Remember My Name

by Havana Adams

[Leah]

When I saw Havana Adams’ second novel on Netgalley, I thought it sounded interesting, I love a good beach read and since it’s the middle of summer in Tenerife, what better time to dip into a juicy beach read? Remember My Name sounded super intriguing, and since Tasmina Perry has gone off the radar a bit with her beach books, I was hoping Havana Adams could fill the void. Remember My Name wasn’t the best juicy beach book I’ve ever read, but it was certainly interesting.

My main problem with Remember My Name is that what sets the whole novel off, has very little basis. We get introduced to various characters – Talia, Tamara, Alex, Helena, and they all seem disconnected to each other, until we learn Tamara and Talia work together on England’s biggest soap – Tamara as lead actress, Talia as a storyliner; and Alex and Helena are brother and sister. Tamara does the dirty on Talia and gets her sacked, without anybody telling us why. I felt just as shafted as Talia did, because it made no sense. Talia didn’t do anything wrong to Tamara, all she saw was Tamara and one of the producers together, and suspected something. That’s hardly reason to stab someone in the back, and make them lose their job. I was somewhat surprised that someone as hard as Talia, would just sit back, and meekly accept her fate, and spend the rest of her time bumming around, trying to look for a new job.

I wanted to like the characters, but they were quite unlikeable. Only Helena seemed to be nice. Talia was nice for a while, but the whole thing with Alex and Max was just a bit icky. If you’re working for a guy (Adam) and his biggest rival hits on you (Max), you hardly go and sleep with the guy, am I right? And Tamara was an evil gold-digger. But they weren’t overly evil, as these types of characters normally are. I just wanted a bit more from the novel. If you’re going to stab people in the back, and plot evilly, do it in style. Tamara should have been more of a caricature. There was very little interlocking, very little fighting, very little steamy stuff. I think the cover promised more than it deliverd, I just wished there was a bit more to the plot, it needed more meat.

I liked reading about the life of a script-writer, it’s a rare occupation to be featured in Chick Lit, and Havana pulls it off quite well. I loved hearing about Talia’s job, and Helena’s interest in photography was also very interesting, and I must confess to loving Tamara’s attempts to hook up with a billionaire. She added a bit of spice, even if she was pure evil, especially to the “little” people around her. I’d definitely read another of Havana’s novels and I may have to check out her debut novel as she’s an interesting writer, I just wanted a bit more oomph. It wasn’t quite on Tasmina Perry’s level, but it was interesting enough and it kept me reading…