This delightfully tropey teen romance perfect for fans of Ashley Poston and Lyla Lee follows a queer teen actor navigating their gender identity-while pretending to date their co-star.
Queer actor Lily Ashton has found fame playing lesbian warrior Morgantha on the hit TV show Galaxy Spark. Lily knows how little representation queer girls have, so when the showrunners reveal that Morgantha's on-screen love interest, Alietta, is going to be killed off, Lily orchestrates an elaborate fake-dating scheme with the standoffish actress who plays her, to generate press and ensure a happy ending for the #Morganetta ship.
But while playing a doting girlfriend on- and off-screen, Lily struggles with whether a word like "girl" applies to them at all.
Lily's always been good at playing a part. But are they ready to share their real self, even if it means throwing everything they've fought for away?
It's another mixed review! It never rains but it pours.
Before I say anything else; I gather that this author has said some problematic things about lesbians. However I don't know anything about them and I tried to judge this book on just what it is. I don't condone anything the author may have done or said.
So this read is very fast paced which is good, I tore through it. All the stuff about how TV shows work nowadays and how they're trying to please everyone at once, that was all really interesting and I loved it. I love anything that gets behind the scenes of things like this - however I felt that the show aspect could have been explained better, we were just kind of dropped into it. Quite late in the book I was still learning new things about the show that we really should have known already!
I understood what dysphoria is before, but I'd never felt it like this book made me feel it. It's nice to see books branching out a little from just being gay and excompassing other kinds of gender identity - Lily is trans and Greta is ace, but Greta's not dealt with in any kind of real way, it's just mentioned a couple of times. This goes for most things in the book; Greta, in my opinion, didn't have much of a personality. Lily's gamer group, the most important thing in the world to them, was barely there once Lily met their new love interest, the others just fell away.
There is a big 'twist' which I saw coming miles off. (I've probably read more books than the target audience for this one, but a quick glance at the reviews says that most people saw it coming.)
I loved Lily's determination to provide representation to the fans. There's a lot of strength there which I love seeing in characters. I liked the idea of this, but I think it needed a bit of work to really be great. There's a kernal here which I did enjoy and I would read the author again (once I've figured out what controversial things they said.)
Acting the Part publishes on the 6th of December, 2022 in the US and on the 19th of January, 2023 in the UK, using the same cover as far as I can tell. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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