The Comeback...it's billed as a MeToo kind of book. I really hate that term. It sounds like everyone jumping on a bandwagon. It sounds like suddenly there are all of these people who have been sexually assaulted. It sounds like part of something instead of something apart from everything else. It sounds almost...normal. And I guess it is. Raise your hand if you've ever been assaulted. When I was growing up they explained to us all of the ways we had to protect ourselves. They talked of the "mistakes" made by women who ended up being assaulted. They even spoke of how hard it would be for men to look at you or, heaven forbid touch you, after you had been ruined by being raped. I saw women comforting their husbands after their own assault in interviews on TV!

Now, people aren't really surprised unless it is someone they held on some sort of pedestal. No, he couldn't do that. Why would he do that? Who wouldn't willingly do whatever he wanted? He's so important! He's so famous! That was then and that is now.

This book may be a little of that. However, before the MeToo thing there were people quietly putting their lives back together. It had to be especially hard in the spotlight where everyone thought they had the right to know and to judge. It had to be even worse if you were also a child. The child star gone bad was a trope. A bad joke. People said "too much too fast" without wondering if it was more than that. And without feeling too bad if it was more than that. What did they expect? There was a cost to fame!

That, in a nutshell, is how I feel about this book. Grace didn't do anything wrong. She was young and working unbelievable hours for people who treated her like both an adult and a petulant child, depending on what they wanted from her. She did not know how the world worked and no one taught her. No one really stood up for her. No one fought to keep a child safe. A lot of people said they did. So, washed out in her early 20s, Grace is just trying to figure out how to live.

At first I didn't like her much. She used people. She was rude and mean. She was so flawed!. Of course she is. I began to understand her and relate to her. I raised any hand, too. It's a good thing no one ever asks us to hold up a number. What do those things do to us? It really depends. We all come from a different place to the same "incident".

I was cheering her on and hoping she could do it. I hope everyone will be. It's not this feel-good, everything is going to be OK thing. It's a journey. Beware triggers. Again, triggers affect us in different ways. You know you.

Thanks to Ella Berman, Berkley Publishing, and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I think that perhaps the world will not ever reach a point when it doesn't need revelations of abuse and women and children [and men] standing up for themselves and standing tall despite abuse. Sometimes, as protagonist/narrator Grace demonstrates, being true to ourselves, moment by moment and day by day, in each decision and choice, means the abuser(s) did not win, did not succeed in breaking us, did not "get over." Victims can become Survivors, and Succeed. Sometimes, in the immortal words of George. Herbert, "Living well is the best revenge."

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Comeback by Ella Berman.

This is a story about Grace Turner, a Hollywood starlet who's star just keeps getting brighter and brighter, until she completely disappears for a year. Why does she do it? And what will the repercussions to her life and career be?

I can't say that I didn't enjoy this story. I thought it was written well, and overall stayed compelling, even though there were relationships that were wildly unbelievable. But, to be fair, I'm about as disconnected from Hollywood life as a potato grown girl can be.

Having said that, the story felt aimless? I did get the endgame of the need for the protagonist to conquer her predator and demons, but otherwise, whyyyyyyy. It's hard to see people get so torn to bits over something that is so vapid and threadbare as movie star fame.

This book blew me away. It was so much more than I thought it would be. Yes, it's timely and almost voyeuristic in its portrayal of 'me too' era Hollywood. But it's so much more than that.

It's a story of forgiveness and betrayal and family and roots and fame and self destruction... and ultimately it's a story of grace. It's no coincidence that the main character's name is Grace.

Parts of this story hurt my heart to read. Parts enraged me and parts had shining undercurrents of joy if you looked hard enough. But I just fell in love and couldn't stop turning the pages and rooting for Grace.

5 stars

An impressive debut and a grim depiction of the effects of narcissistic abuse. Grace was barely a teenager when she was discovered and taken under the wing of a beloved Hollywood director. The ten years spent working with that man left Grace incapable of maintaining her marriage or her career. When the director who abused Grace is about to receive a lifetime achievement award, it seems fitting to have her present the award and expose the monster who tormented her and stunted her personal growth. Will the narrative continue on that track, or move in a different direction. You will have to read the book yourself and find out. Reading this book gives me a new level of understanding regarding many of the cases that have come to light in the #MeToo movement. Ultimately, each person has their own unique story and challenges. If parents read this book or others like it before releasing their child to a studio's control, would they still follow the path of fame and fortune?

