Review: Between You and Me

Title: Between You and Me: A Novel
Authors: Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: June 12, 2012
Format: ePub via NetGalley

In Between You and Me, twenty-seven-year-old Logan Wade has built a life for herself in New York City, far from her unhappy childhood in Oklahoma. But when she gets the call that her famous cousin needs a new assistant, it’s an offer she can’t refuse. Logan hasn’t seen Kelsey since they were separated as kids; in the meantime, Kelsey Wade has become one of FortuneMagazine’s most powerful celebrities and carrion for the paparazzi. But the joy at their reunion is overshadowed by the toxic dynamic between Kelsey and her controlling parents. As Kelsey grasps desperately at a “real” life, Logan risks everything to try and give her cousin the one thing she has never known—happiness. As Kelsey unravels in the most horribly public way Logan finds that she will ultimately have to choose between saving her cousin and saving herself.—Goodreads

Celebrity is something that the world is strangely preoccupied with.

When I was a teenager, I was the same way—completely obsessed with celebrity pairings and their comings and goings and what they were wearing and who they were feuding with. But as I get older, and the paparazzi becomes more invasive, I’ve come to think of celebrity more as a burden than something that is glamorous and exciting.

And Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (The Nanny Diaries) shows exactly that side of celebrity life. In a story that is a thinly veiled retelling of the Britney Spears story, we meet Logan Wade, whose life in New York is nothing to write home about. So when her long-lost superstar cousin Kelsey Wade calls and offers her a job to be her assistant, she decides to forgive and forget about all of the crap from their childhood and take the job.

Told from Logan’s perspective, we’re taken through Kelsey’s emotional and mental breakdowns and her dealings with the press, peers, business colleagues, and her OH-SO HIDEOUS OMG helicopter parents who operate as her business managers.

But throughout the highs and lows of Kelsey’s very public life, Logan and Kelsey rediscover their friendship, Logan gets her life back in order, and, if nothing else, meets a great guy.

Overall, this story is not necessarily a happy one. But McLaughlin and Kraus weave in their quippy dialogue and acutely perceptive, perhaps sympathetic, views of a life overshadowed by celebrity. Between You and Me is a fun read, and if you enjoyed The Nanny Diaries, then I definitely recommend you give it a read.