Reel book review
I’ve read a few books that I’ve become so obsessed with that they become instant classics. The Great Believers, American Dirt, The Giver of Stars, and now this book.
It’s an instant classic. An annual read for me.
A friend recommended Score to me and was like, “Oh my God. You should read the book Score. It’s just about to come out. You gotta read it.”
I was like, okay, let me try to get it. I tried. I tried. I finally got the audiobook and went to listen to it.
Score is book two.
Well, if there’s a series, I gotta read the whole series.
So this book review is about Reel by Kennedy Ryan. Come to find out, the books do stand independently, but I’m really happy that I read Reel first.
The genre is fiction, and the theme is romance literature. It’s a forbidden love story, kinda. Not forbidden and not unrequited. It’s more of a slow-burn love story.
Cannon and Neevah forever. Do you hear me?
Neevah Saint is a Broadway actress and an incredible singer. She knows this guy named Monk, and she tells him, “I’ll let you know if I have some other gigs coming up.”
Monk ends up being in town and says that he and his boy Cannon are going to see her on Broadway.
Cannon has been trying to cast the lead actress in the movie he’s directing for the last eight months. He sees Neevah and is instantly spellbound.
He’s thinking, “That’s her. That’s my character. That’s the actress.”
From there, the book goes through a series of really, really amazing things. You get to see them kinda like each other, but Neevah is thinking, this is my first time doing a produced movie. I can’t be in love with the director.
And the director just got out of a relationship with a lead actress, so he refuses to do that again.
That’s their main conflict.
Cannon is not just a movie director. He’s this really empathetic guy. He has this hard shell because he does not want people to take advantage of him. He’s had this life with all of these traumas. And as a Black man and a really sought-after director, he’s not letting his guard down for just anybody.
Then you have Neevah, who is this incredibly accomplished, really talented woman, and she also has a couple of health crises.
It’s so realistic because, of course, she has her own stuff. There’s a little bit of family drama and reasons why she is guarded and feels really lonely. For her big break, she’s not going to risk it all just to be with the director. But you kinda want her to because you’re just like, but you two are so well matched!
“But you two are so well matched!”
It is incredible.
I did read the acknowledgements because I’m writing a book, and Kennedy Ryan did a whole bunch of research. She found out what’s up with film writers, what’s up with directors, and what’s up with people who have some of the health complications that Neevah has.
Fiction is imaginative. It is your mind, your memory, your imagination saying, “I’m gonna take this core plot, and I’m gonna expand it.”
But Kennedy Ryan also does her research to make sure she is not offending anyone, leaving anyone out, or not representing people in the way they would want. She’s very respectful in how she approaches stories and how she approaches characters.
I’m also reading Score, and I’m only at page 40, so I’m still very, very early. A few of the characters in Reel are also in that book. That’s why you have a series, right?
If you are interested in complicated characters, if you’re looking for depth, layers, and a little bit of trauma, you will love Kennedy Ryan’s writing.
I’ve read Kennedy Ryan before. I read Before I Let Go, which is being turned into a TV show and is part of the Skyland series. I’ve only read book one. I haven’t read books two and three yet.
I’m really excited for that series to come out, and I’m definitely gonna read the other two books and do a review.
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Until the next book review,
Kyla
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