Famous in a Small Town - Emma Mills

Famous in a Small Town by Emma Mills
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Blurb (on back of book): For Sophie, small town life has never felt small. With her four best friends—loving, infuriating, and all she could ever ask for—she can weather any storm. But when Sophie’s beloved Acadia High School marching band is selected to march in the upcoming Rose Parade, it’s her job to get them all the way to LA. Her plan? To persuade country singer Megan Pleasant, their Midwestern town’s only claim to fame, to come back to Acadia to headline a fundraising festival.
The only problem is that Megan has very publicly sworn never to return.
What ensues is a journey filled with long-kept secrets, hidden heartbreaks, and revelations that could change everything—along with a possible fifth best friend: a new guy with a magnetic smile and secrets of his own.

MY OPINION: ****
Summer Reading Challenge #5: A book recommended by a librarian

When I went to the library to personally ask the librarian what she would recommend, she was so overly excited that I realized I should do this more often. Especially considering the fact that I actually quite enjoyed the book she recommended.

There were times when the book made me laugh out loud because of certain passages, or gasp when plot twists were revealed. I finished the book in a day and yet it stuck with me beyond that. My sister is also reading the book and has shared her rather negative opinions, but she is not a contemporary reader and I am. The majority of my favorite reads are contemporary novels, and so I gave more leeway to certain “silly” parts of the novel that my sister scoffed at.

PLOT
A lot happens in this book, way more so than I expected from a short, young adult, realistic fiction. While there is a main goal throughout the book, there are quite a few elements revealed that add to the background of our protagonist.

In the small, small town of Acadia in Illinois, the marching band is considered most important, or at least highly important to the citizens. It’s in every parade, every event, and it’s now been chosen for the annual Rose Parade (or something like that, I can’t quite remember the entire name). However, the booster club finds itself in a quandary: they don’t have enough money to participate. The amount of fundraising that they do each year will not be enough for this additional event.

Go-getter and perfectionist Sophie and her four best friends, members of the MPSFC (aka Map as F***) which has something to do with the booster club (I found this quite confusing), decide that they have found the perfect way to raise the money: invite Megan Pleasant, famous country singer, who used to live in Acadia, to sing at their fundraiser event. She’s the most famous person to come out of Acadia and she would be perfect to raise the money. However, she stated in a very bold way that she was never ever going back to Acadia. And nobody knows why.

CHARACTERS
Sophie. Our protagonist is focused on making sure that everything is perfect in every way, as well as doing the impossible to ensure the safety and happiness of EVERYONE. She cares more about the people around her than herself, which causes minor rifts between her and one of her best friends, Brit. On top of that, we see her obsessive need to finish something once she’s started, even when everyone else has given up. She is a part of the core friend group known as the “Where would you stay for eternity” or something along those lines.

Brit. She’s less concerned with everyone else and likes to have fun and party and be happy. She’s fired again and again from jobs around town and we soon learn that she’s desperate to get out of town as soon as possible, while Sophie wants to stay forever. We also learn that she has a revenge vendetta against a boy who she blames for an accident involving her brother.

The other friends in the group are less important but all of them seem unique and not like they were built from the same mold, something that I liked.

August. He’s new to town and he’s the very young brother of the father of the kids that Sophie babysits. He’s around Sophie’s age and obviously since this is a YA contemporary novel, there’s some romance between them. However, he is confusing and soon admits that he doesn’t want to stay there either. We learn a lot about his parents and what happened to him and it’s quite deeper than I originally thought.

Megan Pleasant. The story focuses around her and finding out everything about why she suddenly left and the ending just shows that it’s a small world.

ENDING
There is a significant plot twist at the end that I did not expect at all. The author makes everything seem so natural throughout the book, only for us to realize that it’s not at all what it seems.

OVERALL
I enjoyed this book and would be willing to read more from Emma Mills. I would recommend this book to readers looking for a serious and fairly dramatic and emotional read.

Main Character: Sophie
Sidekick(s): August, Brit, Flora, etc
Villain(s): Not always being perfect, grief, etc

Realistic Fiction Elements: All of this book was very real to life.