Review- Behind The Scenes by Kathryn White

Goodreads Summary:

Catlin Ryan is determined to escape her dreary life in a beachside caravan park. Abandoned by her alcoholic mother, she dreams of a life on the stage and is prepared to work hard to get it. So when she is offered a starring role on her favourite television series, Catlin does not think twice about taking it. But fame comes with a set of new challenges, long hours, spoiled and demanding colleagues, the paparazzi, some wild parties and Tom, the bitter director who seems to hate her. Then there is the reunion with her father, a brooding retired police officer, who offers her board and lodgings inside a house that is haunted with dark family secrets. Who is Catlin Ryan, really? Why does she keep remembering things that she knows never really happened? Can Catlin reconcile with her past and keep her family secrets out of the tabloids, or is the world destined to know what goes on behind the scenes?

REVIEW:

*NOTE: We (The Readdicts) received a copy of Behind The Scenes from author Kathryn White in exchange for an honest review. We thank Kathryn for the book! 

Catlin Ryan is an 18 year old Australian who gets a perfect score in English and Psychology and aspires to become an actress. She is overjoyed when she is cast to play a role in the famous Australian drama soap, Angel Street. Catlin, although excited to start her acting career, has no idea how stressful and irritating it gets behind the scenes. 

Behind The Scenes is a very apt title for the book because it shows exactly what goes on behind the scenes. The book starts out with Catlin's fiancé's death in an accident after which she moves to the home of her father, Hayden Ryan, and gets in touch with her long lost family, a family she was forced to forget by her mother, Tess. 

I really liked reading Behind The Scenes as it was unlike anything I'd read. For the first time, I read a book about top-notch celebrities. It showed the reality of the picture by taking the reader through the points of views of almost the entire team of Channel 13 that broadcasts these entertaining Australian TV shows. It's one of those types of situations that hit you in the face with their content and hard-hitting reality. 
Catlin was a decent protagonist. There were times when I felt that she was giving in too easily, but she learns her lesson in the end. She was a nice girl, although too innocent, especially since she always dreamt of becoming an actress. Although Catlin's dead fiancé Johnny seemed like a nice guy, it was her Angel Street director, Tom Arbuckle who really seemed to be perfect for her. Since the first time the two stumbled upon each other, their chemistry was hard to ignore. From among the team of Angel Street, I did have my suspicions about who were the good guys and who weren't the good ones. I was right about most and wrong about a few. The Ryan family, made up of Catlin's dad Hayden her stepmother Adele, her stepsister Kimmy and another dead stepsister Keeley, were a nice bunch of people. Hayden was fierce, Adele was sweet and Kimmy was awesome. Catlin's biological mother Tess was a troublemaker and it was very awful to see her intentions. 
I'm not one to judge but from what little I've heard and read about stuff that goes on behind the scenes, author Kathryn White has done an excellent job in showing how it all works behind the scenes. Well, I read in the author's bio that she wanted to be an actor too. The writing was clean, and although there were lots of grammatical mistakes that peeved me, the plot itself was very intriguing and twisting and kept me wanting to find out what happens and it was put down well. One of the best things about the book was that it was set in Australia. I enjoyed seeing a different setting. Overall, Behind The Scenes was a very good read. 

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