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A review by arabellasbooks
Up Close and Personal by Kathryn Freeman
3.0
3.75/5
This book is a spin on the bodyguard trope where the woman is the bodyguard and the male is the female celebrity which was a spin that convinced me to buy this book in the first place. We see the two in their highly unprofessional meeting followed by then needing to spend all of their time together to keep Zac (actor) safe whilst also unravelling lies and mysterious paths from both Kat and Zac throughout the novel. At the same time, the two are trying to ignore and push aside their feelings and attraction towards one another, each for different reasons, before finally giving in to it which is when things start going downhill - especially when Zac’s mob boss dad comes back into the picture leaving a lot of tense feelings and Kat's niece being kidnapped (didn't think that extreme was relevant honestly) around our main characters leading to them, more so Kat, scrapping the idea of a relationship until her sister and Debs (niece) and his aunt (mum) call them out for being idiots which was funny.
I’m struggling to find the words to talk about this book because where I loved the concept and the book itself was an enjoyable read, I found that there were parts that felt a little slack for reasons I don’t even know honestly. I liked Kat and Zac and think they were so well written I just wasn’t a huge fan with how they had their conversations revealing their pasts as I felt it could have been a lot more emotional had it been written differently. I think one of the big things was the pacing of this book as the ‘conflict’ is not until the very end and, to me, felt highly unnecessary when we could have had more cute and trust building scenes. That being said, I did enjoy this book and the little references (especially to Marvel), it just isn’t my favourite contemporary ever.
This book is a spin on the bodyguard trope where the woman is the bodyguard and the male is the female celebrity which was a spin that convinced me to buy this book in the first place. We see the two in their highly unprofessional meeting followed by then needing to spend all of their time together to keep Zac (actor) safe whilst also unravelling lies and mysterious paths from both Kat and Zac throughout the novel. At the same time, the two are trying to ignore and push aside their feelings and attraction towards one another, each for different reasons, before finally giving in to it which is when things start going downhill - especially when Zac’s mob boss dad comes back into the picture leaving a lot of tense feelings and Kat's niece being kidnapped (didn't think that extreme was relevant honestly) around our main characters leading to them, more so Kat, scrapping the idea of a relationship until her sister and Debs (niece) and his aunt (mum) call them out for being idiots which was funny.
I’m struggling to find the words to talk about this book because where I loved the concept and the book itself was an enjoyable read, I found that there were parts that felt a little slack for reasons I don’t even know honestly. I liked Kat and Zac and think they were so well written I just wasn’t a huge fan with how they had their conversations revealing their pasts as I felt it could have been a lot more emotional had it been written differently. I think one of the big things was the pacing of this book as the ‘conflict’ is not until the very end and, to me, felt highly unnecessary when we could have had more cute and trust building scenes. That being said, I did enjoy this book and the little references (especially to Marvel), it just isn’t my favourite contemporary ever.