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This Song Is About Me: A Novel
Not yet published
Expected 21 Apr 26A reporter strives to discover the reason behind a superstar’s disappearance in an enthralling novel about the mysteries of love and success by a
New York Times
bestselling author.
It was a night to remember. Ryan Holding, the most famous pop star in the world, won every music award imaginable at the industry’s highest event. She exited the stage to thunderous applause…then disappeared off the face of the earth.
Six years later, her social media accounts remain untouched. Her band has broken up. Her Malibu estate sits quiet. And billions of obsessed fans still Whatever happened to Ryan Holding?
Amid theories, suspicions, and rumors, reporter Elyse James wants the truth about the girl who poured her heart into every song she wrote. As Elyse searches through the stories of Ryan’s life, from those willing to talk—her best friend, a childhood teacher, and Ryan’s first love among them—a portrait of a flesh-and-blood icon begins to emerge. So do clues to a mystery that has captivated the world.
Did Ryan disappear to find herself? Or did someone deliberately make Ryan disappear? The answers are the stuff of legend.
It was a night to remember. Ryan Holding, the most famous pop star in the world, won every music award imaginable at the industry’s highest event. She exited the stage to thunderous applause…then disappeared off the face of the earth.
Six years later, her social media accounts remain untouched. Her band has broken up. Her Malibu estate sits quiet. And billions of obsessed fans still Whatever happened to Ryan Holding?
Amid theories, suspicions, and rumors, reporter Elyse James wants the truth about the girl who poured her heart into every song she wrote. As Elyse searches through the stories of Ryan’s life, from those willing to talk—her best friend, a childhood teacher, and Ryan’s first love among them—a portrait of a flesh-and-blood icon begins to emerge. So do clues to a mystery that has captivated the world.
Did Ryan disappear to find herself? Or did someone deliberately make Ryan disappear? The answers are the stuff of legend.
283 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication April 21, 2026
1 person is currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Melissa de la Cruz
187 books15.8k followersMelissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat.
Her books for adults include the novel Cat’s Meow, the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys and the tongue-in-chic handbooks How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less and The Fashionista Files: Adventures in Four-inch heels and Faux-Pas.
She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for many publications including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews.
Melissa grew up in Manila and moved to San Francisco with her family, where she graduated high school salutatorian from The Convent of the Sacred Heart. She majored in art history and English at Columbia University (and minored in nightclubs and shopping!).
She now divides her time between New York and Los Angeles, where she lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband and daughter.
Her books for adults include the novel Cat’s Meow, the anthology Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys and the tongue-in-chic handbooks How to Become Famous in Two Weeks or Less and The Fashionista Files: Adventures in Four-inch heels and Faux-Pas.
She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for many publications including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews.
Melissa grew up in Manila and moved to San Francisco with her family, where she graduated high school salutatorian from The Convent of the Sacred Heart. She majored in art history and English at Columbia University (and minored in nightclubs and shopping!).
She now divides her time between New York and Los Angeles, where she lives in the Hollywood Hills with her husband and daughter.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 30, 2025
Ryan Holding is a really famous popstar, similar in nature to Taylor Swift I would say, who suddenly goes missing after the VMAs. One of the peaks of her career. The book is told through a series of interviews in a sort of oral history format.
Honestly this book frustrated me deeply a lot of the time. I liked Ryan at first. She seemed nice, genuine and like she had a good head on her shoulders. But then her character started to feel unstable and confused. I understand that's because we were seeing her through various different people's eyes, but still.
I thought it was an interesting character study though despite my dislike for her at times. The way it was crafted so you could see society's reactions to things Ryan did and went through felt very reflective to things I see all the time and it paid off in that regard.
I also didn't love the ending to this book. I found it very predictable and it even went into boring territory at times. Like if you had asked me where I thought the book was going about halfway through, the way it went was exactly what I would've said.
Thank you to NetGalley and Little A for the ARC to honestly review.
Honestly this book frustrated me deeply a lot of the time. I liked Ryan at first. She seemed nice, genuine and like she had a good head on her shoulders. But then her character started to feel unstable and confused. I understand that's because we were seeing her through various different people's eyes, but still.
I thought it was an interesting character study though despite my dislike for her at times. The way it was crafted so you could see society's reactions to things Ryan did and went through felt very reflective to things I see all the time and it paid off in that regard.
I also didn't love the ending to this book. I found it very predictable and it even went into boring territory at times. Like if you had asked me where I thought the book was going about halfway through, the way it went was exactly what I would've said.
Thank you to NetGalley and Little A for the ARC to honestly review.
November 24, 2025
Thanks to Little A, NetGalley, and Melissa De La Cruz for the eARC in exchange for an honest review! My opinions are my own.
