I had a hard time putting down Leah Stewart’s latest novel! This tale of Charlie Outlaw and Josie Lamar, both actors, is compelling.
The two have been in a long-term relationship. His career is rising; hers is on a downswing, having begun when she was in her teens.
When Charlie says something off-the-cuff about their relationship during an interview that hurts Josie’s feelings, the story goes viral. In spite of being in love, they decide to split up.
Charlie, who never intended to hurt Josie, decides to go as far away as he can to a tropical island, telling nobody his specific plans. He wants to get his head together.
Josie continues to audition for parts in Los Angeles. When she realizes that she needs to reach out to Charlie and does so, he doesn’t get back to her. And that’s because he has managed to get himself kidnapped!
The novel goes back and forth from one to the other as we learn what makes each of them tick, and they learn what’s really important in life.
The book pulled me into its grips right from the beginning.

Actor Charlie Outlaw gives an interview that he wishes he could take back. He says some things that aren’t really what someone you were in love with would want to hear and his girlfriend Josie Lamar is understandably upset. Charlie decides to take off by himself to regroup on an island. When he joins up with a group for a jungle hike, things take a bad turn and Charlie is kidnapped. The kidnappers have no idea that they have someone famous on their hands and they are not quite up to par in the kidnapping game so things go from bad to worse.

Back in California, Josie has no idea what is going on with Charlie. Josie is just trying to get auditions and live her life. Josie was once very famous for playing the butt kicking Bronwyn Kyle. (Picture a Buffy type) Little does she know that she will need to come to the rescue of Charlie.

The whole story is told by a narrator and at first, it was a little off-putting to me but once the story started going, I was all in. I pictured a Morgan Freeman type every time I started a new chapter. I loved the way I totally got to know both Charlie and Josie as the story progressed. I also loved a little delving into the world of Hollywood and fan adoration, especially a look at how things go behind the scenes at places like a Comic Con. Leah Stewart had this wonderful way of giving us a peek at the outlying characters too. They weren’t just extras, so to speak. But it is the main characters that you will fall in love with. If you have not read any Leah Stewart (and I have read all her books), this might be a good one to start with.

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for a copy of this book.

I LOVED this novel! It's about an actor named Charlie and an actress named Josie who have just broken up - his career is on an upward trajectory while hers is on a downward trajectory. In the wake of their breakup, Charlie travels to a remote island to escape from the media, which turns out to be more dangerous than he anticipated. Back in LA, Josie is busy getting ready for the 20 year reunion for the tv show she starred in. There is A LOT more to the plot than that, but I'm not going to give any spoilers. But more than that, the writing and the character development was seriously amazing. The author used an unusual third party omniscient narrator in that the narrator was REALLY omniscient - so you not only were told about the character's thoughts, but sometimes about things that they would think in the future looking back, and also would jump briefly to hear about the thoughts of the characters around them. Rather than being distracting, it was seriously masterful in bringing the characters and the whole book so vividly to life.

I loved The Myth of You and Me, and I feel like I am looking for how I felt about that book in every Leah Stewart book I try. Unfortunately in this one I just wasn't connecting with the characters, and ended up bailing on it. This isn't really a review as much of a statement that this wasn't really my thing.

Leah Stewart did an incredible job of combining suspense and insight for this novel. The kidnapping of Charlie Outlaw plays out much as expected, but the characters of Charlie and Josie are not what I expected, Stewart's storytelling, even though it's fictional, allows us to understand the depth that actors and actresses must reach to play out their parts. Fascinating look at what may go on behind the scenes in real-life for those in the acting profession.

Similar to the two main characters in this book, I felt like the book wasn't sure what it wanted to be. After Charlie has a moment of honesty in an interview, his girlfriend dumps him and he runs away to a secluded island only to find himself in a difficult situation. Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Josie, is missing him and struggling in a world where she is basically an over the hill has-been actress. I couldn't tell if the book was trying to be cutesy young adult, dramatic thriller, romance, or adult contemporary. And there is nothing saying it couldn't combine all of them but it felt like it wavered between all of them throughout the book, leaving the reader off balance and confused. In addition, the story felt unbelievable. And while I know it is fiction and some leeway needs to be given, the amount needed was a bit excessive. This would make for a good vacation read. Light and easy to read in small bits.

I was unable to finish this book and thus will not be posting a full review on my blog. The language of this book was stilted, hard to follow and boring. I found that the POV was weird and I couldn't tell what character was driving the action, at times. Thank you for your consideration to allow me to review this book.

