High school senior Ally Duncan's best friend may be the Vanessa Park - star of TV's hottest new teen drama - but Ally's not interested in following in her BFF's Hollywood footsteps. In fact, the only thing Ally's ever really wanted is to go to Columbia and study abroad in Paris. But when her father's mounting medical bills threaten to stop her dream in its tracks, Ally nabs a position as Van's on-set assistant to get the cash she needs. Spending the extra time with Van turns out to be fun, and getting to know her sexy co-star Liam is an added bonus. But when the actors' publicist arranges for Van and Liam to date for the tabloids just after he and Ally share their first kiss, Ally will have to decide exactly what role she's capable of playing in their world of make believe. If she can't play by Hollywood's rules, she may lose her best friend, her dream future, and her first shot at love.
I was so excited to read this, but it didn't really live up to my expectations - or to the other fantastic novel I read similar to this one called Not In The Script by Amy Finnegan. This one was only OK. I usually love books set behind the scenes of movies or TV shows, and I did like the fact Ally couldn't have cared less about being famous and was content to just be best friends with someone famous, but it left her awfully self-conscience, when it came to Liam. Just because someone's pretty and famous doesn't mean they're not interested in dating a regular person, and it made me sad that Ally thought like that. And it was also RIDICULOUS that Ally and Van would both agree to the stupid ploy of Van and Liam fake-dating. Regardless of Van's career, you wouldn't do that to your best friend (although, to be fair, at the time Van didn't know, but still - once Van knew, she should have stopped it).
I quite liked the side plot of Ally's father's cancer battle, it gave a more serious feel to the novel.
I wanted to love this one, and Liam was awesome (which made it even worse that Ally was so questioning of herself and her feelings and everything - Liam never actually did anything wrong, he was the perfect boy). It just didn't fill me up with all the feels, and I never really felt as if I knew the real Ally, because she was always striving for something else (or so it seemed).
