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Book Review of The Actor and the Housewife

The Actor and the Housewife
Allypally avatar reviewed on + 15 more book reviews


Your film star crush bumps into you and you just happen to instantly hit it off and decide that you're soul mates? Really? The premise of this book is wildly unrealistic and so when I read it I was having problems suspending my disbelief enough to really get into it. But the focus of the book shifts away from this in the second half of the book about becomes something else entirely, a story about one woman's emotional life and the journey that two friends take together through it. The story takes place over ten years or so, which gives the author time to describe the natural ebbs and flows in a friendship as people's needs for each other change.

The main problem with this book is that it doesn't know whether it wants to be a light and fluffy comedy, which it is in the first half, or a deeper more emotional story about love, loss and the power of friendship, which it is in the second half.

The first half of the book is nothing special, and I found the film star plot line distracting and could have done without it altogether. But it's an easy read and worth getting through to get to the rest. I liked the second half much better, and there was real emotional power and resonance in the author's treatment of the impact that true friends can have on each other.