Title: Follow Me Home
Author: Jen Benjamin
Published: March 2015 by Wallace Publishing
Genre: Fiction – Chick lit
How I got the book: I received a free digital copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
When writer Katie Kendall moves to LA to turn her best-selling novel into a film, she is pretty sure it should be the happiest time of her life. But with an unsupportive husband who suddenly files for divorce, the paparazzi assuming she’s having a fling with the leading actor, and her friends left miles away in her old hometown, she begins to think she’s made a big mistake.
Can her new crowd of friends help her through these times? And could those paparazzi snappers have a point about that leading actor…?
My Review:
I love a good chick-lit once in a while, despite not being a “romance” reader. However, it’s refreshing to read one once in a while so I couldn’t say no to this opportunity.
Katie has moved herself and her husband to LA as her popular book turns into a movie. She doesn’t have many friends and her husband is anything but supportive of her decisions and her success. When she comes home to find that her husband has uprooted himself and left her, she finds comfort in her newest best friend, the movie’s director, Julie, and the guy playing the male lead in her movie, a famous child-singer now all grown up, Jesse.
It’s definitely an interesting premise. Katie moves on after some shock of the divorce, as she didn’t exactly have the best relationship with her husband. She falls for Jesse wanting to stop herself due to the age difference since she’s much older than him.
There’s a love-triangle, the whole “I-want-you-back” from her ex-husband, and an overall sappy love story mixed in with paparazzi.
I think overall the plot was pretty well done, even with the few cliches thrown into the mix.
Katie was a wonderful protagonist to follow around. Normally her kind of character would bother me, but she was so much like me that I couldn’t help but relate and enjoy her thoughts. She was kind, focused on what she needed to do, and over-thought everything while was funny as we were able to peek into her thoughts now and then.
Jesse was an interesting male lead and I think he was the right choice for a love interest for Katie. The age difference didn’t really bother him, he just interacted with Katie as though they were equals and that was that. They had a good dynamic with one another.
The author had a great style that made the story a breeze to read. The pace was consistent as was the POV as we got to peek inside Katie’s mind and hear her thoughts overthinking everything and making snide remarks.
At the beginning of each chapter, there was a brief journal entry from Katie. Sometimes it was a paragraph, sometimes it was just one sentence. But it summarized the events quickly and effectively and captured Katie’s personality pretty well.
This book was a fun read and a great romance story. It was a short and quick. My only issue with it were the cliches. They were well done, but I felt it was too much for one story.
Still, I would read from this author again and would recommend this book to anyone.
Follow Me Home by Jen Benjamin gets…
4 out of 5 stars
Favorite Quote:
“I step back, trying to blend into a tree, which is stupid because I’m wearing a white shirt.” -Jen Benjamin, Follow Me Home
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