Review: The Cover Girl

The Cover Girl by Amy Rossi
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

If you like books with a theme that amounts to near pedophilia, then this might just be the book for you. After all, our main character, model Birdie, is only 15 when she meets and becomes involved with "the rock star," who is more than double her age.

This book incorporates the clichéd (but historically correct) amount of drugs, rocj band tours, suicide attempts, and generally a lot of inner dialogue. Of course, this novel is told in the first person, which is to be expected.

I made it to about 55% before I gave in and gave up. I couldn't bring myself to like or feel sorry for poor Birdie, and I wasn't engaged or curious about what might have happened in the part I skipped.

I may come back to it to see what happens when Birdie grows up, because this book is also split into two time periods, with Birdie grown and in her 50's. From what I can tell, she hadn't changed much.

ARC supplied by the publisher MIRA, the author, and NetGalley.

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Description: "Birdie Rhodes was only thirteen when legendary modeling agent Harriet Goldman discovered her in a department store and transformed her into one of Harriet’s Girls. What followed felt like the start of something incredible, a chance for shy Birdie to express herself in front of the camera. But two years later, she meets a thirty-one-year-old rock star, and her teenage heart falls hard as he leads her into a new life, despite Harriet’s warnings. Then, as abruptly as it began, it’s over, like a lipstick-smeared fever dream. Birdie tries hard to forget that time—starting over in Paris, in the dying embers of the LA punk scene, in Boston at the height of the AIDS crisis. She’s not that person anymore. At least, that’s what she’s been telling herself.

Decades later, Birdie lives a quiet life. She works modest gigs, takes Pilates and mostly keeps to herself. Maybe it’s not the glamor she once envisioned, but it’s peaceful. Comfortable. Then a letter arrives, inviting Birdie to celebrate Harriet’s fifty-year career. Except Birdie hasn’t spoken to her in nearly thirty years—with good reason.

Almost famous, almost destroyed, Birdie can only make her own future if she reckons with her past—the fame, the trauma, the opportunities she gave up for a man who brought her into a life she wasn’t ready for. Just like she’s not ready now. But the painful truth waits for nobody. Not even Birdie Rhodes.

For fans of My Dark Vanessa and Taylor Jenkins Reid, this striking debut novel explores the dizzying fallout of being seen and not heard in a high-stakes industry that leaves no silhouette unscathed."