| Title: | In Bloom | |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Katie Delahanty | |
| Publisher | Entangled Publishing | |
| Publication Date: | February 10, 2014 | |
| Publisher's Description | My name is Olivia Bloom and I. Am. Free. I left for LA with everything I owned piled into my old Volkswagen and dreams of becoming a costume designer. Little did I know I’d wind up designing for a lingerie company—yeah, not sure how I landed this gig—and taken under the wing of two young Hollywood insiders. The fashion shows and parties were great, but life really got exciting when the seriously hottest lead singer of my favorite band started to fall for me. How does someone like me, an ordinary girl from Pittsburgh, wind up in the arms of the world’s sexiest rock star—surrounded by celebrities, fashion, and music—and not be eaten alive? Berkeley is everything I've ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, but the paparazzi, the tabloids, the rumors, it's all getting a bit too crazy. My life has become every girl’s dream come true, if only I don’t blink and lose it all... |
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| My rating: | * | |
This book didn’t work for me at all, and I’m not quite sure why. It sounded like something that I would, if not like a lot, at least like well enough. Although my interest was piqued by the blurb, it wore off pretty quickly once I actually started reading the book. The first chapter reads like any late ’90s, Early Aughts chick-lit novel. Scrappy single girl moves to the big city. Check. And immediately experiences something that shows her she’s not in Kansas (or Pittsburgh) anymore. Check. And is so gosh-darn awkward with the guy we’re 98% sure she’ll be with by the end of the novel. Check, check, and check. Okay, so this book isn’t breaking any new ground. That’s not a crime, right?
The problem was that there didn’t seem to be any heart underneath the familiar plot. The central conceit (okay, central to the first 26% of this book, which is when I threw in the towel) is that, on the strength of one less-than-stellar encounter with a celebrity, Olivia must allow Blair and Preston to Eliza Doolittle her into an It girl. One, what? Two, what? Three, why does she go along with this? None of the answers make any sense, and it makes me think worse of everybody involved that this plan was given any credence at all.
This novel managed to be as vapid as the worst drivel ever published by Red Dress Ink and, to add insult to injury, boring at the same time. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever make it to 27%, so I’ll just have to say that the part of this novel that I did get through didn’t work for me on any level.
I received this novel from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.