Follow Me Home: A Book Review

Book title : Follow Me Home 

Author : Jen Benjamin

Genre : Romance, Chick Lit

Synopsis 

When writer Katie Kendall moves to LA to turn her best-selling novel into a film, she is pretty sure it should be the happiest time of her life. But, with an unsupportive husband who suddenly files for divorce, the paparazzi assuming she is having a fling with the leading actor, and her friends left miles away in her old hometown, she begins to think she’s made a big mistake. 

Can her new crowd of friends help her through these times? And could those paparazzi snappers have a point about that leading actor…? 

The author, Jen Benjamin is a newspaper writer and her debut novel, Follow Me Home, is charming. 

The Story 

Katie, the best selling writer moves to California to produce a movie based on her book. Things look good and then they just fall apart. 

Her unsupportive husband files for divorce and Katie is perplexed. Before she can fall into despair, her new found friends in town rally to her support and Katie waltzs effortlessly into the making of the movie. 

She feels an attraction for the male lead, who is a rock sensation and a very unlikely person for her to fall in love with. 

And yet, the love story moves smoothly to its logical conclusion with a few twists thrown in for some hiccups. 

What Is Lovable 

The characters are lovable. The protagonist Katie, is intelligent and sensitive yet socially inept, liable to get nervous, goof up, feel awkward and has the most self deprecating wit that you would like. Jesse, the male lead is wonderful. A singing sensation with millions of swooning fans, he falls in love with the unpretentious Kate. To top it, he is caring, mature, level headed and generous. If that is not adorable, what is? And yes, he has a very loving and caring family as well. 

Julia and Ashley are the perfect girlfriends for Katie, lending an ear, encouraging Katie, supporting Katie and asking her to get to the root of her feelings for Jesse. 

There’s Ivan, the rich lawyer, who is, yes, another understanding character. So, the love interest does not lead to a love triangle. 

Nor does Jesse have an ex – girlfriend so there are no real obstacles to the love between the lead pair. 

Using the pithy journal entries by Katie in the book is something I liked very much. It summarized and tantalised as to what was coming next. It also made the first person narrative interesting and funny. 

The book is set in California, with all the trappings of Hollywood and yet, what I loved best was the music they make for the movie. There is more emotional investment and even passion in the creation of a song than in the making of the movie based on Katie’s best seller. 

What It’s Not

The characters are lovable but all of them are too good and picture perfect. There are just a couple of characters that are supposed to be negative and their character flaws are sort of glossed over. There is no meanness here and it adds to the feel good factor that reading this book generates. 

in the book, plenty of things happen in the span of a few months. But it is a bird’s eye view of the events. We get the highlights ; the important bits that move the story forward. This adds to the breezy feeling that the reader gets. 

There is no over analysis of emotions. There is a lot going on. There is love, first and foremost and friendship, at its cutest level. There is bonding and concern and detachment and indifference and difficult situations but at no point does the book delve deep into the motivations or the angst of the past experiences or the losses. That is why it feels light and not like an emotional drama. 

Verdict 

All in all, a lovable, feel good, light read that can be categorized into romance and chic lit. 

There is no smut, no overt sexual encounters and no objectionable language. 

I liked reading this debut novel so much that I am looking forward to the writer’s next book. 

I rate this book 4 stars. 🌠🌠🌠🌠 

I received a copy of the book for an honest review.