writer for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at kwinton@cornellsun.com.