When I was in college, I devoured Melissa De La Cruz' Blue Bloods series. I loved the elite academic world she created with the added intrigue of fantasy, and I read every book in the series voraciously. Now, years later, I was excited to pick up her latest novel, a cautionary tale of life in the spotlight told in oral history format. I found myself just as swept away as I was back then, though in an entirely different setting: the modern life of an ultrafamous musician.
The novel examines the life of Ryan Holding, the world's most famous pop star who suddenly disappears on the night of her triumphant Video Music Awards appearance. Ryan, who started in the music industry as a precocious pre-teen, bears an uncanny resemblance to that OTHER current biggest pop star on the planet, from her country and bluegrass roots to her ever-changing image, to her revolving door of romances. Driven by a force larger than herself to create music, she finds herself adrift the further she wades into the murk of celebrity life, struggling to reconcile the life she once had with the life she has now. We see Ryan grow from learning to play the banjo in her small town to signing her first record contract to being unable to even walk down the street without being accosted by paparazzi. The toll that takes on her mental health, her personal relationships, and her professional growth is profound, and it soon becomes apparent that the price of fame might be higher than Ryan is willing or able to pay.
The author's choice to present her story in an oral history format makes it particularly compelling to read. Parasocial relationships run rampant in today's real world, and to hear Ryan's story from those who thought they knew her well to those who didn't really know her at all feels almost like eavesdropping. It's a strangely intimate approach that almost feels invasive at times, and I think that was intentional. It's an approach that worked well in Taylor Jenkins Reid's "Daisy Jones and the Six", and that approach is only enhanced as we struggle to figure out what happened to Ryan, who she trusts and who she shouldn't, and what their motivations might be.
The novel does a stellar job examining the price of fame, the cost of loyalty, and the weight of expectations, particularly for those who are thrust into the spotlight at a young age. Ryan's story is painfully, tragically familiar to those who grew up idolizing the likes of Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes, and Taylor Swift. We're groomed to feel like we know these people, that we have a stake in their lives, when in most cases we don't really know them at all. That's part of what makes this story so poignant: it illustrates exactly how alone one can feel even when under the brightest lights.
I think you'll enjoy this story if you've ever been even casually interested in the life of a popstar or have dreamed about fame, or if you enjoyed the unique oral history format of "Daisy Jones and the Six". For Swifties, the story might hold particular prescience: I found myself smiling at the subtle song references sprinkled throughout the story. Ultimately, the book is a quick, fun, breathless look into a young woman's meteoric rise to fame and the price she paid to get there. Though it's a standalone book, the novel's wry wink of an ending made me imagine "what if", and left me satisfied with the resolution. It’s everything I love about Melissa De La Cruz’s writing, and I’m so glad I got to step into another one of her worlds at a completely different stage in my life.
When I was in college, I devoured Melissa De La Cruz' Blue Bloods series. I loved the elite academic world she created with the added intrigue of fantasy, and I read every book in the series voraciously. Now, years later, I was excited to pick up her latest novel, a cautionary tale of life in the spotlight told in oral history format. I found myself just as swept away as I was back then, though in an entirely different setting: the modern life of an ultrafamous musician.
The novel examines the life of Ryan Holding, the world's most famous pop star who suddenly disappears on the night of her triumphant Video Music Awards appearance. Ryan, who started in the music industry as a precocious pre-teen, bears an uncanny resemblance to that OTHER current biggest pop star on the planet, from her country and bluegrass roots to her ever-changing image, to her revolving door of romances. Driven by a force larger than herself to create music, she finds herself adrift the further she wades into the murk of celebrity life, struggling to reconcile the life she once had with the life she has now. We see Ryan grow from learning to play the banjo in her small town to signing her first record contract to being unable to even walk down the street without being accosted by paparazzi. The toll that takes on her mental health, her personal relationships, and her professional growth is profound, and it soon becomes apparent that the price of fame might be higher than Ryan is willing or able to pay.
The author's choice to present her story in an oral history format makes it particularly compelling to read. Parasocial relationships run rampant in today's real world, and to hear Ryan's story from those who thought they knew her well to those who didn't really know her at all feels almost like eavesdropping. It's a strangely intimate approach that almost feels invasive at times, and I think that was intentional. It's an approach that worked well in Taylor Jenkins Reid's "Daisy Jones and the Six", and that approach is only enhanced as we struggle to figure out what happened to Ryan, who she trusts and who she shouldn't, and what their motivations might be.
The novel does a stellar job examining the price of fame, the cost of loyalty, and the weight of expectations, particularly for those who are thrust into the spotlight at a young age. Ryan's story is painfully, tragically familiar to those who grew up idolizing the likes of Britney Spears, Amanda Bynes, and Taylor Swift. We're groomed to feel like we know these people, that we have a stake in their lives, when in most cases we don't really know them at all. That's part of what makes this story so poignant: it illustrates exactly how alone one can feel even when under the brightest lights.
I think you'll enjoy this story if you've ever been even casually interested in the life of a popstar or have dreamed about fame, or if you enjoyed the unique oral history format of "Daisy Jones and the Six". For Swifties, the story might hold particular prescience: I found myself smiling at the subtle song references sprinkled throughout the story. Ultimately, the book is a quick, fun, breathless look into a young woman's meteoric rise to fame and the price she paid to get there. Though it's a standalone book, the novel's wry wink of an ending made me imagine "what if", and left me satisfied with the resolution. It’s everything I love about Melissa De La Cruz’s writing, and I’m so glad I got to step into another one of her worlds at a completely different stage in my life.
December 19, 2025
3.5 ⭐️!
Thank you to the author & publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC!
I really enjoyed my time reading this, but I also have lots of feedback and some issues with it that prevent me from giving it a higher star rating. But overall I was entertained the entire time and thought it was a unique premise!
First: I requested this on Netgalley as I was in the mood for a literary fiction, and this was listed as both general fiction (adult) and litfic. I do not think this is a litfic in any way, and I would remove that label. Also I do think this book would benefit from being marketed to a younger audience by adding a YA label. There’s no content in it that a preteen or teen couldn’t digest, and I think they’d enjoy the story more than the general adult population as it’s not very detailed or nuanced.
Second, I think that the mixture of fictional people and celebrities in this book’s universe combined with real celebrities and references didn’t work for me. Obviously, this story is heavily inspired by Taylor Swift. A fictionalized version of her come to fame story, the idea of leaving easter eggs and secret messages in her videos and albums etc etc etc. The problem with mentioning other celebrities like Olivia Rodrigo, Charli XCX, Katy Perry etc means that Taylor Swift also exists somewhere
in this universe which is weird? I think that to better execute the story, we either should have set this in a completely fictional place and not mentioned any real people, or we should have made this Pop Star Ryan Holding a separate entity from Taylor Swift with a completely different backstory and music genre instead of making her story mirror Taylor’s so heavily.
Finally, I think the actual plot needed some work regarding the easter eggs and her disappearance. It truly wasn’t really a scavenger hunt of a journalist trying to
figure out where this missing pop star went because she knew the whole time. And the easter eggs from the music videos really weren’t even very relevant to her figuring out where Ryan went at the end?
Overall I think the concept had potential but for this to be an adult fiction (or literary fiction) novel, I just needed more. A more intricate and detailed plot, more character depth etc., and some of the issues noted above took me out of the story.
I also do not particularly like the cover and would never have picked it up in a bookstore.
Thank you to the author & publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC!
I really enjoyed my time reading this, but I also have lots of feedback and some issues with it that prevent me from giving it a higher star rating. But overall I was entertained the entire time and thought it was a unique premise!
First: I requested this on Netgalley as I was in the mood for a literary fiction, and this was listed as both general fiction (adult) and litfic. I do not think this is a litfic in any way, and I would remove that label. Also I do think this book would benefit from being marketed to a younger audience by adding a YA label. There’s no content in it that a preteen or teen couldn’t digest, and I think they’d enjoy the story more than the general adult population as it’s not very detailed or nuanced.
Second, I think that the mixture of fictional people and celebrities in this book’s universe combined with real celebrities and references didn’t work for me. Obviously, this story is heavily inspired by Taylor Swift. A fictionalized version of her come to fame story, the idea of leaving easter eggs and secret messages in her videos and albums etc etc etc. The problem with mentioning other celebrities like Olivia Rodrigo, Charli XCX, Katy Perry etc means that Taylor Swift also exists somewhere
in this universe which is weird? I think that to better execute the story, we either should have set this in a completely fictional place and not mentioned any real people, or we should have made this Pop Star Ryan Holding a separate entity from Taylor Swift with a completely different backstory and music genre instead of making her story mirror Taylor’s so heavily.
Finally, I think the actual plot needed some work regarding the easter eggs and her disappearance. It truly wasn’t really a scavenger hunt of a journalist trying to
figure out where this missing pop star went because she knew the whole time. And the easter eggs from the music videos really weren’t even very relevant to her figuring out where Ryan went at the end?
Overall I think the concept had potential but for this to be an adult fiction (or literary fiction) novel, I just needed more. A more intricate and detailed plot, more character depth etc., and some of the issues noted above took me out of the story.
