AUTHOR: Carlyn Greenwald GENRE: LGBTQ+ Romance PAGES: 336 pages RELEASED: 18 April 2023 SYNOPSIS: For aspiring cinematographer Luna Roth, coming out as bisexual at twenty-four is proving more difficult than she anticipated. Sure, her best friend and fellow queer Romy is thrilled for her--but she has no interest in coming out to her backwards parents, she wouldn't know how to flirt with a girl if one fell at her feet, and she has no sexual history to build off. Not to mention she really needs to focus her energy on escaping her emotionally-abusive-but-that's-Hollywood talent manager boss and actually get working under a real director of photography anyway. When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she's found her solution. She'll use Valeria's interest in her cinematography to get a PA job on the set of Valeria's directorial debut--and if Valeria is as gay as Luna suspects, and she happens to be Luna's route to losing her virginity, too . . . well, that's just an added bonus. Enlisting Romy's help, Luna starts the juggling act of her life--impress Valeria's DP to get another job after this one, get as close to Valeria as possible, and help Romy with her own career moves. But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble--straining her relationship with Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she's destined to end up on the cutting room floor. A coming-of-age Sapphic romance set against the backdrop of Hollywood.
Aspiring cinematographer Luna has been a PA for a difficult Hollywood talent manager in the hopes it’ll get her the connections and references to move into a role that truly fulfills her passion. Meanwhile outside of her career, she has just come to a major revelation at the age of twenty-four - she’s bisexual. Feeling a little behind the 8-ball in terms of experiences with women, Luna embarks on a journey to not only advance her career, but her love life as well. She befriends twenty-eight year-old A-list actress Valeria, who radiates queer energy despite not being out to the general public, and is about to make her directorial debut. Luna scores herself as job as a PA, and if she exceeds in the role, the connections she makes will give her a chance at scoring more on-set work. As her friendship and relationship with Valeria blossoms, and her career takes a positive turn, Luna inadvertently puts a strain on her relationship with non-binary and lesbian besite Romy. With so much change happening in her life, Luna’s desire to chase experiences could just destroy everything she’s been working to achieve, and break some hearts in the process. I do love me a romance set to the backdrop of the glitz and glam of Hollywood, and all the drama that unfolds behind the scenes! Carlyn is essentially writing a love letter to LA and the sights of Hollywood, with many interesting locations visited and referenced throughout the book. At times, I felt she was cramming a little too many references into the book, but as someone who hasn’t been to LA, it was moreso overwhelming for me to picture all these locations and feel immersed than it was being too overpowering. I was definitely a little torn with the love triangle in the book - I genuinely wanted to see both couplings be endgame as I think both had potential, although I was happy with how everything turned out in the end. Valeria was an interesting character and I would have loved to see more from her. I only wish that we had explored a little more of Luna and Romy’s friendship, especially in terms of the romantic feelings that developed between them. Their romantic connection felt a little rushed at the end after spending a majority of the book focusing on Luna’s feelings towards Valeria. As much as I wanted to love this book, I really struggled throughout with most aspects of the book, although not enough to actually DNF completely (which I find hard to do anyway). There was SO much potential with this story and these characters, but everything fell flat rather quickly. Carlyn’s writing style seemed to miss the mark on several occasion, and some scenes just felt very clunky (one of the smut scenes in particular). One of the major issues I had with this book was Luna and her mindset surrounding needing to validate her bisexuality and her view of virginity. While it’s true that many people do have the same view as Luna, and that everyone’s road to coming out is different, Luna was particularly frustrating - she would openly agree with her friends and then do the exact opposite on multiple occasions, she didn’t actually learn from her actions or have character growth for the majority of the book, and she was very selfish when it came to her friendship with Romy who was a major voice of reason when it came to queer experiences. Luna was very one-dimensional and while her mindset was fine in the beginning when she was trying to figure things out, it got super repetitive real quick when she was constantly ignoring what the people around her were saying over the course of the book. Luna’s journey is definitely one that needed that character development throughout the entirety of the book, not just in the final few chapters. I was super excited for this book as I’m a sucker for Sapphic romances and Hollywood drama, but this one really missed the mark despite having a lot of potential. The romance itself was pretty fun, but everything else around it made it hard to enjoy. With this being Carlyn’s debut novel, I’m definitely keen to check out her future work to see if I just didn’t gel with this book, or if she’s just not the author for me. |
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