Thank you to Netgalley and Meta Lit for the e-ARC! The premise of The Author intrigued me with the anonymous celebrity memoir premise but unfortunately didn’t hold up for me in the end. While the writing at times is so strong detailing absolute chaos in the author’s life and internal monologue, it felt so inflated and pretentious most of the time leaning into paying homage to many classic authors. The Author’s unlikeable morally unsound character was the only thing keeping me going to the end. By about a quarter of the way in, the mystery of who The Author is fizzled into me believing it was entirely fiction. While this didn’t really land for me personally, I think it will be a hit amongst fans of Bret Easton Ellis, Hunter S Thompson and other classic morally grey Los Angeles style authors.

This book was chaos— as is likely the story of someone’s rise to fame. The ugly side of Hollywood exposed in a way that has you 100% believing it while simultaneously thinking this is fiction. Over the top story telling, the author goes deeper than you would think in their own analysis of the ride he went on. Or did he—- still not sure.

I was excited to get an ARC because of the buzz I had heard about the book. I found the book to be pretty interesting with lots of inside scoop on making it in Hollywood. I liked the stories told by the author of the events that happened but it felt like some of the writing was “filler.” I still wonder if this is more of a memoir or fiction- something to ponder!

This book has such an interesting premise but ended up feeling like it was outrageous just to be outrageous. There are a lot of situations the Author gets into that feel extreme just to shock the reader. It's well-written and kept me engaged throughout the whole book, making me want to keep reading to see what else the Author would get into. But overall, it fell a bit flat from my expectations. I don't know how much of the premise is true (the whole "this is mostly based on true events but for liability reasons we're saying it's completely fiction"). That premise was what hooked me to begin with, but reading it, it feels very dramatized. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't gone into it thinking it was potentially based on true events, but rather was marketed as "here's a fictional book about some fictional celebrity that blazes through Hollywood for his career". For me, this comes out to 4 stars out of 10, translating to a 2 star on a 5 star scale. I was intrigued but wouldn't read it again.

Was 'The Author' a memoir by a famous actor who wants to be an Author or just a publicity stunt? I wasn't sure when I first heard about this book and after completing it, I'm still not 100% certain. Overall I did enjoy the book despite the pretentiousness.