I wasn’t overly impressed with, What you don’t know about Charlie Outlaw.

The story tells of Josie, Charlie’s estranged girlfriend; who he unintentionally humiliated during a recent interview. Infuriated, Josie breaks up with Charlie sending him off to foreign island to nurse his broken heart.
Josie is an actress who is struggling with self confidence after having once been a star of a cult classic TV series, but is now auditioning for anything just to pay her bills. She misses Charlie but doesn’t know where he went.

Charlie Outlaw is well-known TV celebrity who’s was kidnapped by island locals who are unhappy with America, their own country and want money and or/revenge, BUT, they don’t even know who Charlie is.

I struggled with this book and I still don’t know, what I don’t know about Charlie Outlaw! I could never connect with the characters and didn’t enjoy the narrative style. Sometimes the story was told by Charlie Outlaw, sometimes by his ex girlfriend, Josie LaMar, and other times by a third party narrator. While I feel this story has potential, it fell flat for me.

I enjoyed this book, it was a great one day read. Charlie Outlaw is a famous actor whose girlfriend Josie broke up with him after he publicly said some very stupid and embarrassing things. He decides the best thing for him to do is retreat to Costa Rica without telling anyone where he's going and lay low for a while. Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, a group of locals protesting a development decides that the best way to gain attention to their cause is to kidnap some tourists, collect the ransom and get some publicity. Charlie gets caught up in their scheme and gives a false name, and finds that acting skills aren't up to the challenge of getting kidnapped in real life.

Josie, back in LA, is realizing she misses Charlie and tries to find him. The book goes back and forth between their two stories, which is a little distracting but makes sense towards the end. The plot was good, but the book got a little slow in the middle. I recommend reading it though!

Thanks to G.P. Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I sometimes struggled to read this book although I did enjoy it. I enjoyed how Stewart did her research and was able to get into the mindset of what it means to be an actor. After I finished the book, I have been thinking more about a minor character (Mystery) than I did about the main characters.

Charlie and his girlfriend are actors and have just broken up over something stupid. To avoid the press and to get his head together, Charlie runs away to a tropical isle only to get kidnapped. As his situation goes from bad to worse he tries to understand how he got himself into this situation and how he messed up the best thing in his life - Josie. Josie meanwhile is miserable without Charlie and begins to hang out with actor friends only to find her public life getting a little too close. This is a character story that blurs the line between actors playing a part and how well they do at playing at real life. Funny, sad and scary all in one, you will see the reality shine through the Hollywood facade.
My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

An interesting look at the minds of actors and actresses as well as a good story. Josie has broken up with Charlie (both actors) because of a comment he made to a reporter. Charlie goes off to a remote island to be by himself for a while. Josie regrets the breakup and wants to get in touch with Charlie to let him know, but where is Charlie?

Our culture is ever so celebrity obsessed. There are those who, deservingly and often not at all so, have become permanent fixtures in our consciousness and these individuals and the disproportionate, merit free amounts of fame bestowed upon them tell a lot about us as a society. I’m not just talking about Kardashians, although they are the most obvious example. It’s a sensationalist ephemeral undeserved sort of fame, but it’s fame nonetheless and thus cloaks its recipients in a sort of magic cover, until you can barely see the real person underneath, if there ever was one. It’s a fascinating thin, one I’m not entirely guiltless of, who hasn’t googled an actor (or ten) or been starstruck by seeing one in person. And that’s pretty much what attracted me to this book, the way it offers readers a glimpse at the underneath, presenting a different perspective, one of the quite literally other side of the coin. In doing so the author succeeds marvelously. She uses a sort of trick of the omniscient narrator in such a competent stunningly not annoying way that it really draws you into this world of adult make believe that is acting. Even if you don’t particularly care for its main characters (though you probably will, they are lovely), it’s still such a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain, written in such a compelling way that you’ll end up forgiving the slips into the overly romantic territory and the sappily happy ending too while you’re at it. What’s interesting and/or peculiar though is that the book has two protagonists, Charlie (real name) Outlaw and his beloved Josie, who split the screen time as it were very evenly and yet…only Charlie gets his name above the credits in a move so strikingly typical of the industry as to make the inquiring minds question the irony. But anyway, this was a very enjoyable read, a one day sort of thing, where the details overtook the plot in the most awesome way. Try not to think about this book next time you see someone famous, in real life or that other real life that is internet. Thanks Netgalley.