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My Review:Title: Rising Star
Author: Susannah Nix
Series: Starstruck #2
Published by: Indie
Release Date: November 8, 2018
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 322
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER With Friends
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:
Blurb:Who wouldn't want to house sit for a smoking hot movie star? The one woman he asked to do it.
Alice Carlisle has problems.
Her sociology Ph.D. dissertation is going nowhere, she's about to lose the TV extra job that's been paying her bills, and her roommate is kicking her out. She needs to find a new place to live ASAP, so she can focus on finally finishing her doctorate.
Enter Griffin, one of Hollywood's rising stars, who offers to let her move into his guest room if she'll dog sit for him. Four months rent free in a nice house with an adorable dog is an offer Alice can't turn down--even if she has major qualms about her movie star roommate.
Griffin Beach has it all.
He's gorgeous, newly jacked, and poised to make the leap from TV show regular to box office superstar. Until his dog sitter bails, leaving him desperate to find someone he trusts to look after his precious fur baby.
Someone like Alice, the extra who's never seemed to like him but loves his dog. Griffin has his doubts about the arrangement, but living with Alice opens his eyes to how empty his workaholic lifestyle has become. The more time they spend together, the more he realizes she might be exactly what he needs in his life.
Can Alice let her guard down and learn to trust again? Can Griffin stop trying to please everyone else long enough to show her how he feels? Will they get their Hollywood happy ending? Or will their love story bomb at the box office?
RISING STAR is a standalone story set in the same universe as FALLEN STAR, featuring a brand new couple with their own happy ending. The books in this series can be read in any order.
4 stars — I absolutely LOVED the first 70% of this book. It made me swoon, it gave me the awww’s, it just fulfilled something I was looking for. The last 30% wasn’t bad or anything, it just took a turn towards probably the more realistic, and I don’t think I was in the right mood for that. The problem with celebrity romances is that there is the fairytale, and then there’s the reality…and I will admit, I tend to want more fairytale than reality. 😛
Which is not to say this book didn’t deliver some reality in other ways. I really enjoyed the subplot of Alice’s dealing with sexual harassment…which sounds really bad, but I mean enjoyed in that I thought it was dealt with really well. I loved that her story was a bit more subtle, because I think we mostly get shown extreme cases, but the subtle ones that make women uncomfortable are just as important, and just as damaging. I really think that story needed to be told. And it made her trust issues very valid (not to mention leftovers from her childhood).
I liked Alice a lot, even if I sometimes didn’t agree with her decisions and assessments. I think she provided a valid perspective of a “normal” to the Hollywood lifestyle. I appreciated what she was dealing with trying to figure out what she truly wanted to do with her life, and how hard it was to get to that PhD finish line.
Griffin had some wonderfully swoony moments, but also some super douchey moments, and I feel like I didn’t quite get the growth I was looking for from him. He laments his self-absorption, but he doesn’t seem to try to dive deep and figure out if it’s something he wants to change, and how to go about doing it. I wanted better from him in the end. I mean, I wanted better from both of them, but mostly I wanted him to be a bit more thoughtful of it all.
Their friendship to more was absolutely sweet and swoony and sexy. I loved the relationship they developed, and how they connected with one another. I loved how their chemistry came out once they got brave enough to admit what they wanted. But I hated the way that celebrity isolated them, and made some parts so toxic. I don’t know how I feel about their chances…since it took a realistic turn, I wouldn’t have minded knowing some of those hardships, and a bit more of how they handled it. *shrugs* Greedy.
There wasn’t a lot of secondary cast in this one. I think that’s what made it so hard for both of them, because they didn’t have many other people to rely on. I mean, Alice sort of had Rachel, and that got better later, but it was a bummer not to see any other relationships/friendships for either of them.
So yeah. I’m almost thinking maybe even 3.5 rounded up…but meh, I really loved that first 70%.
I like reality… but I want to feel like they’re going to have an HEA for sure. Sorry this one didn’t do that for you. 🙁 I’m glad you loved it for the most part, though!