Before He Was Famous

Before He Was Famous by Becky Wicks
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

With all due respect to an author and what it takes to write a story - what a mess! This book should be near the bottom of your new-adult-to-be-read list.

This story began as cute, sweet, your general romance. It had such potential! But things began to go downhill as soon as I started reading slang I didn't understand. The book is set in Colorado and New York and these characters are American. So what's with all the British slang? And as soon as the British stage manager is introduced, he starts talking in a rhyming slang that is common to Aussies, not Brits. So to further confuse things, it's not just British slang that makes an American stop and have to figure it out - it's Aussie rhyming slang that makes no sense at all to an American. None of this would be an issue if the author had simply changed the setting of the book to the UK. But for American characters set in America? No.

Things continued on a downward slope as the book gratuitously drops current celebrity names and songs interspersed with fictional ones. If the author had simply chosen one or the other - preferably the fictional ones - it would have been fine. But to intersperse them made no sense, and using current names and songs will quickly date the book.

The main characters were well-developed, although they tended to make stupid decisions which clearly were intended to simply build tension in the plot and push it along. The stock secondary characters were sadly underdeveloped. The backdrop of a new celebrity gaining his footing was well done and would have easily been enough conflict in the plot. But the addition of a sub-plot with one main character getting death threats was just unnecessary.

This book feels as if the writer read a book about how to write a book and then wrote a book. Some of the elements are right, even good. But others are lacking. Add to that some questionable editing and this novel becomes forgettable before it even ends.

This book is a tragedy really, because with some tweaks it might be average or even really good. In its current state it is a nominally passable story in desperate need of major changes. It has a lot of potential, but it's just not there. This author needs to make some serious changes in her books if she aspires to any degree of success in the publishing industry. There is a reason self-published books often fail, and this is a prime example of one. What a shame.



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