The Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Robin Palmer
"Sixteen-year-old Annabelle Jacobs never asked to be famous, but as the daughter of Janie Jacobs, one of the biggest TV stars in the world, she is. Growing up is hard enough. Having to do it in public because your mother is a famous actress? Even harder. When your mom crashes and burns after her DUI mug shot is splashed across the internet? Definitely not fun. Then your mom falls for a guy so much younger than she that it would be more appropriate for you to be dating him? That’s just a train wreck waiting to happen."- summary from Amazon
I loved this book. I've enjoyed Palmer's earlier books, but this one is a little bit darker and also more focused on the mother/daughter relationship than on a romance for the main character. There's still some wonderful humor throughout the book though that had me laughing out loud quite a bit.
Annabelle is a great main character- very funny, very strong but she is also very flawed, insecure and scared. She feels very human; trying her best to keep up a cool, strong front when on the inside, if anything goes off her plan, she freaks out and has to fix it, usually after using one of her unhealthy coping mechanisms to calm down. It's a very brutal, interesting look into the supposed glamorous lifestyle of Hollywood.
Like I said earlier, the main focus of the book is on Annabelle and Janie's relationship. Palmer shows us in the beginning how bad things are, and also including some memories from earlier years to get the full picture. As the book goes on, both of them have fantastic emotional arcs and really grow by the end of the novel. Both also have some cute romances- Janie with her co-star Billy, who's a really sweet, insightful guy, and Annabelle with Matt, who really helps bring her out of her shell.
Overall, this was a pretty good book, and I'm excited to see what Palmer has in store next.
FTC: Received e-galley from Netgalley. Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.
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