Book Review: Someone Else's Fairytale - Emily Mah Tippetts

Author Website:  Emily Mah Tippetts
Form: eBook
Genre: Adult (18-20's) - Fiction, Romance

Synopsis (from Goodreads): Jason Vanderholt, Hollywood's hottest actor, falls head over heels for everygirl, Chloe Winters, who hasn't gotten around to watching most of his movies. She becomes the woman every other woman in America is dying to be, but it just isn't her fairytale.

My Review:  

Honestly, I feel like I’ve sort of read this book before.  Why? Because I think that the concept of a non-famous girl falling in love with a super-mega movie star is a hot concept right now.  I mean, think about it – dream come true, right?  Or not.  I think it depends on who you are.  (The other book, by the way, was Love Unscripted…in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, apart from their very similar concept, Love Unscripted and Someone Else’s Fairytale are quite different.  Mostly in the main character, Chloe.  Chloe is very down to earth.  She wants nothing major, especially not the attention that being the girlfriend of actor Jason Vanderholt would bring.  She isn’t the jealous type, very logical and slow to judge people, however she’s also very slow on the uptake.  She questions even the remote possibility that something could come from the friendship with Jason.

I am thankful not to have had to deal with another book of jealous, super insecure thoughts from the female lead.  I probably would have immediately put the book down.  I will say that while I got wrapped up in the story – I never once felt much of a connection to the characters in Someone Else’s Fairytale.  I always felt like we were skirting on the boundaries of who these people were.  I think part of that problem came from the lack of chemistry between Chloe and Jason themselves.  Sure they talked, went out and did things together, and even Skyped – but I felt like all of their interactions were very surface deep.  I really can’t put my finger on why – or how authors bring out this chemistry, while others don’t.  I do know that abstinence was a very important issue to author Emily Mah Tippetts, and I agree with her.  I liked that about this book, but I kind of think that the focus on it was a bit too heavy, and at times weird.  Then there was Matthew, who came off kind of nice at first, but then ended up kind of judgmental.  I don’t understand the switch.

Then there’s the sub-plot of Chloe’s relationship with Jason’s sort-of niece, Kyra.  Kyra is a troubled teenage girl who thinks she’s in love with an older guy, and thinks her entire family hates her.  The family is amazed that Kyra opens up to Chloe and actually talks to her, but Chloe is very apprehensive and stand-offish about it.  Her attempts at helping seem really weak and half-hearted to me.  But in the end, apparently Chloe says and does the exact right thing to turn Kyra’s life around.  It was really weird.

Then the OTHER sub-plot, Chloe’s half-brother who tried to kill her.  The book sort of started off all danger and cops and stalker brother-like.  But then there is like no climax to this.  They go to court, and eventually the brother gets caught on some other issues and is sent back to jail.  Then there is the cop who’s all like, “this issue is going to follow you, and never really go away…” but nothing more happens.  Yes, this was an obvious setup for a second book – but really?  Why? 

In the end, while I was okay with reading this book, I didn’t hate it or anything – I actually did get lost in it and found I couldn’t put it down at some points, but in the end it just left me kind of dry and…just wanting a little bit more.