Star Attraction in Aussie Readers

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Sep 11, 2013 Tracey rated it it was ok

Shelves: australian, romance, fiction, 2013, humour

I wanted to read something light and frothy to read and this book certainly fits the bill.
So in a nutshell this book is about Jamie Hall who is the hottest talent in the world, he has the looks and a couple of romantic movies in the bag. He is doing the publicity drive for his latest film which sees him travelling down to Australia.
Madison is a serious journalist, she interviews politicians, people with courage and fortitude not these fake celebrity types. Yet her writing career has stalled, n I wanted to read something light and frothy to read and this book certainly fits the bill.
So in a nutshell this book is about Jamie Hall who is the hottest talent in the world, he has the looks and a couple of romantic movies in the bag. He is doing the publicity drive for his latest film which sees him travelling down to Australia.
Madison is a serious journalist, she interviews politicians, people with courage and fortitude not these fake celebrity types. Yet her writing career has stalled, no by-lines, no front page coverage, she needs a good story. Imagine her surprise when told to go and interview the bane of her reporting dreams a celebrity! For Madision these kinds of shallow characters should be relegated to the teen magazines not given page 3 coverage.

Before both characters meet each other in the book we learn how they are despondent, anxious and questioning of their career choices. Both want to be treated seriously and both are scared they are turning into lightweights. For Jamie he has lost contact with reality and tries to hold onto it. For Madison she is losing contact with her reality and when it does slip away it takes a mighty wake up call to bring her back. Jamie is skeptical about the sincerity of people in his life and Madison is skeptical about the sincerity of celebrity. Could the tension points between the two be any more obvious and are they both just ripe for a meet and fall in love scenario.

Madison has her female posse of Lucy and Sabine and each of them has a minor role in the central story as does Madison’s dysfunctional family.

Okay now this is where I list of some of the issues I have with this story.

There is a huge amount of back story that is captured, I mean Madison is at this celebrity party and you get endless gush about all her doubts and fears, issues with her family and it goes on and on. M You heard how Madison's Mother drunk too much, her Father works too much, her sister is too up herself and I was over it.
Then there are the names of the women, Pip, Madison, Scarlett, Tabitha, Sabine, Tory, Yvette, Maia and only one character gets a plain name and that is Lucy. Lucy the failed actor, working in call centre cannot have an exotic name like all the other popular girls.

Sabine just seems to disappear from the novel towards the end. She rings up Madison says ‘let’s go out’ and is never heard of again. Xavier, Sabine's partner is mentioned a great deal but never does the reader meet the man.

It would seem that every time that Madison thinks/see/hears anything about Jamie Hall, she has rushing adrenaline, rush of blood, quick fire beating of her heart and lots of other variations of a palpitation. Plus poor Madison while ever so worried about turning into a drunk like her mother seems to consume an awful lot of alcohol every time Jamie is around.

There were no surprises in this novel; it was not going to veer off into a direction that would be different from any romance/chick-lit novel. That kind of certainty can be reassuring but for me the letdown was the characters. Madison and Jamie just did not lift off the page and I was more interested to find out how Lucy and Stuart were progressing in their romantic endeavors.
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Sep 10, 2013 Chris marked it as to-read

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