Review: Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle

Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Publication Date: October 23rd 2014
My rating: 2 stars

She fell in love with him in the books - now she has the chance to star opposite him in the film . . . Paige doesn't think she's particularly special, but after getting the starring role in a massive film adaptation of the bestselling Locked trilogy, the rest of the world would disagree. Now she's thrown into the spotlight, and into a world of gossip, rumour and deceit. The only people who know what she's going through are her two male co-stars, and they can't stand the sight of each other. Paige knows it's a mistake to fall in love on the set of a movie, but days of on-screen romance and intensity start to change her mind. The question is, can she keep what happens behind the scenes a secret when the world is watching her every move?

Imagine finally getting your chance to shine, after little bit parts, getting that massive role which will thrust you in the limelight. This is what happens to Paige, she ends up auditioning for one of the roles for a book to movie adaption and ends up getting the part. She’s whisked off immediately to Hawaii to start filming, leaving behind her family and best friends and gets to work on set with heart throb actor Rainer. Rainer has been an actor from a young age, so he knows what’s it like, how to deal with fans and having paparazzi constantly buzzing around you, misinterpreting images of you. This is Paige’s first big chance, so she’s not had to deal with this before, but Paige was great, she wasn’t one of those people who let the limelight immediately go to her head. She actually struggled to become the actress that everyone wanted her to be, she felt isolated from everyone else, her best friends were back home doing who knows what and she didn’t really have the confidence in herself, she didn’t realise the reason she was cast was because she was that good.

When it came to the potential love interest I really didn’t know what to think, even though he seemed genuinely nice, I didn’t feel that his feelings for Paige were truly genuine. One minute he would be mucking around with Paige and the next he’d be sharing deep feelings for her. Don’t get me wrong, he was really a nice character, but probably not my favourite character. Then there was the other potential love interest, who I actually was really intrigued about, he wasn’t the big actor everyone loved, but he really kept himself to himself, when he did open up, I was kind of left wanting to know more about him, he was at times down to earth and quite humble, despite this whole different story being created about him. Also when he was around Paige I could feel the tension between them, and the desire they felt for one another that could take them who knows where if they would act upon these feelings!

The love triangle could be tiresome at times, especially when these three characters were together, it did at times bring out the obnoxious side to some characters and so the reason I much preferred it when two characters were together instead. Also I was actually really interested in whole making the movie storyline, I liked learning about everything that went into making a movie in the first place, how it wasn’t as easy as everyone assumed, seeing  photo shoots take place, how lovely it could be away on set. And I even wanted to know what would happen to the characters in the book that made this book to movie adaption happen in the first place (the book series the movie had been was a roaring success, it featured a love triangle, and fans would finally find out, who the character would end up choosing in the final book) but details like these were skipped upon and a love triangle ended up happening on set too!

Serle is certainly one talented author, this story was written beautifully and that is one of the main reasons I ended up reading until the very last page. Famous in Love was not one of my favourite reads maybe because I was expecting a lot more, but ended up being bothered by a few frustrating decisions or actions that some characters made. However I’m still willing to give Serle’s books another go, here’s hoping I’ll end up enjoying them even more.