Book Blog #418: Hollywood, Ending by John Green

 

Title: Hollywood, Ending

Author: John Green

# of Pages: 296 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (GR: 3.5 stars)

Synopsis: For rising young actors Kai Laramie and Juniper Castillo, being cast in the buzzy biopic Andy Warhol Never Gets Old is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for. They’re on the verge of breaking out, and maybe even falling in love. Soon the movie is blowing up and so are their lives—in exciting but also terrifying ways. John Green artfully blends a behind-the-scenes Hollywood love story with an unflinching examination of the insatiable attention economy. Told through dual points of view, the novel follows Kai and Juniper from their first days on location to the movie’s premiere, brilliantly juxtaposing their story with the on-screen study of Warhol’s life at the dawn of celebrity culture.

Review: (This is the first book I'm rating using Goodreads's partial stars)

This felt like a story I'd already read. Juniper, a child star who's now a young adult, has a chunk of a chapters from her first person perspective that showed the pains of growing up in the Hollywood industry. Since Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died was popular not that long ago, this felt like too similar of a story and made the book very put-down-able.

In the middle of the book, there are chapter from Kai's perspective which I enjoyed more. Kai is a more relatable narrator because he's a newcomer to the Hollywood industry. I initially thought that the story should have only been told from his POV, but I could appreciate how the dual points of view showed how those in the industry can be both victims and perpetrators of the toxicity (even if only through being complicit). 

However, even Kai's narrative highlighted the dark side of Hollywood in similar ways that some readers probably always saw through other popular media like Bojack Horseman (the glamor of Hollywood hiding the behind the scenes toxicity for the sake of fame, inauthenticity in the industry, selfishness for the sake of career, Hollywood driving people toward self-destructive behavior, etc). 

Overall, the writing was decent (love John Green's style) but the story wasn't fresh and ultimately was a slow read. Readers may feel differently if they haven't read other books that already covered the dark side of the entertainment industry. 

Even so, the pacing of the story is pretty slow because the story covers the lifecycle of the movie from an actor's POV (making the moving, promoting the movie, the aftermath). It's a contemplative story with nuanced characters rather than an eventful, heart-wrenching story.

Overall not a bad read, but it took me a while to push through this one and felt like a decent story at the wrong time. 

Book Blog #417: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Title:  Love, Theoretically

Author: Ali Hazelwood

# of Pages: 384 (paperback)

Genre: Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs. Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job. Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?

Review: High 3 stars! An enjoyable read for the genre.

The author isn't doing anything revolutionary here; an academia-related romance where the main conflicts can be traced back to bad assumptions and miscommunication are not far off from what Hazelwood already did in Love Hypothesis. Love, Theoretically is basically the less comedic version.

As per typical romance books, it appeals to classic women fantasies in men: for them to be caring (and maybe overly concerned about their well being), for men to be able to read their minds (aka know women's needs without having to be a direct communicator), and of course for them to be tall and strong. Elsie is of course the damsel in distress while also being a smart, hard working physicist. Jack Smith, unsurprisingly, is the fantasy.

I loved the yearning but overall the (predictable) plot was a bit slow that made the book somewhat put-down-able. The last third of the book was actually my least favorite and felt like Hazelwood got distracted writing the smutty romance part and the open plot points were an after thought that were rapidly wrapped up at the end. 

It's also painfully clear Hazelwood is projecting her interests onto these characters. There's way too many Twilight mentions (reminds me of As the Lemon Trees Grow and all the Studio Ghibli shout outs). From reading Bride and Mate, it's pretty clear why fanfiction and the omegaverse got a mention by the main character too.

Overall an entertaining read for a romance, would recommend it for people who are interesting in the genre and are able to not take the story too seriously.