Delacorte
October 11, 2016
288 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon
Perfect for fans of Jennifer E. Smith and Huntley Fitzpatrick, you'll love this funny and sweet contemporary romance about a Southern girl ready for a ho-hum summer until she meets the boy of her dreams who happens to be an international pop star.
Sometimes love stories go off script.
Another sultry Georgia summer is about to get a lot hotter. Dee Wilkie is still licking her wounds after getting rejected by the precollege fine arts program of her dreams. But if she'd gone away, she wouldn't have been around to say yes to an unbelievable opportunity: working on the set of a movie filming in her small Southern town that just happens to be starring Milo Ritter, the famous pop star Dee (along with the rest of the world) has had a crush since eighth grade.
It's not like Dee will be sharing any screen time with Milo—she's just a lowly PA. And Milo is so disappointingly rude that Dee is eager to stay far away from him. Except after a few chance meetings, she begins to wonder if just maybe there's a reason for his offensive attitude, and if there's more to Milo than his good looks and above-it-all Hollywood pedigree. Can a relationship with a guy like Milo ever work out for a girl like Dee? Never say never. . .
Novels with 'celebrity' characters can be some of my favorites. I like when we get to see the more 'normal' side to them while mixing in the aspects of whatever it is that makes them famous. In My Unscripted Life I really liked that Milo Ritter, a pop star, was starring in his first movie and that Dee, our not famous character, found herself working on that movie. It was something new for them both and they were doing that something new because of a recent failing (or not-quite-success) with the medium they loved.
Dee's rejection from the Governor's School summer fine art program gave her a unique reason for wanting to work on the movie set. She wasn't there because of a love of film or desire to see famous people (though there was some of that), rather she was there to escape that she wasn't going to Savannah for the program. I liked where she was starting from.
The relationship between Milo and Dee develops very quickly. The lead up to it was good and their seeming dislike of each other worked. Once they moved past that, though, it seemed to just happen. (Dee was calling him her boyfriend, without any questioning, after what seemed like a few days.)
The main issue I had with Milo and Dee and their relationship was the lack of communication. They had some serious issues to consider and work through - his recent breakup, her aversion to the notoriety that comes with dating Milo Ritter, the impending geographic separation, etc - but they never seemed to talk about it. At least not with each other.
If you don't get all think-y about it, My Unscripted Life is a cute, fun summer romance (in October). I enjoyed the depiction of Dee's life in small-town Georgia and that her work on the movie set was truly a part of the story and seemed realistic not glossed over or imagined, it added something to the story.
digital review copy received, via NetGalley, from the publisher
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