I'm only giving this book 3 stars. The beginning sucked me in, the middle was ok, but the ending was just not there for me.

I'm sure if you're into celebrity gossip then you might like this story. It's about a young pop star and her cousin working together through a troubled life. ( )

As I was reading this book I kept feeling like the story was familiar to me. So either I read it in 2011 when it came out since I only have 15 books on my 2011 list or it is so much like Britney Spears' life. This book is about a famous singer who pretty much crashes and burns. Not because she is a train wreck in doing drugs and stealing like Lindsay Lohan or Amanda Bynes messed up, but more like her parents were so controlling of her life she didn't know how to live a normal life or be a normal person. This story is also about Kelsey's cousin Logan who comes back into her life to help as her assistant and gets sucked into the family drama. These two were like sisters growing up then they were ripped apart until their early 20's. This is a very fast read, a beach read and makes me so glad I'm not a celebrity. It's a guilty pleasure. ( )

Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus follows the career of Kelsey Wade through the narration of her cousin, Logan. Logan hasn't had contact with Kelsey for years and suddenly is flown out to be with Kelsey and instantly becomes her assistant. Kelsey is loosely modeled after Britney Spears - the meteoric rise to fame, dysfunctional family, controlling parents, and spectacular meltdown and fall from grace.

Between you and me, Between You and Me was all over the place and not much was good. The writing is good. McLaughlin and Kraus are good writers technically. The story itself jumped over facts and transitions that would have made the plot more credible. Why, after being estranged from her cousin and her aunt and uncle for years, would Logan, who supposedly has a MBA, drop everything to become her assistant. Why would she tolerate the treatment Michelle and Andy, her aunt and uncle, dished out to her. They are both domineering control freaks.

The bottom line is that I didn't like or connect with any of the characters and Logan's behavior, in most ways, actively annoyed me. It also reminded me why I need to stay away from chick lit. Setting the lack of morals and inability to set healthy boundaries aside, Logan's promiscuous behavior is dangerous today.

But I did keep reading to discover what the big secret was that caused the original estrangement between Logan and Kelsey's family. Once I had that answer, truthfully I no longer cared, beyond wondering, which I had been doing long before the big reveal, why Andy was even allowed in her life. And why the media hadn't released that story years before.

Between You and Me has too many holes in the plot development and too many implausible actions by characters for me to recommend it unless you are a Britney Spears fan and want to look for the similarities between her career and Kelsey's.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of via Netgalley for review purposes. ( )

She may have an apartment she doesn't like, a-maybe-kind-of-sort-of boyfriend she's not sure about and a roommate she ended up with through a chain of events, but twenty-seven-year-old Logan Wade has made her own life in New York City. Away from her parents in Oklahoma and away separate from her world famous pop star cousin Kelsey Wade.

Logan and Kelsey were best friends when they were younger, cousins just two years apart in age who wished they were sisters. Then something happened and Kelsey left Oklahoma to become famous and she and Logan haven't seen each other in more than a decade and a half.

When Logan gets a call saying that Kelsey wants to see her, though, she's on the next plane to Los Angeles . . . and about to discover more about Kelsey Wade's world than she anticipated. And that less has changed from their troubled childhood than anyone would think. Especially when an offer comes to be Kelsey's assistant.



The co-authors of The Nanny Diaries and the YA novel The Real Real have penned a book that looks inside the life of a troubled pop starlet. While Kelsey is a fictitious character and all references to real people - Hollywood actors, singers, etc - are fictitious as well it rings true. It also seems to mirror, in the biggest points, at least, Britney Spears' life circa 2004 on.

Kelsey is not Britney Spears' though (she looks different, physically, for one), her life - family life and past - seems much darker. Her parents are both ever-present and very controlling. They have final say on things in both their daughter's personal and professional life.

When Logan comes to Los Angeles to visit Kelsey, she can tell that something isn't quite right with Kelsey. She's also still not comfortable around her uncle after the way her was during their childhood but everyone promises her he's different now.

Readers are kept out of the loops as to just what the 'accident' was that injured Logan, drove Kelsey and her mother out of town and left Kelsey and Logan's father's - and families not speaking. Logan has mini-flashbacks and things are slowly revealed but without too many hints beforehand.

We do see that Logan cares a great deal for Kelsey so it makes sense that she's willing to leave everything behind - and even anger her parents - to be Kelsey's assistant.

It's also clear to see that Kelsey's damaged.

Even when everyone around her is covering for her or pushing her on, as the outsider, the reader, you can't help but feel for her - and for Logan who's put into almost impossible situations and starts almost to see things as her norm.

If Between You and Me had any faults, really, it was that it left me thinking about it after it was over. While it is a great summer beach-y read -- the celebrity aspect is terribly fun. the music business and tour ins and outs seem to be handled very well -- it isn't frothy and pointless. After I finished it, I was left wondering about why some of the characters did some of what they did, whether it made sense for them, if there should have been more follow-through on some things, if a thing or two wasn't just done to advance the plot . . .

But when I was reading it, I didn't wonder any of those things because I was too wrapped up in the story. Between Me and You really draws you in. (You also cannot tell any difference in McLaughlin and Kraus' writing, it flows seamlessly.)

Looking forward to checking out their YA novels and also The Nanny Diaries, too.

Originally posted to: http://book-splot.blogspot.com/2012/06/between-you-and-me-emma-mclaughlin.html e-galley received from S&S and NetGalley for review.

This is one of those books you get through quickly. What looked like typical pseudo-real fiction with lots of brand name dropping turned out to be a fair bit deeper.

Your mileage will vary on this, of course, and you may not get past the first chapter. I mean, the main character is positively annoying at first. But you slowly get a sense as to why she is that way, and why her world is the way it is. I really loved the ending, and felt like it was a good way to come full circle with everything. I've seen some complaints about the big looming thing in the characters' history being something of a letdown; personally, I think trauma is trauma, and it doesn't have to be particularly flashy to have an impact.

They could have fleshed things out a bit more in areas, but then, it wouldn't be as smooth of a book to get through. The point is to get through it quickly, I think. No problem in that. Not all books are Literature, after all.

Basically this is a good summer read with some thinky bits, exactly what I needed at the time.

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