Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin with Nicola Kraus | Book Review

I'll skip right to the chase: I give Between You and Me 2.5 stars and I put my ARC into the recycle bin after finishing it.  

From Goodreads:  "What happens when you are followed by millions... and loved by none?  Twenty-seven-year-old Logan Wade is trying to build a life for herself far from her unhappy childhood in Oklahoma.  Until she gets the call that her famous cousin needs a new assistant; an offer she can't refuse.  Logan hasn't seen Kelsey in person since their parents separated them as kids; in the meantime, Kelsey Wade has grown into Fortune Magazine's most powerful celebrity.  But their reunion is quickly overshadowed by the toxic dynamic between Kelsey and her parents as Logan discovers that, beneath the glossy facade, the wounds that caused them to be wrenched apart so many years ago have insidiously warped into a show-stopping family business.  As Kelsey tries desperately to break away and grasp at a "real" life, beyond the influence of her parents and managers, she makes one catastrophic misstep after another, and Logan must question if their childhood has left them both too broken to succeed.  Logan risks everything to hold on, but when Kelsey unravels in the most horribly public way, Logan finds that she will ultimately have to choose between rescuing the girl she has always protected... and saving herself."

So... Between You and Me is basically a very thinly veiled, barely fictionalized retelling of Britney Spears' life in 2007.  (That's the year she shaved her head, etc....)  The entire book I kept thinking "this is it; this is the alluded to "unraveling"" and then... wait for it... two pages later Kelsey makes an even more stupid decision.  That's the book.  Bad decision after bad decision after bad decision.  No one is happy.  Everyone is falling apart at the seams.  And Kelsey seems bent on self-destruction.  I kept asking Logan why on earth she kept sticking around when everything was so obviously wrong.  Of course, she's a book character and couldn't answer me.  Not like she'd have a good, sane reason to give me anyway.

Between You and Me got 2.5 stars because I do think there's a limited audience for this book.  It was well-written enough and there are teen girls out there who thrive on drama and celebrity.  And, crazy enough to think about, a lot of teen girls would barely be aware of Britney Spears' ultimate train wreck so the plot might feel fresh to them.

I also appreciated how the authors gave us just enough insight into Kelsey and Logan to make us like them a little; make us kind of want to root for them.  At least pity them.  But ohmygoodness the bad life decisions!  I just can't get over it.

If you are a teen who is blissfully unaware of Britney Spears' 2006-2008 train wreck and you thrive on drama and celebrity and People magazine, I recommend this book to you.

*I received an ARC of Between Me and You from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.  Thank you!