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

First, a huge thank you to NetGalley for sharing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 Confession: I never give 5 stars - over the years it's become an unofficial rule of mine. That is not to say that many book are worthy of top marks, but for some reason I just feel a little guilty about saying that some authors are perfect whereas others are not. That said, if I were to give 5 stars for one book I've read this year to date, this would be it. I won't bother to provide a description because you can read that yourself. What I will say is that this a near flawless and beautifully written book, one you can't help but continue to read even though it's heartbreaking, it makes you literally hurt. And, Grace, the primary character is utterly empathetic despite her flaws. Essentially sold off by her parents and thrown into the vipers den in the name of fame, she never learned how to be a child, nor does she know how to be an adult. If anyone recalls the Britney Spears breakdown (and Dr. Phil's attempt to swoop in as a savior uninvited, you'll have an idea of just unfair Grace's life have been. From what understand, this is the author's first book, and I will definitely reading her follow-up. I loved it it, but I will be reading lighter fair next!

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

Why would an up and coming teen actress on the cusp of becoming one of the hottest tickets in show business suddenly disappear from Hollywood? We meet Grace Turner, one year after her dramatic departure, promising to live a life of sobriety and no drug abuse, Grace's relationships with her immediate family, husband, and friends are in shambles. But Grace is contemplating a return to the set if only to finally confront the director that controlled every aspect of her career.

Ella Berman's novel is a slow burn, riddled with emotion, and steering us through Grace's confusion, anger, and hurt. Although it is clear from the beginning of the demons that Grace is fighting, future readers will have to be patient as Berman carries us towards the climax of the novel. Grace is also not the only flawed character in this novel and as informed as we are as readers, I must admit to being frustrated at how confrontational so many of the people around Grace were towards her. But then as I finished the novel and reflected on it overnight, I realized we all have the capacity to be so locked in our emotional tidal wave, that even when we can see another person hurting we still have the tendency to lash out at them.


This was one of my anticipated novels of the summer and it didn't disappoint.








Goodreads review published 21/07/20
Expected Publication 03/08/20
#TheComeback #NetGalley

Dark, raw, gritty and thoroughly engaging, THE COMEBACK by Ella Berman will twist your guts into knots, churn your thoughts into a roiling mélange of incredulity. A teen star is manipulated, used and mentally tortured for the benefit of the masses, her dysfunctional family and a manipulative director who may be the biggest monster of all. What could Grace do but run, hide, disappear? If she hadn’t, what would have happened to her, what would her final act say? Now she is back…older, broken, wiser and trying desperately to put herself back together again.

All the nightmares we hear about how dysfunctional Hollywood is, how it gobbles up those ill-prepared for the glamor, the glitz and the lack of privacy is all here in Grace’s story. Prepare to be angry, to not understand, to see the light and to root for a young woman in search of her true self, and the truth of what was done to her by the very people who should have been her advocates, all for the sake of money, ego and the failure to see a young girl’s vulnerability, or failure to care, as long as she toes the line.

Dark, edgy and often difficult to read, this tale has no sugar coating, but it is a powerful tale of abuse and the fragility of youth, as well as the strength of one woman bent on exposing the monsters I the shadows while learning to respect herself.

I received a complimentary ARC edition from Berkley! This is my honest and voluntary review.

A dark examination on trauma. Growing up in the spotlight, Grace Turner was in the peak of her success as an actress. Abruptly, she decides to disappear into exile to Anaheim. Presently returning back to Los Angeles, she is forced to face her dark past when she is offered to present a lifetime achievement award to film director Able York whom controlled and manipulated her for the eight years working under him.

A character study that alternates between Grace's past and present. This is a portrait about a child artist's experience in the entertainment industry. Ella Berman pierce observation on power-dynamic relationships, our sense of identity and the aftermath of trauma was powerfully on-point. What makes this book shine was the fact that the author avoided writing in the current time of the #MeToo movement. There is a long history on powerful men and their abuse of power long before the #MeToo movement and that's what made this book more intriguing. With strong character development and superb writing evoked the gut-wrenching and fragility that brilliantly portrayed Grace Turner so authentically real. This was an uncomfortable and heartbreaking read. Ella Berman's spectacular research is evidenced through her writing. The intricate details on Grace's psychological and the coping mechanism after a trauma felt very accurate. High praise for Ella Berman on writing this extraordinary novel.

Thank you to Net Galley and Berkley Publishing Group in providing this amazing ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Such a great read, I read it in one sitting!It was raw and addictive, I loved the writing and I find the story poignant!Grace's story broke my heart, I felt sorry for her!It deals with tough stuff and it's realistic and wild!

