Stefanie's Thoughts: Public Relations by Katie Heaney & Arianna Rebolini

Young PR star Rose Reed is thrown into the big leagues when her boss leaves town the day of the firm's meeting with Archie Fox, a young, hot, internationally famous British singer-songwriter. The meeting is going badly until Rose suggests a staged romance with up-and-coming, young indie star Raya. He'll do it, but only if Rose becomes his publicist. 

As the faux-mance begins to rehabilitate Archie's faltering career, Rose finds his herself having unexpected, inconvenient and definitely unprofessional feelings for the crooner. But do late night texts and impromptu burrito binges mean he feels the same? In the end, Rose will have to decide whether to let her fantasy crush go, or to risk her reputation to be with the charming, handsome, scoundrel-y but sweet pop star she's grown to love.

If you haven't read Katie Heaney's Never Have I Ever: My Life So Far Without a Date, please stop reading this and go read that because it's the main reason why I've picked up both of her fiction novels. I felt Her memoir was basically written for me; it hit way too close to home, but it made such a strong impression that the two other books she has published I've scooped up instantly. Public Relations being her second on, after Dear Emma. I didn't really enjoy Dear Emma, so I had very high hopes for this one.

The premise was everything I love in books/movies; a celebrity having a fake relationship. I loved that we get a behind the scenes look into all detail that goes into choosing and planning who Archie will pick, because we usually just see the outcome of who is chosen and how the relationship plays out. 

Rose starts off as your typical millennial; has a good job, and she's worked really hard to get where she is. Nobody has really given her a chance because she's so young and nobody really takes her seriously. When she is given the chance to attend a meeting in place of her boss, she's finally given a chance to prove herself, except she is given on instruction: not to speak at the meeting. She breaks that rule, when she mentions to Archie to start a fake relationship with an up-and-coming singer. He agrees and Rose is finally given the chance she needs to prove herself. 

Normally I love these types of stories; the rags to riches/finally proves everyone she's meant to be doing what she's doing stories. I was cheering for Rose the entire time, except that I found her so annoying. She not only bored me, but she almost seemed like a cardboard cutout of all the millennial clichés out there, which I hated because not everyone in their mid-late 20s/early 30s acts like this. This didn't help that at times, the pages were filled with text and not dialogue. This made me resent Rose more, because it was about what she was doing and not actually allowing us to fully see what was going on. 

Than there was Rose's Tinder date/love interest. I can't even with that because if Tinder was filled with surgeons, everybody would be finding love on that. Now I'm not saying surgeons don't actually use Tinder, but it felt just too convenient that he was this perfect man. I've never used Tinder, but I have friends that have and I've seen what's on there and I'm sayin' that none of them were surgeons! 

Archie. Well Archie is basically Harry Styles, from having the same tattoos and dating an older woman, a la Taylor Swift. That really took away from the story.  I get why Archie was modeled after him (I mean who doesn't love One Direction), but creating their own kind of singer would have been more interesting. When Rose and Archie did have dialogue between them, I really enjoyed it because it was filled with sarcasm. 

While I didn't end up loving this book, it was a decent read and I enjoyed it more than Dear Emma. I'm sure I probably won't re-read this, I am excited for Heaney's second memoir that's being released next year. I'm disappointed with this one and happy I requested it from the library. 

2.5 stars out of 5

Until my next review, 

Stefanie