Review: Catch a Falling Star by Kim Culbertson

Catch a Falling Star
   by: Kim Culbertson

Publication Date: Apr. 29, 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Genre: Contemporary
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: e-ARC provided via NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Page Count: 304 pages
Order Links: Amazon | B&N
My Rating: 3/5 stars

A deliciously charming novel about finding true love . . . and yourself.

Nothing ever happens in Little, CA. Which is just the way Carter Moon likes it. But when Hollywood arrives to film a movie starring former child star turned PR mess Adam Jakes, everything changes. Carter's town becomes a giant glittery set and, much to her annoyance, everyone is starry-eyed for Adam. Carter seems to be the only girl not falling all over herself to get a glimpse of him. Which apparently makes her perfect for the secret offer of a lifetime: playing the role of Adam's girlfriend while he's in town, to improve his public image, in exchange for a hefty paycheck. Her family really needs the money and so Carters agrees. But it turns out Adam isn't at all who she thought he was. As they grow closer, their relationship walks a blurry line between what's real and what's fake, and Carter must open her eyes to the scariest of unexplored worlds - her future. Can Carter figure out what she wants out of life AND get the guy? Or are there no Hollywood endings in real life?

 

 

I really loved the premise for this one. Not only does it include Hollywood, but I am a huge fan of the fake relationship trope. Catch a Falling Star also included a great family dynamic between Carter and her parents and it made the novel feel more realistic and relatable. While I enjoyed this one, I didn't find myself loving it. I had a hard time with Adam's character and I did find the pacing was a bit slower on this one.

 

Carter, however, was amazing. I absolutely loved her character. She's a good, sweet girl who loves her small town of Little, California. She's very family oriented, working in her parents' diner. She has an older brother that she used to be close to, but now as hard as she tries, can't seem to get through to him. Her brother has a gambling addiction and Carter wants nothing more than to save him from himself. Her brother is the reason she agrees to pose as Hollywood superstar Adam Jakes' pretend girlfriend. Adam has gotten into quite the mess reputation-wise and needs to clean up his image if he hopes to turn his career around. Dating a sweet, cute small-town girl like Carter will show that he's not as wild as the media is portraying him to be. However, when the pretend starts to feel real, how will Carter be able to keep her heart intact when it's all over and done?

 

Adam does not give off a very good first impression. He's cocky, arrogant, and extremely self-absorbed. He is the complete opposite of Carter in every way. I had such a hard time with him. We would get glimpses of a guy who maybe wasn't such a jerk, but that's all they were to me: glimpses. I didn't believe in Carter and Adam's romance and that really bothered me. The book is strictly from Carter's POV, so we could see her start to fall for Adam, but I never felt that with him. I wanted so much more development from him. And I really want to know who he was texting 24/7.

 

I loved Chloe, Carter's best friend. She's the ultimate teenybopper fangirl. She freaks out over the idea of seeing Adam and meeting him. Her walls are covered in pictures of him and is completely obsessed. She's dating Carter's other best friend, Drake, or Alien Drake, as they call him. He just rolls with the punches and goes with it. One of their favorite things to do is to climb on the top of his roof and stargaze. Carter and Drake actually have a blog they run so it was cool to see their actual stargazing comparisons to the fact they had a Hollywood star in their midst. Carter hates keeping her fake relationship with Adam a secret from them, as the three are really close.

 

This was a slower paced book for me. I wanted to see more of Carter and Adam together, but they actually spent quite a bit of time apart, as he is shooting a movie after all. I did think it was sweet that he would want to genuinely hang out with her and not just because his schedule dictated they do so. Even though Carter doesn't freak out over him like Chloe does, she isn't immune to him either. She really made this book for me, as I loved how genuine she was. At seventeen, she has had to deal with some pretty tough stuff not just with her brother, but also giving up the thing she loved the most: dancing. She's not superficial and was just a great character to like.

 

I wish this book had the spark I needed to make it great, but unfortunately it just didn't. It's a cute read for sure, but the romance was lacking for me and I found myself struggling to stay interested at points. If you like light, summer reads, you might want to give this one a shot.