Young Adulting

Author: Maggie Dallen & Christina Benjamin
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Falling in love is hard. Adulting is harder.

While the rest of her high school friends are heading off to college, Isabelle Ellis is diving headfirst into real life. Well…if Hollywood can be considered real life.

She’s scored the internship of a lifetime with a major production company. And thanks to the script she discovered, she’s certain she can make her temporary position permanent. Even better? The screenwriter might just be her dream guy. Sure, she’s never actually met him in person, but if their email exchanges are anything to go by, he’s her match made in heaven.

There’s only one problem. Her screenwriter crush wants TV heartthrob and Hollywood royalty Henry Landon for the lead role. Signing Henry to the project would be a major coup…but having to work with the unbearably egotistical actor might just be her worst nightmare.

Isabelle thought she was prepared for life in Hollywood and all the drama that comes with the glitter and glitz, but this might just be more than her little film major heart can handle.

Add in four new roommates, backstabbing intern rivals, and the Los Angeles’ public transit system and Isabelle’s new life in La La Land isn’t exactly the dream she’d imagined. Especially when she discovers her screenwriter dream man isn’t who he says he is… And Henry? It turns out the cocky A-list jerk has a heart. But he has secrets too and they could destroy her career goals and break her heart.

But no one ever said Hollywood was for the faint of heart.

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REVIEW

It’s just one hit after another from these two authors. They really know what they’re doing with the romance genre, and I hope they do some more co-written novels together.

this book is about a girl who’s just graduated high school and has the big ambition of becoming someone who helps screenwriters develop their scripts to become movies. It’s her first time in Hollywood, and she’s determined to make a name for herself. Henry is a big time actor whose parents have both been in the industry. He has the dream of starring an indie films, but his secret is that he’s actually written one. He’s submitted it to all the major film companies, but none of them have asked for the script rights. That is until an internship competition leads Izzy to contact him.

It’s a good thing he used an alias in place of his real name on the script since the first time they met he was a class A jerk. Funnily enough , he doesn’t even remember the encounter. But he’s not the only one who’s been lying. In order to get him to take her seriously, she exaggerated her title at the film company. But secrets have a way of coming out, and when they do it could destroy the trust they’ve built with each other. Hollywood is not for the faint of heart, and they are both about to learn that the hard way.

I love the trope of ordinary girl and famous person. I also love the false identity / duel identity stories, which this one had. Leo, the fake name for the script writer, is passionate, funny, and open. Henry is somewhat arrogant when it comes to his celebrity status and what it affords him, but his personality is really Leo behind closed doors. I loved that Izzy starts falling for Leo without ever having seen him before. She’s really falling for his personality. And then when Leo forces her to spend some time with Henry and consider him as the lead actor on his film, she starts seeing a different side of Henry. He might not be quite the jerk he came off as. Now the issue is she might be crushing on both of them, and she doesn’t know that they’re the same person.

This creates a suspense element where throughout reading there’s the constant question of will she find out and how will she react. In a way, it makes things less complicated because if they’re the same person and she likes them both then she no longer has to choose between them because they are one in the same. But there’s also the fact that when he caught her in a lie he called her out on it, so he’d be a hypocrite to have been lying to her this entire time about him using an alias.

Even worse, they’re not the only ones with secrets. And the secret that’s being withheld from Izzy could change everything and keep her from reaching her dreams.

This book was sweet and heartfelt and even had me laughing and crying at times. I didn’t want it to end. These characters are going to stick with me for a while. I love the premise of the story, and the execution did not disappoint. Even the side characters were interesting, and I would love to know more about their adventures in Hollywood as well as what’s going on with Fallon at college. I will definitely be keeping my eye out to see if there are any releases set within this world with these characters, but for now I’m just happy to see how everything worked out for Izzy and Henry. I’m going to have a major book hangover.