It was fast paced and Grace's journey was emotional!I loved Grace and Esme’s relationship through the book.Grace and Dylan’s relatinship also was interesting, they have some great moments!

If you are looking for something different than your usual reads you should definitely check this one!

I liked this! I read it a few weeks ago and to be honest have been putting off talking about it because I don’t have a physical galley and my digital galley didn’t have a cover, and I was feeling lazy about figuring this out. But here it is, my little collage.

Grace Turner is a blockbuster Hollywood actress holed up in her parents’ uninspiring Anaheim home. One year ago, she left behind her glamorous LA life to bury herself in her childhood bed in an attempt to shake off and forget the trauma and abuse that broke her—and that no one, save for her abuser, the famous director who catapulted her into stardom, knows about. But her neglectful parents want her out, convinced she’s a bad influence on her younger sister, so she returns to LA, where the past, and everything she’s endured, comes barreling straight at her.

This was a quick read, and for the most part well-paced, the secrets of what happened to Grace unfurling naturally. The author does a good job of showing how everyone in Grace’s life, especially the people who love her, allowed her to experience the abuse, turning a blind eye and refusing to ask questions when it’s clear Grace wants to talk about it. My main quibbles are with the end: it’s a bit sudden, while I’d like to have seen the fallout of Grace’s actions. It’s also more forgiving to Grace than I think she deserves—she makes a very, very bad decision that the book doesn’t really grapple with.

Still, this was compelling and impossible to put down, and I have a feeling it’ll be popular when it releases August 4. It also makes me want to read more novels about Hollywood!

Very interesting look into the power some hold over every aspect of persons life. The story of Grace's fall from her lofty perch in Hollywood appears from the outside to be her own fault or decision. But much like every name in the MeToo or similar movements, The Comeback serves as a great reminder that the reluctant voices championing for justice are often looking for personal healing above all else, including vengeance. In The Comback, who is to say a plan can't be worked out to have both.

Another ho-hum book I received from Netgalley. This is why publishers should stop spending so much time and money on white authors.

I could appreciate what this book was trying to do, but it failed because it was so boring. Grace Turner is an actress who is trying to get her life together after the whirlwind of fame and fortune she experiences as a teen, mostly because of her work with a famous director named Able. This is the entire premise of the novel, and it's exactly as uninteresting as it sounds. Grace drifts around various houses in the Los Angeles area, where a rotating group of people inexplicably put up with her moroseness. From scenes told in flashback we come to understand her complicated friendship with Able, and it's a perfectly valid excuse for her behavior, but I never once felt sorry for her. I couldn't help but be very aware that Grace had everything a lot of women don't have. A lot of money for instance. Beauty for instance. Lots of working women have to deal with what she dealt with and don't get the luxury of falling apart. I might have felt differently if I felt more emotion from this book, but everything that happened to Grace was just words on a page. What she went through was simply told as part of a narrative, so unlike books like My Dark Vanessa, I didn't get to feel the slow burn of her trauma. I just knew she was having trouble because. . . she was clearly. . . having trouble. I knew Able was controlling because she kept saying, "He was controlling." I had to take her friendship with Emilia at face value because Grace seemed to decide that they were friends.

The author's note says she was working on this book before sexual abuse in Hollywood was reported by writers like Megan Twohey, Jodi Kantor, and Ronan Farrow, and it's possible that she would have written a more urgent narrative had she started the book after all that. This book doesn't go deep enough into the insidiousness of an industry that commodifies women and controls them by threatening their virtue and sanity.

How, how, how can a book be so compelling and disquieting at the same time?! If you only read one other book this year You. Must, Read. This, One! Initially I was so frustrated as we meet Grace, her sister Esme, and their parents when a 23-year-old Grace leaves Anaheim to return to Venice after a year spent at home. Berman manages to take the "functional" out of dysfunctional as the family members all hurt each other and "walk on eggshells" before talking about anything of importance. Bouncing between past and present, we see Grace as a frightened 15-year-old who gets the opportunity to star in a movie and is taken under Able's wing as he's the all-powerful director. She moves away from her family and revels in the stardom but of course is not used to living without her parents' guidance. At some point when she feels broken, she tries to tell Esme (who has been suspended from school) that she understands "all about the power imbalance that exists every time you meet someone who's seen you at your most vulnerable, whether or not it was your choice in the first place." The writing is crisp, concise, and chilling as we watch a broken Grace try to come to terms with what her life has become. It is only later that we see her as a "lioness gathering myself up and protecting myself against the predators trying to ruin me." If any novel could show us the heart of the MeToo Movement, it is this gem! Please, please read this book! (Out on August 3rd)

I received a digital advance copy of The Comeback by Ella Berman from the publisher (Penguin Random House). The Comeback is scheduled for release August 8, 2020.

