Screw Up by Alexis Wilder
This book caught me unawares in as much as the path taken by the main character, stopped me in my tracks and made me seriously question what the heck was going on.
It made me take a good hard look at what Cassie was doing and seriously consider at whether I could accept and understand it.
That aside , I will say that it was difficult not to love Cassie herself, she was just such a fabulous character but her new job, well that did have me scratching my head for a little while.
But this budding writer, taking a job where she could expose first-hand (if you get my drift!) the sexploits of the rich and famous was something that was new to me, I was intrigued to find out how she would handle such an emotionally charged role.
Her private life was woeful to say the least, she had, had little opportunity to make her mark on the world, well not in a positive light anyway. Everything around her was falling apart – he mother was practically banging on prison’s door and her boyfriend (or more accurately her ex-boyfriend) was heading overseas, so she takes the plunge, into the world of celebrity and all that, that entails because she learns that she has to dump the water-wings early on because in this pool, you learn to swim pretty damn quickly.. Keeping her head above water is not an option it is a necessity – she is with the big guys now and the outcome is far from certain.
Now I can understand her desperation, hence her accepting the role at the online publication, I could also understand the infatuation with celebrity but I felt as if she had sold her soul for what seemed like their gain and not hers.
I couldn’t help but question the premise of what she was being asked, the expectation that she was not only effectively pimp herself out but that she was to also publish and to relish reliving in print her sexual escapades with the rich and famous. Really had me conflicted!!!
I found my solace in the fact that desperate people do desperate things and this I think was the fact that I needed to reconcile the whole storyline.
And so I read on.
It is safe to say that Cassie actually took her role in hand and relished it in some respects but could she really hide forever behind her Tinseltown Temptress façade, only time would tell?
She was far from shy with the detail that she laid to print and I was again left questioning the morality of what she was doing, but regardless of the thinly veiled literary disguise, she was unable to keep her persona hidden and the kickback is something she would have to learn to handle, and pretty damn sharpish!
I liked Cassie as a character and I sort of understood why she did what she did, and I have to say that the author produced something that I can only describe a uniquely funny and very clever book.
She gave Cassie a character that was easy to love and to empathise with if not to fully understand some of the time but she was a clever, funny and seriously sexy woman, who took no prisoners and showed that she was a woman to be reckoned with.
A work that makes you work to truly understand its brilliance is a rare find, it was a story that kept my mind engaged.
This was something a little out of the ordinary and that is only to be commended!