Book Review: The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax
About the Book:
Four best friends, four writers, four lives, four families, four backgrounds, four women getting together to create something wonderful…
Under pressure to meet her next deadline, Kendall holes up in a mountain cabin to confront a blank page and a blanker future. But her friends won’t let her face this struggle by herself. They collaborate on a novel none of them could write alone – using their own lives as fodder, assuming no one will discover the truth behind their words.
No one is more surprised than they are when the book becomes a runaway bestseller. But with success comes scrutiny and scandal. Now all bets are off as these four best friends suddenly realize how little they truly know each other.
The Review:
One of the things you learn early on as an aspiring writer is that you don’t write books about writers. Given this is a book – a published book – about writers, I knew it had to be good.
The novel starts out at a point I didn’t expect: the slow demise of Kendall’s writing career. However, this proved to be exactly the right place to start because I was taken in and hooked right from the start. Even a few hundred pages in I felt like Lacy – absolutely unable to put the book down until absolutely necessary.
One of the things I love the most about this book is the layers Wax gives it. She writes this story of the writers writing this story, if that makes any sense at all. At points you can’t help but wonder just what is and what isn’t biographical when it comes to this book.
Wax has proven herself a master when it comes to creating characters you can empathize with. While I’m not at the levels of any of the four ladies in regards to my own writing career, I still felt for them on the human, female levels. I cheered for Kendall when she met the real estate agent in her robe. I felt sick to my stomach when Faye was about to reveal her secret to her husband.
All of this together added up to an incredible read that I highly recommend. I’m not sure non-writers will enjoy it quite as much, but I recommend it all the same. Wendy Wax is a wonderful writer, and I’m looking forward to reading her future works.
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