The Comeback is the story of Grace Turner (really Grace Hyde), a Hollywood star who disappeared from the public eye a year ago, just as she was nominated for a Golden Globe. We join her in her parents house in Anaheim, where she has retreated to heal wounds that aren’t clear to us, or the public, at the start of the story. What we (and the public) know are that Grace was a child star who grew into an adult mess and then imploded. Now Grace has been pushed out of her parent’s house and back to L.A. where she struggles to piece herself back together while working through demons, memories, messy family dramas, and the ever present paparazzi.

Grace is a well-written unreliable narrator. There is a lot she doesn’t share with the reader, largely because she is actively blocking out certain memories (drugs and alcohol have hidden others). The larger cause of her unreliability is her very skewed perspective of both herself and the world around her. With Grace, we learn the cause of this unreliability and begin to get a more accurate view of Grace’s story as the novel progresses. We learn why she is so very broken, forcing us to root for her even when she is making questionable choices.

While the novel takes place largely in L.A., the city itself was rarely part of the story. Instead, the industry of Hollywood takes on the role of setting. Given Grace’s history of being discovered as a young teen, moved with her family from England, and then assigned a herd of adults to manage her every move, this makes sense and works well. Grace is far less in tune with her physical environment and how the world works than she is with the people to contact to adjust the environment to suit her needs. There is a lot of commentary regarding the industry throughout the novel, sometimes directly from Grace, but often from us as the reader seeing what the industry does to Grace.

The Comeback felt very real, as we followed Grace through the mess of recovering from from childhood stardom and into the larger mess of dealing with life as an adult. It’s hard to say this was an enjoyable read, as it was full of a lot of the nastier side of life, but I was pulled into and through the story as I wished for Grace to get herself together.

I was looking forward to reading this book because of all the hype it’s received, it was very dark and not my usual choice for summer which tend to be lighter reads, it was an interesting glimpse behind the scenes of Hollywood life for a child actress and her family.

Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The sadly all-too-common story of a powerful man who takes advantage of a girl he's supposed to be helping, told skillfully by Berman. Not always an enjoyable read, with not very likeable characters, but memorable and thought-provoking. Everyone here had the opportunity to make different choices, to choose empathy over self-absorption, to choose kindness over ambition, and what would it have meant for the story (and for the world) if more people did so...

A former child actress must comes to terms with what happened to her in the past in order to have a future. Grace has spent the last year out of the spotlight at her parents' house, doing nothing. She left her husband and her career as an actress behind, as well as years of drug use. Rocketed to fame at age 15 by a charming director, Grace soon learned the dark side of her director Abel's personality as she is abused by him. Unable to cope, she turned to drugs in order to survive. Sober now, when she hears Abel is going to be receiving an award at show, she decides now is the time to finally confront him for what he did to her, as well as reconnect with her younger sister as well as her ex husband.

A look into the damage of abuse, as well as overcoming it, this is a book that definitely mirrors the #MeToo movement and all that goes into men with power and those around who cover for them.

Grace Turner disappears from Los Angeles and her acting career. Now, back to her surname of Hyde, Grace has been living with her parents (in Anaheim) for a year.

This has been a big change from London from when Grace was first chosen for a screen test at the age of 13, Now, Grace's life as a child actress for 8 years is behind her. After rising tensions with her parents for the past year, Grace leaves without a word as to her plans.

Since Grace's director/controller (Able Yorke) is being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in LA, will Grace return to LA? Go back to London? Or will she spiral down to the point she was at when she left LA behind?

A very well written story of a yo9ng woman who missed out on her teen years and has no direction...

A GOOD READ!

Many Thanks to Berkley Publishing / Penguin Random House and NetGalley for a very good read!

Being a young actress in Hollywood means accepting to be the prey of a successful director. This is what happens to Grace Turner who is molested and controlled by her Able, her mentor for eight years until she can not take it anymore. Broken physically and mentally it will take her time to get the strength to make her comeback which she will do with great courage and dignity. This story resonates unfortunately with the situation many young actors find themselves in. They often do not dare talk about their humiliation and abuse because no one will believe them and no one actually cares. They pay a hefty price for a glimpse of fame. This is why this book is well put and gripping. Grace Turner does get her revenge which is wonderful to watch but she is forever scarred by her Hollywood years which is a sad reality.