Gabby's Reviews > Unrivaled

I have such mixed feelings about this book. I liked it, but I didn't really like it at the same time. I feel like this book is getting a lot of bad ratings + reviews for one reason: it's marketed wrong and the description of the book is not really what this book is about. This book is marketed as a "thrilling suspense" when really it's a contemporary novel set in Hollywood with some scandal and blackmail thrown in, and then at the very end (the last 50 pages) it sort of becomes a thriller.

This book follows four teens: Layla (a girl who runs a celebrity gossip blog), Aster (a girl who dreams of becoming an actress and will do just about anything to become famous), Tommy (a guy from Oklahoma who moved to LA to make it big with his music), and Madison Brooks (a young pop star). I didn't give two shits about any of the characters, but I don't think I was supposed to give a shit about these characters. They were all very shallow and superficial and self-absorbed in their own ways. I like how this book takes place in the heart of Hollywood and it made me miss the Hollywood atmosphere a lot. I loved the way it would always talk about the never ending palm trees and the sunsets over the hills, and the rush of the city and the club life. (I think this is because I just moved out of California last year). One thing I really liked was how each chapter was titled after a famous, iconic song. I thought that was really cool and creative and she included some of my all time favorite songs like: Mr. Brightside, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Wake Me Up When September Ends, Royals, Shake It Off, Show Me What I'm Looking For, How To Save A Life, Hips Don't Lie, Shut Up and Dance, etc. I also liked that the writing was very fast-paced and easy to read and the chapters are all short, so it makes it easy to fly through this 400+ page book.

Now here are some of the things I disliked:
1) It's written in 3rd person, which is something I just generally don't like.
2) All the characters have similar "voices" so in the beginning it was hard to tell who was who and remember which character was which (especially Layla and Aster)
3) The whole idea behind the book is kind of lame, promoting clubs in Los Angeles and trying to get young teenage celebrities into the clubs, it's not something I would ideally want to read about but luckily this book was written well enough to hold my interest
4) I didn't like any of the characters. They were all so shallow and ridiculous and I couldn't give two shits what happened to any of them.
5) The mystery/thriller aspect of this book doesn't happen till 300 pages in and it's so out of the blue and doesn't flow with the rest of the book at all. It changes the overall mood and the pace of the book.
6) This reminded me a lot of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars and I don't like either of those shows.
7) This book certainly didn't need to be 400+ pages and it doesn't need to be a trilogy. I don't like that this ended on a cliffhanger.

I feel like this book would typically be something I would hate, but I was genuinely surprised when I didn't hate it. I can't figure out what exactly it is about this book that held my interest for so long, but I kind of enjoyed the scandalous side of young Hollywood and all the black-mailing, it was super entertaining. It reminded me of a younger version of Entourage. Sure, I didn't like the characters but I had fun watching them blackmail each other and lie and cheat on each other, it was entertaining, I won't deny that. I think this captures Hollywood and celebrity life in a really accurate way- the way everything is staged and all celebrity relationships are PR and if you're involved in a shitty scandal it'll only boost your career. It's such an honest portrayal of this side of Hollywood and I liked that.

As you can see, I have very mixed opinions about this book. I didn't like it but I didn't hate it. I enjoyed myself while reading it, but this book definitely has it's flaws and it's not for everyone that's for sure.