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A review by theverysleepygirl
Cover Story by Rachel Lacey
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Cover Story is a sweet charming story about an actress falling in love with a bodyguard posing as her girlfriend.
The story puts a lot of time into developing the actress’ character — Natalie — and the way that she deals with the trauma of having been kidnapped by a stalker 10 years ago. This paid off, as I found that it did a great job of handling her problems in a sensitive way while critiquing the invasive nature of Hollywood.
As for Taylor, I loved the perspective put on her love for her family and facing recovery from her back injury.
I was initially interested in how both of these characters would come together and overcome their internal battles. But unfortunately, I couldn’t get invested because I felt that this book fell short for me in terms of conflict and tension.
This is partly due to the fact that I personally found the writing style stilted and disconnected. There is a lot of “this” then “that” then “this” to it. I previously mentioned that we see a lot about the characters’ internal conflicts, but we don’t really see it but are rather told it outright, if that makes sense.
Rather than being described a scene, or the way that a character truly feels, it just skips to “A” is feeling “this”, and “B” notices because it’s obvious. In that exact sentence format. There is little difference in it no matter the POV, which made it hard at some points to identify whether we were in Natalie or Taylor’s POV.
Similarly, there are a lot of time jumps where we miss out on scenes where the characters are meant to be bonding. A lot of it just happened off-page.
Due to this, I struggled to believe that they were truly falling in love with one another. I couldn’t pinpoint any romantic chemistry between them beyond them initially finding each other physically attractive.
Aside from the lack of romantic tension, I also felt that there wasn’t much tension in terms of the whole “forbidden fake dating” aspect.
The whole situation about what Taylor did to get the job is barely relevant. Them dating is not forbidden by Taylor’s company and never becomes a conflict. In fact, a bunch of characters are told of the fake dating situation outright, with barely any reaction to it, which made it lose even more tension.
In summary, though this book featured interesting perspectives, I failed to find myself invested in the characters or the romance.
Still, I am grateful to NetGalley for providing me with this eARC in exchange for my honest review.
The story puts a lot of time into developing the actress’ character — Natalie — and the way that she deals with the trauma of having been kidnapped by a stalker 10 years ago. This paid off, as I found that it did a great job of handling her problems in a sensitive way while critiquing the invasive nature of Hollywood.
As for Taylor, I loved the perspective put on her love for her family and facing recovery from her back injury.
I was initially interested in how both of these characters would come together and overcome their internal battles. But unfortunately, I couldn’t get invested because I felt that this book fell short for me in terms of conflict and tension.
This is partly due to the fact that I personally found the writing style stilted and disconnected. There is a lot of “this” then “that” then “this” to it. I previously mentioned that we see a lot about the characters’ internal conflicts, but we don’t really see it but are rather told it outright, if that makes sense.
Rather than being described a scene, or the way that a character truly feels, it just skips to “A” is feeling “this”, and “B” notices because it’s obvious. In that exact sentence format. There is little difference in it no matter the POV, which made it hard at some points to identify whether we were in Natalie or Taylor’s POV.
Similarly, there are a lot of time jumps where we miss out on scenes where the characters are meant to be bonding. A lot of it just happened off-page.
Due to this, I struggled to believe that they were truly falling in love with one another. I couldn’t pinpoint any romantic chemistry between them beyond them initially finding each other physically attractive.
Aside from the lack of romantic tension, I also felt that there wasn’t much tension in terms of the whole “forbidden fake dating” aspect.
The whole situation about what Taylor did to get the job is barely relevant. Them dating is not forbidden by Taylor’s company and never becomes a conflict. In fact, a bunch of characters are told of the fake dating situation outright, with barely any reaction to it, which made it lose even more tension.
In summary, though this book featured interesting perspectives, I failed to find myself invested in the characters or the romance.
Still, I am grateful to NetGalley for providing me with this eARC in exchange for my honest review.