Synopsis via Goodreads:
Thirty-five-year-old
Samantha acts without thinking. Her heart is huge while her sense of
purpose is small; she's willing to fight for those she loves, but she's
never learned to fight for herself. Eighteen-year-old Melody is cold and
calculating, and she's driven by the desire to better herself. As these
compelling yet deeply flawed women battle for the affections of
twenty-five-year-old Nathan, he becomes increasingly confused and torn
between them. Nathan is Melody's English teacher, and after he saves her
from being raped, she becomes attached. Melody longs for the affection
she's never felt, so she involves people in her self-invented drama,
making sure she is at once the star and the director. Meanwhile,
Samantha is newly married to Nathan. But Samantha has hang-ups about
motherhood and lingering feelings for her ex. To make sense of the
world, Sam relates her life to the themes of her favorite movies, while
she independently makes a documentary to jump-start her non-existent
film career. Stylistically influenced by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer
Weiner, Starring in the Movie of my Life is told alternately from both
Samantha's and Melody's points-of-view and relates two complete yet
combined stories about love, acceptance, and redemption. It speaks to
our universal desire to be saved by the ones we love, and the monumental
effort required to save ourselves.
My Review: 5 stars
I was pleasantly surprised by how great this book is. Which makes me all the more happy to be a part of this book tour. It's a smart read with great depth. A book that you can read and enjoy and also one you can pick apart and still be thinking about days later. It makes you think.
The story is told from 2 points of view. Samantha is the adult married to a high school teacher and Melody is a senior in high school with an unhealthy infatuation with Samantha's husband. The book starts out with Nathan Lindon, Samantha's husband, saving Melody from being raped by a fellow student. Melody then decides that what she feels isn't gratitude but, romantic love. She then develops a plan to steal him away from his wife, who she isn't very impressed with.
Although Melody and Samantha are completely different personalities, both are hugely flawed. Just when I thought I could stand behind one and condemn the actions of the other, the character I rallied behind does something reprehensible and condemning. Then I'm left feeling critical of all the characters. Which makes the book so believable and realistic. Laurel Osterkamp's characters are deeply flawed and complex.
Someone interested in psychology could spend hours dissecting the characters and the types of personalities they are. Samantha is flighty, impulsive and has deep-rooted issues with commitment, despite being married to Nathan. They both claim to love each other, but I'm not sure I was ever convinced. What I mean is, I believe that they believed they loved each other, but I couldn't say I thought it really was more than convenient tolerance and mutual need.
Meanwhile, Melody is the opposite. She is methodic, manipulative, calculating and meticulous. She's so smart and so stupid at the same time. Her neediness and entitlement issues are part of her downfall. Both women weave such tangled webs and desperately look to Nathan to save them and fill the voids in their lives. And while Nathan seems like a pretty great guy, he's fatalistically naive.
What I really valued about this book was it's honesty. It's honesty about how flawed, vulnerable, needy and afraid people are. It's honest about how even though people make mistakes, big and small, everyone hopes for redemption and then true happiness to follow. It's honest about how so many people are afraid to be the real them and in turn grow tired and unable of maintaining the facade and ultimately end up hitting rock bottom. And it's honest about owning up to your mistakes and their consequences. You can tell that Ms. Osterkamp knows people and their natures.
Another aspect of this book I enjoyed were the steady use of movie references. I'm a movie buff and I think I'd seen all the movies mentioned except for one, so I got it. I understood her fascination with movies and how she used the comparisons.
All in all, this book was fantastic. A really enjoyable read and the author has gained another fan in me. I like to make mention in my reviews of use of profanity in my reviews and in this book the use was low. Probably 5 words or less, but they did come up.
I'm happy to also be able to giveaway a copy of this book. For a chance to win an ecopy of this book, simply leave a comment about this review and a winner will be chosen by use of random.org. on July 6th.
Purchase links:
Laurel Osterkamp's first novel,
Following My Toes, published by PMI Books, won the 2008 National Indie
Book Award for Excellence (Chick Lit category). She drew on her
experiences as a high school film studies and creative writing teacher
as she wrote Starring in the Movie of my Life. Currently she lives in
Minneapolis with her husband, son, and daughter, and is working on her
third novel
Sounds very interesting. Can't wait to read it!
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