This one had a fun premise and overall, was a light and frothy romance but it could have packed more of an emotional wallop. Everything resolved itself a bit too quickly or didn’t go quite deep enough and stayed rather surface level. Nothing about the romantic couple really stood out though it was of course inevitable that they would get together.
There was a quite a bit here about dysfunctional relationships with parents but it doesn’t feel like anything was truly resolved in a meaningful and lasting way.
Avery is a 23 year old former childhood actor turned pop star and is about to release her debut album. Her mom is the definition of a manager mom – everything is about her daughter’s career. Avery Fox also is Native American, something they are leaning very heavily into for the release. Unfortunately for Avery, while she is aware of her identity and very much owns it, she also only knows her mom (who is estranged from her family) and hasn’t seemed to exhibit too much curiosity in her life about her roots – and whatever she may have in the past was quickly shut down by her mom. It’s not surprising that as a result, Avery lets her team push her into several misguided decisions in how she portrays her heritage. She might even think they were aiming for ironic but that’s not how her photo shoot for Rolling Stone in battle regalia ends up reading (kind of how Katy Perry tried to claim that “Woman’s World” video was ironic when it mostly just felt like it was from more than a decade ago).
All of Avery’s decisions read as completely believable to me – without the cultural/heritage piece of it, we have seen so many young famous women and men make some truly odd statements and decisions because they are oddly sheltered/removed from the world in some ways and don’t get how something might be interpreted. Additionally, Avery as a character reads as much younger and immature than 23 – that weird mix of both being the breadwinner and financially responsible from when she was much too young to being controlled by her mom and team rather than allowed to grow.
While she is sweet and well-meaning, she also is a bit annoying at first. To do damage control, she ends up on her grandma’s horse farm in Oklahoma. Mostly it’s to keep her out of sight but Avery decides to use it as an opportunity to learn more about her culture.
After literally three days on the ranch, Avery has deep thoughts like, “Had that only been a few days ago? I could barely remember who that girl was.” She spent one day doing chores on the farm and one day in charge of making meals in the kitchen. We don’t really see her change, we don’t see her connect with the community beyond a scene or two. It all just needed more time to develop and breathe.
It’s totally fine to be a light, fluffy romance but there are just a few moments like this where we are supposed to buy that it is deeper than it is and that did make me roll my eyes a little bit. Like this is a fun story but there were so many big themes raised that it also could have been explored. We never really get any true and deep conversation between Avery and her mother, and her life as a child star.
Lucas is perfectly fine and predictable- he starts off gruff and eventually warms up to Avery. From the description, I was actually expecting this to be a dual POV romance with chapters from his perspective (whether first person or third person) as well as Avery’s but it was all from her POV. It’s just that the description spent so much time introducing Lucas, I thought we’d be getting his view: it talks about 3 rules that he lives by – why write the description like that if we aren’t ever going to be in his head?
Also, a lot of the pop culture references feel dated. I’m sure people still listen to Garth Brooks and Brooks and Dunne but aren’t there more recent names in country music that should have been mentioned to make the novel feel more modern?
But if you want a quick, breezy read, this will definitely hit the spot! I read this very quickly while I am still struggling to get truly into another novel I have been reading.
