Book Review: Famous by Jenny Holiday

Famous

Author: Jenny Holiday
Series: Famous, Book 1
Publisher: Jenny Holiday
Publishing date: July 11, 2017
Kindle, 282 pages
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Summary: Everyone knows her face. He knows her heart.

Emerson Quinn is famous. Girls want to be her. Boys want to date her. Each record outsells the last. All that remains is to continue transitioning her brand from its teenage fan base to a more mature, diverse audience. So she’s under strict orders to play nice with her army of assigned co-songwriters and to knock off the serial dating that keeps landing her in the tabloids. If she follows instructions, she can look forward to an indefinite run at the top of the celebrity ecosystem. There’s only one problem with this plan: Emerson is miserable.

So she runs away, impulsively fleeing her L.A. life and heading for a small Iowa college town where a guy she once knew lives. He’s the only person in the world she can think of who might be enough of a nerd to not know about Emerson Quinn the brand. Who might be willing to provide a haven where she can lay low and write her new album by herself, on her own terms.

Art history professor Evan Winslow knows a thing or two about leaving your past behind. He’s worked hard to establish himself far from the spotlight of his infamous father. He’s up for tenure soon, which will mean job security for life. All he has to do to lock down his hard-won, blessedly quiet existence is keep his head down.

Too bad the most famous pop star in the world—who also happens to be his long-lost muse—has just shown up on his doorstep.

Rating: 5 stars

Review: I fell in love with this book so hard. Famous is sweet yet sexy, with just enough angst to make your heart flail a bit but still remain fluffy. I want to snuggle with this book while listening to Emerson Quinn's music on repeat.

The set up is so sweet - Emmy and Evan meet at a wedding and have a moment, but as he's 26 and she's only 19 they have their one night of PG-13 rated connection, and then go their separate ways. Emmy is just starting on the path toward her future, and Evan's life has basically crumbled around him and he's off to the opposite side of the country to start over himself. Fast forward 7 years and our story truly begins...

Emmy is so great, though I kept having visions of Taylor Swift appear in my head... I have to say that I LOVE that she's from Minneapolis and played her first show at First Ave. Being a Minnesota girl myself, I feel like Emmy and I could totally have been buds. ;) She's so sweet and earnest, and I adore her relationship with her manager, Tony. Her "incognito" look made me laugh, and I love the personal growth the goes through in this book. It's like she started hitting it hard to reach her dreams so early, she didn't really learn to be a "real girl," so I love that she gets to embrace doing "real girl" things.

Evan is a hot nerd and totally swoon-worthy. He's got some shadows in his past with his criminal father, and needs to learn to come to terms with his past in order to embrace his future. I love a tortured artist and this book has TWO OF THEM! Emmy is struggling to find her voice in her music, and Evan is a painter who doesn't paint. Gah! I can't even with these two.

Besides the main characters being adorable and making me want to have a summer BBQ with them, the side characters in this book are also phenomenal, especially Emmy's manager Tony and Evan's next door neighbor Mrs. Johansen. OH MY GOSH, Mrs. Johansen. I just love feisty old ladies, and her online dating exploits are hilarious.

What are you still reading this review for? GO READ FAMOUS RIGHT NOW.