Me and Miss M

by Jemma Forte

[Leah]

Francesca Massi has dreamt of being an actress since she was 9 years old but now, at 29, her only claim to fame is starring in a car insurance advert. When Fran gets the chance to be a PA to Caroline Mason – one half of Hollywood’s most powerful couple, she jumps at the chance to have a springboard for her acting career. However being a celebrity PA is nothing like Fran imagined, in fact it’s hell. As Fran starts losing her friends and potential Mr Right, she starts to wonder if it’s really worth it. Will Fran salvage her relationships before it’s too late?

Jemma Forte’s debut novel Me & Miss M caught my eye when I read somewhere, Amazon I think, that it was being called the British The Devil Wears Prada. I haven’t actually read The Devil Wears Prada but have seen the film and know how the plot goes so I was hugely interested in reading Me & Miss M to see just how right or wrong that claim was. Me & Miss M is like a British version of The Devil Wears Prada but also it’s not… let me (try and) explain.

Me & Miss M tells the story of struggling actress Fran. Every since she watched It’s A Wonderful Life aged nine she’s wanted nothing more than to be famous and to attend the Oscars and star in films. In the twenty years that follow, her only claim to fame is starring in a dodgy car insurance advert which still makes her cringe. However, through her friend Carrie-Anne, Fran is given the opportunity of a lifetime: becoming the personal assistant of Caroline Mason, one half of Hollywood’s uber-couple, girlfriend of Carson Adams – a hugely popular movie star. As Fran begins her job and in the subsequent months that follow it seems as if being PA to a star isn’t as glamorous as it all seemed. As the book progresses we see just how bad and demanding Caroline Mason is and I couldn’t help but marvel at how Fran put up with it. It’s a hugely interesting plot and one that slowly sucked me in. It does of course stir up the question: do celebrities really act that way? It’s easy to believe they do, but who knows?

The characters in Me & Miss M were all, in their own way, quite fantastic. Fran narrates the entire book so we get her deepest thoughts regarding Caroline Mason and Carson Adams. I thought she was incredibly sweet but also quite a saint for putting up with Caroline for so long. Caroline Mason was an absolute horror yet I found her incredibly intriguing. She needed to learn some home truths, for sure, but I found her incredibly amusing also. I absolutely loved Carson Adams. He was so much more down-to-Earth than Caroline and his star status didn’t seem to concern him or make him egotistical in any way. I loved all of Fran’s friends; Abbie, Ella, Sabina, Carrie-Anne but I felt they were hugely underused as the book was pretty much about Fran’s PA duties to Caroline. Tom, the love interest, is introduced quite early on in the book and I liked him immediately. Again, he was underused but only because of how busy Caroline kept Fran most of the time. One of my favourite characters though was Lorna, Caroline’s housekeeper, she was incredibly nice and really looked out for Fran.

There are plenty of mini-plots throughout the book, some more obvious than others. There was a subplot about Caroline and Carson which I guessed well before it all came out. It was so obvious it was untrue. As well as having Fran’s narrative throughout we also read some of her diary entries she writes whilst working for Caroline. It kind of felt repetitive considering we’d already read it but it didn’t concern me too much. The real crux of the story though seemed to be Fran figuring out once and for all what it is she wanted to do with her life, she was very undecided about it all and I liked her eventual career path although it did take her so so long to arrive at her career-choice.

The writing of Me & Miss M is quite superb considering it’s a debut novel and I was highly impressed with how easy it was to complete the book. Jemma Forte seems hugely talented and I hope she’s busy on a second book. The ending kind of left it open for a potential sequel and I for one would love more time in Fran’s mad world. I can’t, however, compare The Devil Wears Prada as I haven’t read it but after seeing the film, they do seem relatively similar yet also quite different if that makes sense. Maybe my mind will change when I eventually get around to The Devil Wears Prada and I can see for sure how similar (or unsimilar) they are. The book covers are remarkably similar, both feature a high-heeled shoe although The Devil Wears Prada shoe is shaped like a devil’s stick whereas the Me & Miss M shoe is covered in gum. I’ve read a number of fantastic debuts this year and this is another of those high up on my list of fab debuts. Me & Miss M is well worth a read.