mrs_mander_reads
Written on Oct 28, 2020
Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.
Josie Pie was born to be a star. So she dropped out of high school to pursue her Broadway dreams, but after months of failed auditions, she finds herself broke, beaten-down . . . and nannying in Missoula, Montana. Lonely and directionless, Josie checks out the local bookstore, looking for the ultimate escape.
And escape she does. Literally. She falls into the plots of her books, including a bodice ripper, a dystopian thriller, a YA romance, and more, all filled with swoony co-stars who just make her yearn to repair things with the boyfriend she left behind in NYC.
As her reality begins to unravel, what starts as a welcome break from her lackluster life soon begins to feel like a stifling nightmare - but is it too late for Josie to get back to the real world?
Sometimes younger students stopped Josie in the halls to ask for her autograph. ‘In a few years, this signature is going to be worth a lot of money,’ said a freshman girl with a sincere smile. Josie laughed the laugh of a confident upperclassman and thought, Yeah, it probably will be.”
A surge of anger tingled in her toes and rushed up through her middle, into her face bringing both a hot flush to her cheeks and a feeling that, if she were a cartoon, her eyes would be blazing red. Don’t they know who I am? Came the sincere but also instantly ridiculous thought. No, Josie Pie, they don’t know who you are, because you aren’t Millennial High School’s precious rising star Josie Sergakis here. Or anywhere, anymore.”
“There is nothing worse than peaking in high school. And no one knew that better than Josie Pie. Eighteen years old and already a flop.”
“If she stayed far away, perhaps Justin wouldn’t notice what she really was. Perhaps he’d still see her the way he had that night after the school talent show. As a star.”
worse than peaking in high school was to never peak at all. To treat life like a big waiting room, idly reading whatever magazines were available playing a game on your phone, killing time till your name was finally called. It wasn’t in Josie Pie’s nature to wait. Broadway was never going to call her name. Community theater was barely even bothering. Time she got out there herself and started re-peaking. And she couldn’t do that until she let it go.”