Novel Review: Shooting Stars by Allison Rushby

Rating (Out of 5): ~2

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Walker (Bloomsbury)

Release Date: 2012

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Meet Josephine Foster, or Zo Jo as she’s called in the biz. The best pint-sized photographer of them all, Jo doesn’t mind doing what it takes to get that perfect shot, until she’s sent on an undercover assignment to shoot Ned Hartnett—teen superstar and the only celebrity who’s ever been kind to her—at an exclusive rehabilitation retreat in Boston. The money will be enough to pay for Jo’s dream: real photography classes, and maybe even quitting her paparazzi gig for good. Everyone wants to know what Ned’s in for. But Jo certainly doesn’t know what she’s in for: falling in love with Ned was never supposed to be part of her assignment.

The Cover:

The cover is fine to me. It's cute, simple, and it represents the book rather well, although it perhaps gives a more romantic or mature feel than the book actually has.

Review:

I’m a little disappointed with this book, honestly. It was just a lot more immature, or Disney, than I thought it would be.

It had a lot of potential, I thought. Jo is a paparazzi, and she ends up going under cover to follow this famous guy into rehab. There’s a lot of potential there. Some darker stuff could happen, but instead the rehab ended up just being a get-away where the people get through their problems, but none of them have ever really done anything bad. And then there’s a surprise with Ned, the famous guy, which I wasn’t expecting but did like.

I didn’t particularly care for Jo. I was even majorly embarrassed for her at one point, when she made a scene. Ned was nice. Jo makes a friend at rehab, and I liked the girl. But there wasn’t that much development for the characters, in my opinion. Not enough to really get my emotions going.

The problems with Ned, and with Jo’s father, were handled rather easily, almost in a Disney-like fashion, in their simplistically unrealistic way.

The writing was the worst part for me, though. It was just too simple. The descriptions weren’t that great, the words used were all extremely simple. The overuse of paparazzi/paparazzo got on my nerves really fast. It didn’t pull me in even slightly.

Overall, this was a really simple book, and I didn’t really get anything out of it. The only thing that sticks out to me is the surprise with Ned.