I've had this book on my shelves for almost two years. For whatever reason, I've never felt the urge to pick it up, even though I thought it would be something I would like. Recently I've been in the mood to read contemporaries over other genres, and finally decided to pick this up. Unfortunately, I wasn't as blown away by this as I wanted or expected to be.

What I liked:

1. The premise. I love stories that have to do with Hollywood, especially old-time Hollywood, as they usually involve a scandal or two. When we were introduced to the Clyde storyline, I was excited. That kind of thing is usually right up my alley.

2. Emi's job. I liked learning from Emi the ins and outs of set design. It felt like the author really researched this part of her story well and I found it fascinating.

3. I also liked that Emi seemed completely comfortable with her sexuality and it wasn't treated as some sort of dirty little secret.



What I didn't like:

1. The story lacked focus a bit for me. There were so many things going on in this book that I'm not sure any one of them actually succeeded the way they could have if the story had been streamlined. I would've loved a story about Emi and Charlotte searching for the long-lost granddaughter of a famous movie star. I would've loved a story about a girl navigating her first big job while falling in love with someone else at that job. Or a story that was more focused on Ava learning about where she came from and then trying to make amends with people she'd hurt. But this book threw all of that plus more all together and there were times everything just felt a little chaotic and unrealistic.

2. Suspension of disbelief. There were so many instances during this book where I just thought, "Would this really happen like this?" For example, Emi is barely 18 years old, but we are supposed to believe that she has been working on film sets as a set designer (an intern, but still.) since she was 16 years old? We're told repeatedly that it was actually her brother who got her the job, but that doesn't feel right either. After all, how old is he supposed to be himself? I don't recall if his age is mentioned, but if he was already accomplished enough that he was able to hook her up with a job two years prior, then he must've been in his 20s, right? Or are we supposed to believe that he has also been working since he was 16? And then we find out that he's had a thing for her best friend and was 'waiting for her to turn 18'...so if he's much older that 22/23, that's more than a little creepy to me.
Another thing that struck me as unbelievable was the ease with which these characters made their way around Los Angeles. I don't live in that area, but I have driven there before and I know people who live there and one thing I understand is that it takes forever to get anywhere. There is one scene in the book where Ava makes an appointment for 'a couple of hours' later. She wants to go shopping before the meeting, and Emi has another meeting with her bosses in a different area but agrees to meet Ava and go with her to the meeting. And apparently everything was perfect and traffic was perfect because they are able to make the appointment with no issues whatsoever.
Also, I get that her ex recommended her for the job, and it was a low-budget movie, but how many directors would hand the reins over to a girl who had just finished high school? And the fact that all three of the leads in this indie movie were A-list names? I know that famous people do indie movies for little to no money, but this all felt a bit contrived to me.

3. The romance. I really wanted to love this romance. But it felt so lackluster to me. It lacked real foundation. It lacked any chemistry whatsoever. There is one kind of cute scene where they list all of their flaws to the other person, but other than that their relationship falls very flat. Ava is going through some incredible changes in her life, what with finding out about her mother and where she comes from. This obviously causes her a lot of emotional distress. I actually felt a little nauseated about this being a romance when it was obvious that one of the characters involved in the romance was in crisis. And it's virtually left unresolved. She has like three different meltdowns throughout the course of the book, but no one ever suggests that maybe she needs to go to therapy or work through her issues.
There is an entire passage where Ava has disappeared after a meltdown at the homeless shelter she was staying in. None of her friends have any idea where she is and she won't answer texts or calls. So they all run around to all of the places she might be and finally find her an hour and a half's drive away sleeping in her car. And instead of staying with her, this girl who obviously needs help, they just decide to leave her there and drive the hour and a half back home and agree to never mention to her that they were worried and looking for her.. It makes NO SENSE! And in the end, it feels like we're supposed to believe that true love conquered all or something. Oh, and it's pretty much insta-love on Emi's part. She is pining over her ex for the first chunk of the book, and then she meets Ava and almost immediately tells her friend that Ava was 'meant' to be in her life.

4. The writing. I didn't feel any emotional pull to the story at all. I attribute that to the writing style. It was very simplistic. There was a lot of telling, not showing: I did this and then I did this and then she said this and then I did that and then...It just lacked depth. There were times when it was obvious the author was attempting to be philosophical and profound, but it just came off as being a little trite, in my opinion. Also, there were passages that just felt awkward. The ends of some of the chapters were introspective, but not in a thought-provoking way. It just felt like the author was trying to hard. Also, there were never-ending monologues by the characters as they were telling stories that tended toward info-dumpy.

5. Lack of tension. This story has very little tension. It just kind of meanders from one day to the next. This isn't a problem if the story is slice of life. But this is supposed to have some semblance of a mystery attached to it. The 'mystery' was almost non-existent, and any chance for tension is extinguished almost as quickly as it's introduced. Like the scene where they find Ava asleep in her car in front of her adopted mother's house, we'd been along for the ride with her friends searching for her for the previous several pages. They were frantic with worry for her, since she'd had a breakdown at the homeless shelter and was kicked out. Then they finally find her and just decide to leave without waking her and finding out what the heck was going on with her. Any sense of tension was quashed. I don't understand why the author would build up all of this emotion just to squander it.
Later, she decides to go home and try to make amends with her adopted mother. This could've been a really impactful scene. It SHOULD'VE been impactful. But I just didn't feel anything while reading it. The only time I felt even a moment of anything was when her brother came out and gave her a hug.

6. Characters. I didn't feel like any of the characters had any depth, aside from Emi. There were a couple of times a character's name was mentioned and I had to stop and try to remember who the person was. It was all very surface-level.

Other odds and ends:

1. If Tracey also suffered from drug/alcohol abuse, how in the heck was she allowed to adopt Ava? She was barely more than a kid herself, but the state let her take custody of Ava and then proceed to barely make ends meet for years? That isn't plausible.

2. I felt like it was strange to mention almost halfway through the book that Emi and her brother are a quarter black. I love the idea of a mixed-race main character, but it almost felt as though it was being used as some sort of little twist or something and that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. It was probably just the awkward nature of the writing and not something that was actually supposed to be a twist, but it just didn't work for me.

This is such a bummer for me because I felt like it had real potential to be a new favorite book. I don't know if I'll pick up any of her books in the future because I just don't connect to her writing style the way I would like.