So this was my first reading of this celeb-romance subgenre. And let's be clear from the outset that it's a fairly low-brow subgenre at that. I wanted to really like this. The idea of the story is kind of fun. A sad, lonely no-career young woman is a moderator for a a celeb social media type of site and has her favorite male celeb she likes to bash. She gets an email from his truly and he wants her to be nice for awhile so he can get a different more serious type of part than he's been getting. Through machinations galore, he takes her on as an "everygirl" fake girlfriend and they fall in love.

I think maybe I'm too old for the story--because I detested the whole be famous for being famous storyline with the evil girls that push that through. But the story of the transformation of the main girl is kind of interesting. She kind of comes into her own -- somewhat. The romance is not great though--there's no where why or when of their falling in love and what would make it last other than that they are "comfortable" together. Yawn.

Unless you're a diehard for this subgenre, I'd say give this a skip. I didn't waste my time on the sequel. ( )

I'd probably give this 2.5 stars if I could. It was a fun escape read and a lot like reading some sort of fanfiction based on ONTD (which I found out after I finished it has it's own post about this book!)

( )

FREE TODAY in the Kindle store!

Uh-oh. I think I may add India Lee to my list of favorite authors. It could be just the sheer amount of bad books I've read lately, but I liked this so much I feel it worthy of five stars!

If you've ever lost yourself for hours on ONTD (I know I sure did), you will love this. See, Amanda is one of us. And even though her story is unbelievable beyond the pages of a book or a rom-com movie, it's really engaging and wonderful, with a Cinderella-but-not-quite feel. Because Amanda, in fact, hates her prince charming with burning passion. But after being jilted and cheated on by her best friend and boyfriend, shunned by the small town she lives in, she resorts to having to overcome that dislike in order to prove everyone wrong.

Some people steal, some people do drugs, some people sell them. I date models.

Liam stole my heart from that first HDU appearance. I don't know why - usually I'd go all Amanda on a story like that, he is a womanizing douchelord (btw, brilliant!). But it's because of this that you just know that you're in for a good read, and it turned out to be exactly that.

Amanda is witty and funny and loyal and sweet despite trying to pass herself off as something else. I loved her. After all that happened with Megan and Brandtwhatshisname, I really thought she deserved a break.
And Liam is just as wonderful once you get to know him better. You can actually see his subtle change towards her.

I could go on, and on, and on about how much I liked the dynamic between Amanda and Liam from that very first e-mail, trying to outplay each other. To the easy relationship that they fell into. To the very last scene because it was so appropriate.

I missed Liam, and I missed them, every time he was gone. I started to worry that the author wasn't going that way, and I'd have to switch sides to Dylan, whom I didn't like at all, for some reason and it would completely change the rating of this book for me if the author went that way.

And with a cast of interesting supporting characters, you are never bored. I must admit, I was intrigued by Casey and if she turns out to prove wrong on accusations. And I loved Ian because he gave off that "friend material" vibe. Megan, the icky, attention seeking ex-best-friend that you just love to hate.

Oh, I don't even want to admit at what I thought this book would be about. I'm quite happy with what it turned out to be.
The writing is wonderful, witty and charming, and the only fault to this is that I really wanted to see more of Amanda and Liam. It. Was. Just. Too. Short.

But fear not, because at the end of the book there's mention of the sequel. And a couple of more books from Ms. Lee that I can't wait to see what they are about. I definitely recommend (not only) this book (but also this author)! ( )

I kind of feel like this book proves my point on how utterly stupid the "new adult" sub-genre is. If I'm not mistaken this was out or at least written before people started trying to make that ridiculous category happen. This is a story about adults of a younger age (although in the Hollywood microcosm that mirrors high school so well), written as an adult book. It's not an obvious marketing ploy like all the books written since NA became a thing (not previously released books reclassified from what they originally were). It doesn't rely on the juvenile writing and tired, often offensive, NA tropes to be interesting. The characters manage to come together without sexual assault being involved. Imagine that! In the book the main characters didn't screw everything that moves, nor was there a virgin defined by being one and running around acting like it's a fate worse than death.* In fact, there's no sex at all, which is completely refreshing — until, of course, the final scene.

The premise of the book is very fanfic-like in how over the top improbable it is. And a lot of things happened in plot, quite a bit of which were also improbable. But it is also just a fun read. I found myself rushing back to read it whenever I had to stop.

This is probably the most high quality self-published book I've read from someone who wasn't traditionally published first. There were some errors but less than quite a lot of traditionally published books now. My only big complaint was formatting: the site posts, comments, emails, and texts needed to be italicized to set it off from the exposition. That worked its way in later in the book, but it needed to be consistent throughout. Early on it was confusing going straight from a gossip site post to the main story.

I really liked that a small part of the story was told through gossip site stories. Instead of reading as outsiders with no knowledge of the truth like in real life, we read them as insiders in this book and are put in the perspective of the characters reading half-truths, outright lies, horrible statements, and even the actual truth. Also, Lee pretty much — hilariously — nailed ONTD comments. No wonder everyone's convinced she's a member there.

The story focused on Amanda's journey from down and out "nobody" college graduate with no clue what to do with her life, to center of the public eye as the girlfriend of a notorious Hollywood "bad boy". I liked Amanda, though she kind of made it hard sometimes. She could be too naive at times, and a little too nice. She didn't listen when warned about some people who could be awful. She wasn't proactive at all, and I figured she would have learned she needed to be by later on in the book. For instance, quite a few times she knew someone was going to do something, typically something that was going to bite her in the ass, but didn't do the smart thing to forestall their action. She often didn't speak up when she should have. I didn't get how she could be so bluntly honest with Liam, someone she didn't know and who hadn't done anything to her, but let her heinous ex-best friend and townspeople get away with treating her horribly. Or why she didn't get angrier at the people dismissing her when she chose to stand by her friend, Ian — someone who had been there for her when she needed him, and was instrumental in setting her life on this path — at personal cost to her. That was something I really liked about Amanda: how loyal she was. Even Liam knew that about her.

I really liked the romance. Well, once it happened. Amanda and Liam had some great snark. Their dialogue was funny, fun, and became quite sweet. I loved how their relationship evolved. The problem is that there wasn't enough of it. They were barely together at all the first fifty percent of the book. In the second half they got closer but it was more truncated than it should have been and they were apart again for quite a bit until the very end. It left me wanting so much more on Liam/Amanda front. Especially having Liam around in the story at all. I came to adore him and just wanted more of the two of them together.

Even with the over the top story and some frustrating, eye roll-inducing scenes, I really enjoyed reading this book. I'd be moving on to the sequel immediately if I didn't have library books I have to read.


*You know, I actually thought I was maybe being over the top bitchy in that first paragraph (even though I meant every word and it is exceedingly true). But then while posting I saw an ad for an NA book, the copy of which changed my mind. I don't think I was bitchy enough. ( )

Free on Kindle. Probably Spoilers. It was OK. I read it. But totally unbelievable. I mean, obviously, but the people who could have been believable weren't -- the horrible people in her home town, the worthless friend, etc.