#famous - Jilly Gagnon

#famous by Jilly Gagnon
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Blurb (on back of book): In this modern-day love story, Girl likes Boy, Girl takes photo of Boy and posts it online, Boy becomes accidentally insta-famous. And what starts out as an innocent joke spirals into a whirlwind adventure that could change both their lives—and their hearts—forever. But are fame and love worth the price?
Told in alternating points of view, #famous captures the out-of-control thrill ride of falling for someone in front of everyone.

MY OPINION: **

I had such high hopes for this book considering that I read a ton of good reviews from friends and authors! However, it just wasn't as good as I expected it to be and that just left me a little sad.

Rachel, a girl who is described as weird, not popular, and maybe slightly introverted, takes a picture of her senior crush (she's a junior), and posts it on a social media platform called Flit. I just want to take a moment here to speak about this action before I even continue.

DO NOT POST SOMETHING WITHOUT THAT PERSON'S PERMISSION. I don't care if you have 0 followers or if it's for a "game" or if it's your best friend. That stuff stays with you and them for forever and ever and ever. I don't personally have many social media platforms and I rarely ever post on them but I would never just take a picture without them looking and just post it. Sure, maybe YOU don't think it's a good picture but I can't say the same for the victim.

Shall we continue?

Anyways, she has like two followers or something so she doesn't think it's going to be a big deal. However, with a hashtag of #idlikefrieswithTHAT, it goes viral within instants.

Yeah.

I loved the whole idea of this story because it had so much potential. But I felt as if the characters weren't elaborated enough on and the whole plot and storyline wasn't developed as much as it could have been.

Kyle was a lacrosse player unwillingly following in his brother's footsteps. We don't really learn too much about him other than the fact that he thinks he's boring and he works at a Burger Barn. I would have liked to know more about his family and his friends and his past but instead there was none of that and mostly just cheesy lines spewing out of his mouth. I found Kyle to be quite unlikable.

Rachel was annoying at times and at others I just wanted to hit her. She jumped to conclusions SO much; she made a mistake before and three pages later she does the exact same thing again. I thought that she wasn't brave and independent as I had hoped she would be. She keeps saying that she didn't know how she felt about Kyle but wasn't her silly crush the reason why this book started in the first place?She was also determined to keep to herself because she thinks she's weird.

I really boosted my rating up after I got to the ending because I felt that there, the drama really ensued and things actually happened that made the book exciting. Misunderstanding, confusion, regret, anger, all of that stuff was needed throughout this book to make it truly powerful but instead we only got that at the ending of the book. I also thought that the whole last 50 pages or so was very rushed and wasn't planned out as well as it could have been.

There were some parts that I liked. I liked all of the various text messages because those seemed legit and real. I liked the dress shopping, I liked the TV show, I liked all of that.

OH AND EMMA. I NEEDED TO JUST PUNCH HER HALF THE TIME. AND KYLE FOR BEING STUPID ENOUGH TO KEEP ON STAYING WITH HER. She was a needy, whiny, annoying *INSERT WORD HERE* that needs to calm down.

Here I am telling a character to calm down after yelling in all caps.

Anyways, I would recommend this book to people looking for a really light read.

PS I need to rant about Kyle's insane amount of saying 'oof.' HE SAID OOF AFTER LEGIT EVERYTHING

Main Character: Rachel, Kyle
Sidekick(s): Mo, etc
Villain(s): Social media, misunderstanding, Emma, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book was all very real to life.