AUTHOR: James Weir GENRE: Contemporary PAGES: 432 pages RELEASED: 30 November 2022 SYNOPSIS: A sleepy town is about to wake up and smell the turmeric lattes #DontForgetYourKeepCup It started with the Hemsworths. Now, Byron Bay local, Aimee Maguire, is about to lose everything because she can’t afford to pay the rent. Her engagement is also on an official time-out since her fiancé doesn’t know what he wants. The last thing she needs is a surprise visit from her micro-influencer niece looking to ‘build her brand’. Her arrival sets off a chain of events that ends with Aimee tangled up with a group of influencers-turned-reality TV stars, exposing her to the absolute worst of humanity. But somewhere amid this mother of all messes there just might be a silver lining Aimee has been searching for. All she needs to do is embrace the one thing she’s been fighting so hard against – change. This book was kindly sent to me by Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own Welcome to a summer of outrageous reality television hi-jinx and influencers galore!
Life hasn’t been the same in Byron Bay since Chris Hemsworth moved to town. Now there’s annoying tourists during the summer, keep cups galore, influencers flooding the streets, and journalists flocking to get a scoop on Australia’s hottest destination for the stars. It’s far from the Byron Bay that Aimee Maguire grew up in, although Byron has always had a bit of an alternative vibe. Now it’s just on steroids. But making this summer worse is the fact that the building housing Aimee’s bookstore is up for sale, her fiancé has called for a summer time-out, and prices have absolutely skyrocketed so she can’t find a new place in town. The only positive is the arrival of her niece Freya, who’s decided her first summer since graduation in Byron. But with Freya’s arrival, Aimee is soon roped into the new reality television series being filmed in town, following a bunch of influencers. And Freya’s one of them. It’s the last thing she wants to do, but with zero savings to her name, the paycheck from being involved will be enough to keep her going for a few months. It’s a world she’s never understood and always been pessimistic about, but if she wants to finally face her fear of change and finally take some risks, she’s going to have to embrace everything this outrageous adventure throws at her. I’ll admit, this took me a little to get into as I wasn’t quiet sure of the vibes James was going for with this story at the beginning. But once we got into the reality TV stuff, I couldn’t get enough of this ridiculous cast of characters! James has such a fabulous writing style that brings all these wonderfully weird and different personalities to life and really pulls you into the lives of these characters. While Aimee is the focus of the story, there are so many interesting characters that get a chance to shine, and SO many laugh-out-loud moments. The Brats Of Byron Bay really needs to be a real television series because I need to watch this drama unfold onscreen! You don’t have to have been to Byron to know the stereotype that has been generated about the town, and I think James perfectly encapsulated the Byron Bay vibes, along with the outrageousness of influencer culture and reality television. At the same time, there’s underlying life struggles and realness - it’s not just all sunshine, beaches and hooking up. Between all the laughs, there’s the fear of taking risks, accepting change, finding the strength to move on, and reaching a crossroad in your life. For a good chunk of the book, I was ready to shit on the whole ‘Aimee & Time are on a no-contact, no-rules break’ thing because it was so weird to me - it was clear from the get-go that Tim was using it as a chance to go out and hook up with people over the summer with no repercussions. None of the Aimee’s friends seemed to question this arrangement, and the fact that it was a suggestion by Tim’s mum (who really grinds my gears) was a major red flag. But obviously, as we progress through the book, we see Aimee realise that her relationship was not the same as it was twenty years earlier when the pair first got together, and that both she and Tim were completely different people all these years later. Questionable method as it was, it provided some interesting and intense moments throughout the book. What I wasn’t expecting with this book was the final like 20% where things started going off the rails but in the best way possible. This was an absolute riot from start to finish, and James brought it all to close with one last dose of outrageousness. The only thing I wanted to see was a little more resolution with one of Aimee’s summer flings - the book’s focus isn’t romance, but I really wanted to see something a little more endgame for Aimee and the guy I was hoping she’d end up with. But Aimee’s ending was perfect for her after everything that she’d learned about herself throughout this story, so I can’t complain too much. I just bloody love romance books! This was such a fun summer read with plenty of laughs, sweet moments, and crazy reality television hi-jinx. So book your ticket to Byron to get in on the action and #DontForgetYourKeepCup! |
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