Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper, by Hilary Liftin {ends 9/16, 2 winners!}

I had married a blank slate, a hollow man. Our love was an invention scripted by a stranger, the elusive Emil. And yet Rob was exactly who he seemed to be: the best actor in the world. In a way I understood him better than I ever had. But I didn't love him. Not anymore. Not after this.

Worst of all, in this phony romance, I had played my part, and it was a doozy. I was the cliched princess, swept off my feet, willing and eager to accept this faux Prince Charming at face value. I should have known. Rob may have commissioned this false romance, but I was complicit.

There were two days remaining before Rob left for Turkey. I'd had six months with the husband I'd longed to know better. Now I couldn't bear to look at him. I climbed into bed and pretended to have a migraine until he was gone.

I found this book to be extremely interesting, not only because I'm a movie blogger, but because it's written by a woman who is a ghostwriter (she helps celebrities tell their stories in memoirs) who decided to write a memoir about a fake celebrity. Lizzie Pepper may be fake, but seems to be based on a real-life couple, at least in my opinion, and I found this to be a great read.

Official synopsis:

“I’ve had a million meetings in my acting career, and I had no idea that this would be the one that would change my life forever. I walked into the room, and there was Rob . . . in the flesh.”

Actress Lizzie Pepper was America’s Girl Next Door and her marriage to Hollywood mega-star Rob Mars was tabloid gold—a whirlwind romance and an elaborate celebrity-studded wedding landed them on the cover of every celebrity weekly. But fame, beauty, and wealth weren’t enough to keep their marriage together. Hollywood’s “It” couple are over—and now Lizzie is going to tell her side of the story.

Celebrity ghostwriter Hilary Liftin chronicles the tabloids’ favorite marriage as Lizzie Pepper realizes that, when the curtain falls, her romance isn’t what she and everyone else thought. From her lonely holidays in sumptuous villas to her husband’s deep commitment to a disconcertingly repressive mind-body group, Lizzie reveals a side of fame that her fans never get to see. Full of twists and turns, Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper is a breathless journey to the heights of Hollywood power and royalty and a life in the spotlight that is nearly impossible to escape.

There are so many similarities to the Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' marriage here, but there's a few differences, too; Lizzie Pepper has twin boys with Rob Mars (Tom and Katie had one daughter, Suri Cruise), etc. However, Rob Mars is about 20 years older than Lizzie (similar), Lizzie is from a small-town and "grew up" on the TV series that she was acting on (similar to Dawson's Creek), and Rob Mars is a member of One Cell, which seemed similar to Scientology to me.

(I actually ended up Googling Katie Holmes after to see if some of the stuff in this book was similar, or not)

Besides all that, though, this book was an interesting read. We see pictures of celebrities in the tabloids and even in more respectable magazines, like People, all the time, but we never really realize the lengths that they have to go to to keep their private lives, well, private.

Lizzie can have anything in the world she wants, after she marries Rob Mars, but she has to send assistants out to fetch things for her; anytime she leaves the house, the paparazzi follows her relentlessly. Once their twin boys, Leo and Casper ("Cap" for short), are born, they're even more relentless, and she tries to shield them from a life that they didn't sign up for.

She eventually realizes that although she initially loved Rob, she's not even sure he loved her, even though he's a good man who had decent intentions. Lizzie wants out, and she has to do it secretly, or else the plan is not going to work.

I'd recommend this novel for anyone interested in the "celebrity life," as well as anyone who's a movie fan or a fan of the entertainment business.

4 stars out of 5.
{Click here to purchase}

*Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for reviewing purposes. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

GIVEAWAY:

Enter via the widget below. Two of my lucky readers will win a hardcover copy of Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper!

Giveaway will end on Wednesday, September 16th, at 11:59pm EST, and winners will be contacted the next day via email and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper