When I started reading modern romance Celebrity Crush by Christy Swift I thought I might love it. It was so over-the-top and silly. Heroine Emmy had written a romance novel called Celebrity Crush about a romance writer who meets and falls in love with her celebrity crush. Then, Emmy meets and falls in love with her celebrity crush who was the inspiration for the celebrity crush in her novel! Also, Emmy is a romance novel writer who can afford a personal stylist and designer clothes (even though she's a single mom who lives in a trailer park)! Also, Emmy swims with dolphins all the time, like maybe every day! (The closest I could find to this is here, at $70.00 per swim.) (I am not endorsing this.) (Emmy implies that she is swimming with dolphins who have been released into the wild and miss performing tricks. Yeah, no.)
But eventually I realized that Swift is not in control of the over-the-topness and silliness. Emmy has a book sitting for weeks in the top ten of the New York Times bestseller list, but can't sell her next book? She's not sure when her royalties will come in and doesn't call her agent to ask? (I was pretty sure a plot twist was going to be that her agent had stolen her money, but that didn't happen. So why keep mentioning this dead end?) She's a writer working on her next book, except she never works on it or writes at all and never mentions any passion for writing. In fact, she states that she makes her living as a social media consultant. Towards the end she is accused by someone of purposefully writing a bad book and figuring out how to ride its wave to Hollywood. It's not clear whether or not that's true; she certainly doesn't seem to be attached to her book. (For contrast, here's a poem I wrote to a character in my smutty naked sex slave novel, Mindgames.)
Most unforgivable to me, Emmy and hero Jason are terrible, terrible parents.
Jason has custody of his toddler son two weekends a month and wants more time with him. Yet, without a qualm, he hires a babysitter to take care of his son during the weekend he has. Also without a qualm he brings a stranger (Emmy) into his house when his son is there, someone he has a romantic interest in, hooks up with her with his son (hopefully) sleeping in the next bedroom, and allows her to interact with him, when they've known each other for like five minutes.
Emmy is almost as bad. She leaves her tween daughter with a friend for weeks at a time, allows the daughter to be seen extensively on Emmy's social media (I don't want to sound like an old coot here, but, yuck), agrees to take her on a cross-country road-trip with someone she's been dating for fifteen minutes even though his drinking is problematic (also re: drinking, at one event there's a three drink maximum -- enough to have me doing bedspins), introduces her daughter to the daughter's father with no warning that she had been lying to the kid her whole life when she said she did not know who the father is . . .
The problems with the plot started to make sense when I read Swift's acknowledgments, in which she thanks everyone involved in Marvel movies because they helped get her through Covid -- fair enough -- because "good storytelling matters!" I also watched the Marvel movies during Covid and enjoyed them, but I'm pretty sure that nobody has accused them of good storytelling. (Well, maybe Endgame.) Joss Whedon famously whined that he was not allowed to tell good stories in the Marvel movies he directed. When I watched the movies I came to think of their basic storyline as: Opening quips! Funny and interesting! Five minutes or so. Then for the next two thirds, too many characters, plot plot plot, which may involve bad guys so evil that the Nazis fight them, or, best case (but also the same movie) hints that in an alternate timeline Captain America becomes a showgirl. Then action that I doze off for. Wake up for five minutes of resolution and post-credit scenes.
When I was in college I took a poetry-writing class in which I referenced John Cougar Mellencamp's Jack and Diane in a poem I wrote. My professor told me flat out that I needed deeper inspiration than rock music. He was right. (No hate to Mellencamp -- Jack and Diane is still on my favorite playlist.) Likewise, Swift needs better inspiration than Marvel movies.
Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited and in paperback. Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
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