Child Star

by Matt Thorne

Imagine if the most embarrassing moments of your adolescence had been filmed - and then shown to your parents. Imagine if your first love was a character in a real-life docu-drama - and your romance played out on-screen. Imagine if you were about to become famous - and you had to share it all with your psychopathic sister. This all happened to Gerald Wedmore, child celebrity, recording angel and now TEFL teacher with a load of loony flatmates. As an adult he's no longer a star and he's been sleepwalking through life for too long, trapped in the lost hopes of the past. Now it is time to grow up, find a girl, change his sheets and do something about his life. CHILD STAR is a novel about love, friendship, different types of fame, and the family. Matt returns to stunning form with a page-turning novel in the vein of EIGHT MINUTES IDLE. Matt’s absurdist quirky humour is brought to the fore (plenty of laugh-out-loud gags) and he uses pop music (of the 80s and later, Indie) brilliantly as a sound-track to events.

Genres: Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems I enjoyed this more than most. Far from perfect, but I found it to be an enjoyable read, with lots of interesting characters.

[Roxanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

***** Warning - spoilers *****
A strange book. Thorne has talent but the very short chapters alternating between two versions of the past (with an occasional glimpse of the present thrown in) were disorienting and made it hard to really get into either storyline until about halfway through the book.
I persevered as Thorne really does write well, and by the time I was two thirds through, I was hooked and couldn’t wait to reach the climax of the story - the actual TV show. Sadly no climax ever materialised and the filming and airing of the show was rushed and left me feeling a bit cheated. In some books, the characters and their relationships are so alive and real that a plotline isn’t even really necessary to make a wonderful story, but that wasn’t the case in this instance.
Also a minor - but to me very irritating - grammatical error that cropped up several times: it’s ‘fed up with’, not ‘fed up of’.

Also, a lot was left unresolved: whatever happened to Sally? She’s a main character for half the book and then barely gets another mention. Why and how was Erica a psychopath? We just have to take Gerald’s word for it that she is, but it’s never really made clear why everyone is so scared of her. Or why she apparently stops being a psychopath later. Does Gerald move in with his mother?

Still, while (in my opinion) the story fizzled out rather than going out with a bang, Thorne is skilled enough as a writer that I would probably try more of his work if I come across it.

[Jenna Gendall · Rating 2 out of 5]

felt like this book was a bit of a letdown
i really liked the initial premise of reflecting back upon one's teenage years, however, the constant flicking back between past and present was very disorientating and left me often confused about what was going on
wish it stuck with one idea and ran with it

[Georgia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is ok read but not really great structured. The now and then parts were good idea but there was no really dynamic in the actual story.

[Kat Abend · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyable