I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be famous; have everyone recognize you as you walk down the street, have an unlimited cash flow and still get almost everything you want for free and have millions of people tune in weekly to see you perform your weekly work schedule.
However, the older I got, the more I became aware of some of the downfalls of fame. Your actions, both good and bad, are constantly scrutinized by people you’ve never met but they believe they know you better than you know yourself. There’s no privacy and you’re always on display. Even friendships can be as complicated as political alliances. Eventually I decided that the downfalls of fame mostly outweigh the perks. Sometimes “normal” is what the rich and famous dream about.
Real Happy Family by Caeli Wolfson Widger is the story of a family who unwittingly becomes famous when the youngest daughter, Lorelei, tries to break out in reality TV with unfortunate consequences.
Colleen Branch was just a high school kid when she met and fell in love with her husband Carl. Dreaming of becoming a Disney princess at Disneyland, Carl promised Colleen to give her a better future that she could be really proud of. When their daughter, Lorelei, was born, Colleen changed her dreams from star to stage mom. From then on both were more like best friends than mother and daughter.
As Lorelei grew up, Colleen began shopping her around nearby Los Angeles getting her commercials and small roles. When an opportunity came for Lorelei to get on a fashion-forward reality show, Colleen and her daughter-in-law Robin coached Lorelei as best they could to prepare her. Lorelei had plenty of competition and the reality show wanted to make a live reveal of who would be chosen. Unfortunately, the day of the reveal Colleen had a little too much to drink and basically ruined the entire experience for Lorelei.
Fresh from a career that was fleeting and mediocre, Lorelei cut ties with her mom, moved in with her brother and started partying with some kids in LA. Eventually, her partying ways led her away from California where she took a downward spiral into addiction and survival. Her parents continued to live together until a huge void opened between then as Colleen’s secret lifestyle of drugs and over-spending went completely out of control. Lorelei’s brother, who is married to her agent Robin, is finally getting a big break in camera work for an independent film. Unfortunately it’s coming right as Robin is jacked up on fertility drugs and ready to start a family.
Everything comes to a head when Colleen employs a reality TV show, Real Happy Family, to hunt down Lorelei and orchestrate an intervention (think Intervention that airs on A&E Network). When the film crew finds Lorelei, it’s worse than they thought and the timeline is moved up. All members come together in Reno, NV for an Intervention.
The book has a resolution. It’s not obvious at the time of the intervention if we’re going to have a happy ending or a family that completely implodes. I’ll let you read it yourself to see how everything turns out.
I give this book 4 stars for sure. I almost wish the book didn’t resolve itself. It would have been a much better read had the entire story ended with Chapter 56. Let the reader decide how many secrets would be revealed, which relationships would withstand the secrets that did come out and who would be able to overcome their addictions and which wouldn’t. Overall, this is a great read. A little slow in the beginning it builds to a frantic pace by the very end leaving me almost breathless with how much happened in just a few pages.
What author have you recently discovered that you really like?
