I had been seeing this cover all over the place and it is very eye catching. When I read the synopsis, I was excited all over again because it felt nostalgic. I was a millennial teen OBSESSED with Britney, Christina, Jessica, *NSYNC, and BSB.
Amber Young wants to be a singer from the time she is a young girl. She gets “discovered” early on and tries to break into the industry. However, her mother is unsupportive and has substance abuse issues so she stops auditioning until her teens. Then she gets the call that she’ll be in a girl singing group, Cloud9.
From there everything escalates and she becomes famous and has “made it”. Along the way she struggles with her sexuality, relationships, and career choices.
Amber felt eerily like Britney Spears, so much so that it was hard to differentiate the fictional character from the real person.
I liked how Banta brought up the big issues like singers being pitted against each other, the virgin/madonna dichotomy, drinking, eating disorders, etc.
I also liked how the book was set up with snippets from teen magazines, interview transcripts, liner notes, and Wikipedia entries.
Despite all that, I thought the book fell a little flat. A lot happens in the first 100 pages. It just feels like boom, boom, boom… “then this happened, then this happened, etc.” it didn’t feel more than surface level. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters (except Axel) and we didn’t really delve much into anyone’s backstory, even Ambers.
Overall, I think it’s a good debut, but things could have been fleshed out more.
Amber Young wants to be a singer from the time she is a young girl. She gets “discovered” early on and tries to break into the industry. However, her mother is unsupportive and has substance abuse issues so she stops auditioning until her teens. Then she gets the call that she’ll be in a girl singing group, Cloud9.
From there everything escalates and she becomes famous and has “made it”. Along the way she struggles with her sexuality, relationships, and career choices.
Amber felt eerily like Britney Spears, so much so that it was hard to differentiate the fictional character from the real person.
I liked how Banta brought up the big issues like singers being pitted against each other, the virgin/madonna dichotomy, drinking, eating disorders, etc.
I also liked how the book was set up with snippets from teen magazines, interview transcripts, liner notes, and Wikipedia entries.
Despite all that, I thought the book fell a little flat. A lot happens in the first 100 pages. It just feels like boom, boom, boom… “then this happened, then this happened, etc.” it didn’t feel more than surface level. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters (except Axel) and we didn’t really delve much into anyone’s backstory, even Ambers.
Overall, I think it’s a good debut, but things could have been fleshed out more.