Jessica Harris, a transplanted Brit, finds herself given an opportunity that just might make or break her career as an entertainment journalist.  She splits her working time between employers, NEST, an online home decor brand, and an entertainment website. When she is offered the chance to interview her own teenage idol – now a Hollywood A-lister, she cannot believe her luck. As she comes to know Clark Conrad, she comes to realize that her superficial knowledge of him came no where close to the man he is now – damaged, egotistical, and all too human…

I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I found this novel to be unoriginal, with stereotypical and somewhat cardboard characters.  Sure, some of the material covered was topical (think the ‘Me Too’ movement) but the salacious subject matter just didn’t endear me to the book. The first two-thirds of the book dragged and I found myself skimming – and I hate skimming. The ending was less than satisfactory.

Perhaps it was the timing of the read. With all that is going on now in the world, reading about the false glamour, social media trends, sound bites and shallow/superficial concerns of the Hollywood scene just didn’t resonate with me. I found it to be a sad commentary about our modern society which is overly preoccupied with the false and illusory world of celebrities.

This is escapist, frivolous fiction. If that is your cup of tea, then jump in with both feet. Perhaps that is just what some readers need right now… It just wasn’t for me.

This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Head of Zeus Publishers.     ISBN: 9781786694058 –  ASIN: B077T96HX2   368 pages

Emma Dibdin grew up in Oxford, and now lives in New York. She is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in Esquire, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Total Film.

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