Book Review: "The Comeback" by Ella Berman

I can sit here and pretend like I don't read Hollywood based thrillers all I want but the truth of the matter is that I do. I'm writing this after a trip to London and a cruel night of broken sleep and honestly, I have so many things on my to-do list that all I want to do is read, drink coffee and lie in bed. This book actually caught my eye because it was on sale on the Kindle Store and we all know how much I love a good book sale. So, whilst browsing through my Kindle Store, I bought this lovely book for free. Let's take a look as to what it entails.

The story is about the disappearance of Grace Turner from Hollywood life. Once a promising rising star of teen acting, Grace's career was actually just one failure after another. She disappears from the Hollywood spotlight to spend a year at home with her family in Anaheim only to learn that they don't even particularly want her there. The question of why she left is on everyone's lips and yet nobody can get an answer. Upon her return back to Hollywood, she goes through her life encountering all the people who were around before the incident, not really telling anyone what actually happened. Her manager, Abel, seems to be entirely out of the picture but it is clear that Grace blames him for something.

As she reunites with others, she also tries to get to know her sister who has just been suspended from a genius school for something she won't even talk about. When they try to reunite though their relationship is frought with struggle as Grace realises that they are two massively different people. After years of hiding what actually happened during her teen years, it is clear that Grace's only chance of solving this problem is confronting it head-on, even if that means leaving every single person she has ever known in the cold, hard dust.

I liked the way this book was written because it interspersed moments of the past with moments of the present and you have to be reading quite carefully to keep up with the timelines that are going on all at once. I usually like this format when it comes to a thriller because it slowly unravels the clues to the mystery and the further we get into it, the more we understand of what the main character is looking for.

I also have to wonder about whether Ella Berman has ever been to Hollywood because I am not going to lie when I say that this is exactly how I imagined it to be: low empathy, low-IQ, vapid and self-centred. I loved how much the character of Emilia was as deeply entrenched in this story as Grace was and ultimately, what happened at the end seemed totally out of character but made complete sense. I won't speak much more about that for fear of ruining the story for you.

One thing I really enjoyed about this story though is the character of Grace. She one believed that she had nothing to complain about because her life was working out and then, when she did actually leave she saw how people were behaving with her - including her mother who had such high expectations for her daughter's life that she took to watching hours of Keeping Up with the Kardashians every single day. The character of Grace's mother is like a lot of mothers of daughters: they have high expectations of what their daughters should be and feel utterly ashamed and disappointed when their daughters turn out to actually be a person and not an extension of themselves. That disappointment is carried around on Grace's mother and it haunts Grace's year in Anaheim.

All in all, I found this story to be a compelling look at entrapment in a system where the person involved knows there is something wrong and yet, is completely powerless to do anything about it until a vital moment. Grace takes careful steps and ultimately, as we see her transform, we are cheering her on in her own good for her story. Ella Berman has created something very special here.