I also do not particularly like the cover and would never have picked it up in a bookstore.
November 29, 2025
I enjoyed this one more than I expected. Ryan Holding is a famous singer and celebrity, basically, Taylor Swift. Everything except her looks, basically, down to her being criticized for dating around and then writing songs about it. She disappears one night after an awards show and is never seen again. Now it's six years later, and Elyse is a reporter writing THE story about Ryan, determined to get to the bottom of what happened for her own personal reasons. But if she does figure out the mystery, will she be satisfied with what she discovers or wish she had never gotten involved?
The story is told via interviews with those closest to Ryan, with a few interspersed narratives from Elyse. The reader has to take everything with a grain of salt, as these are just opinions and not facts, given by people with their own biases. We hear about the same events from multiple people, each one putting their own spin on it. Some paint Ryan as a sweet kid overwhelmed by fame and fortune, disillusioned by the changes in her life. Others say she just played the part of the innocent ingenue and knew how to manipulate to her own advantage every time.
While the big mystery is solved (no ambiguous ending here, thankfully), it was a tad unsatisfying. Not exactly unbelievable, but a bit obvious, I guess. I mean, there's really only two ways it could have gone. So no big bombshell twist or anything, but man, this author can write. I think I read this in almost one complete sitting. I'm not even a fan of celebrities and gossip culture; I was only in it for the mystery. And even though that part was underwhelming, I was still hooked. I'm definitely going to check out more of her books to see what else she'll get me drawn into.
The story is told via interviews with those closest to Ryan, with a few interspersed narratives from Elyse. The reader has to take everything with a grain of salt, as these are just opinions and not facts, given by people with their own biases. We hear about the same events from multiple people, each one putting their own spin on it. Some paint Ryan as a sweet kid overwhelmed by fame and fortune, disillusioned by the changes in her life. Others say she just played the part of the innocent ingenue and knew how to manipulate to her own advantage every time.
While the big mystery is solved (no ambiguous ending here, thankfully), it was a tad unsatisfying. Not exactly unbelievable, but a bit obvious, I guess. I mean, there's really only two ways it could have gone. So no big bombshell twist or anything, but man, this author can write. I think I read this in almost one complete sitting. I'm not even a fan of celebrities and gossip culture; I was only in it for the mystery. And even though that part was underwhelming, I was still hooked. I'm definitely going to check out more of her books to see what else she'll get me drawn into.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
If you were a fan of Daisy Jones and the Six, I would definitely recommend reading this book. This book follows Ryan Holding (who reminds me a lot of Taylor Swift), and award winning musician who went missing, nobody knowing what happened to her. It is told in interviews of people close to her, as well as news articles and online posts.
The reason I gave this 3 stars is because of the way the story was told. Personally, with the story being told through interviews, I didn't feel a connection to Ryan as a character. This is because you are seeing her through other people's perspectives, and they all see her different ways.
One thing I can say for sure is that this plot had me hooked. Although Ryan as a character didn't, her story did. I found myself wanting to know what would happen next and, ultimately, what happened to her.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review.
The reason I gave this 3 stars is because of the way the story was told. Personally, with the story being told through interviews, I didn't feel a connection to Ryan as a character. This is because you are seeing her through other people's perspectives, and they all see her different ways.
One thing I can say for sure is that this plot had me hooked. Although Ryan as a character didn't, her story did. I found myself wanting to know what would happen next and, ultimately, what happened to her.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for an honest review.
November 27, 2025
Thank you NetGalley and Little A for the eARC.
At the start of this book I was quite enjoying it, but the further I read the less I liked it. It felt too long and drawn out, to the point I got bored. Plus, the ending was quite unsurprising and disappointing. But I get the feeling that fans of Taylor Swift will love this tale of a young girl's rise to super stardom.
At the start of this book I was quite enjoying it, but the further I read the less I liked it. It felt too long and drawn out, to the point I got bored. Plus, the ending was quite unsurprising and disappointing. But I get the feeling that fans of Taylor Swift will love this tale of a young girl's rise to super stardom.
December 9, 2025
Loved reading the amazing and engaging story. Elyse wants to write a story about Ryan, a pop star, who disappeared after receiving an award, and she wants to find out why her brother left town so unexpectedly. Read the highly recommended, wonderfully written full of mystery and intrigue, and. a must read riveting story.
December 9, 2025
Don't come for me: I am not, nor have I ever been a Swiftie. So, Tay Tay fan fiction should be, like, not it for me. yet, despite myself, I found this compulsively readable and more than a little bit fun.
December 10, 2025
This novel was so amazingly good. It was suspenseful and emotionally compelling. I would definitely read another book by this author! ***** Five Stars *****
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews