Review: "Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous" by Mae Marvel

Everyone I Kissed Since You Got Famous by Mae Marvel
Published June 2024 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★

Since graduating from high school, Katie has moved up in the world—made a name for herself as an actress, earned more money than she'll ever need, and more recently started to make a name for herself as a director too. Meanwhile, Wil has been quietly humming along in Wisconsin, having put her dreams on hold and never picked them up again. She's TikTok famous, making out with new people regularly on the Internet, but her plans (law school, for example, or living somewhere other than Wisconsin) haven't materialised, and she's not in a rush to change that.

But Katie's dreams—so tangible, and so close—are being consistently undermined by her ex, the truth about whom she's kept secret for years. And Wil's dreams aren't gone, but she's buried them deep. And when Katie comes home for the holidays and stays awhile, suddenly they're each in a position to help the other...

This was a lot of fun to read. The book is navigating and balancing a whole host of different things: Katie's career, Wil's double life as a TikTok sensation, #MeToo (though not in so many words), being a woman in Hollywood, grief, and on it goes. (Also: very, very vocal and—more to the point—eloquent cats. I am not convinced.) Their relationship, as it develops, is not without its difficulties, but I always appreciate it when those difficulties are more external than internal—that is, in this case, there's very little 'if we'd just had an honest conversation the book would be over already' and a great deal more 'even if our relationship is straightforward privately, it will be complicated publicly'. Both of them roll with it, which is also very satisfying.

A couple of quibbles: first, at times it felt like Wil was only becoming fully formed as the book went on—she gets more butch, I think, and while it's possible that I just missed the clues, it felt like something that was only solidifying for the author as time went on. Second, while the supporting cast is generally fab, I wouldn't have minded seeing some more complexity from them—they tend to be either diverse, liberal, smart, compassionate Wunderkinder or (admittedly and fortunately rarely) Just Generally Bad. And not to complain about having diverse/liberal/smart/compassionate Wunderkinder around...but I suppose it stays a bit surface. Finally: Katie Price is an odd choice of name for a character who is an actress when there is already a real-life person by the same name who has worked very hard to be in the public eye.

Altogether lively and on point, though. 3.5 stars and would read more.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.