Under the Lights

by Dahlia Adler

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

I was super excited when I learned that Under the Lights was in fact a F/F Romance, because c'mon?! There's not nearly enough of them! Vanessa is Ally's best friend from Behind the Scenes, and she's worrying about her future. Her parents want her to go to college, but Van knows acting is what she wants to be doing. She just doesn't know how many roles there will be for a Korean-American actress when Daylight Falls ends. Meanwhile, Josh's life is kind of crumbling, since he can't get an acting gig and his mom is threatening to sell his beach house if he doesn't co-star in her upcoming reality show.

Under the Lights was a weird one for me. On the one hand, I loved it and thought having the dual POVs not be love interests was unique. But on the other, I feel like Van and Bri didn't get nearly enough page time, because Josh's story took away from them. I feel like this could have been two really strong books instead of just one pretty good one. Actually, Josh's story felt much more developed than Van's since he was just dealing with figuring out what he wants, rather than that plus developing a new romance.

As far as Van and Bri's relationship goes, I really enjoyed them together. Van has no clue that she likes girls when Under the Lights starts. She just knows that she's not really into her boyfriend, Zander, and doesn't want to commit to the Purity Pledge with him. Then she meets Bri and it's like something ignites in her. They go from bickering and death glares to making out, which is confusing for Bri. But she goes from zero to gay in .8 seconds, with nothing in between. She does struggle with what this means for her, her career, her family, and her relationships, but it all happens way too quickly since she only gets about 150 pages to deal with all of it. Her story really deserved a whole book, because it was an important one and I loved the way the author handled it in the few pages that she did. So I can only imagine how much better it would have been if there was more.

In the end, I enjoyed Under the Lights a lot. I just wish that it had either been longer or split up. I actually loved that Josh was interested in Vanessa and that it kind of felt like an enemies-to-lovers romance in the beginning, even if it was only in his head, because obviously. I guess I'm just disappointed that these two great stories of self-discovery were smooshed together instead of getting their own distinct spaces.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.