Wow. After being enthralled with “My Husband” I didn’t know if anything could top it. I was pleasantly surprised. The level of detail and careful consideration was everywhere in this book. It feels like a modern depiction of classic writing, seamlessly intertwining modern literary, musical, and cinematic references with word choices and writing style you would find in a classic novel. I truly felt as though I was in the mind of the main character, I felt connected and close to her while I was reading. At the same time though, it made me question not only her but also myself and my understanding of who she was. This has been my top read of the year so far and it honestly just leaves me anxiously waiting Ventura’s next release. This book goes by so fast yet leaves a lingering of deeper thought, self reflection and curiosity.

Gorgeous cover! Ever since I fread MY HUSBAND by Ventura I was hoping for another novel but her and this was much different but very good - thank you for the advance reading. I didn't like the main character but found her story intriguing - overall a satisfying read. Maybe more wordy than hoped but well done.

Thanks for the ARC to review! I've been so excited to read this one.

In general, I think the comps are off. I would compare this more to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, not Daisy Jones and the Six. While both explore fame, this is more in line with the introspective look back in Evelyn Hugo and slower paced than Daisy Jones. I really enjoyed the book toward the end, but found it very slow in the beginning.

Review will go up on my instagram account @stressiereads, as well as Goodreads this week. Thank you again!

What would you do to achieve your wildest dreams?
For Cléo, she will stop at nothing to become a famous singer, and anyone or anything in her way is getting bulldozed.

I love Maud Ventura's writing. The stories are always so detailed and intricate and I can always get into the head of the character (quite alarming with this one!). I get to the end and feel pleased with it, but then the EPILOGUE HAPPENS and I second guess everything I read?!

I give Make Me Famous 4 stars for a fantastic story and wonderful writing. All the secondary characters were relevant and had great development. I only took a star off because the book was a bit longer than I felt it could've been, and Cléo was truly insufferable (which was the point, but still).

Make Me Famous tackles morality in the depths of the spotlight and what it means to be motivated by self-image alone.

When a world really does revolve around you, can you make a misstep without your whole world crumbling? Or must you deny deny deny and play the role of the likable person you have never been and will never be?

Cleo is spelled U N LI K A B L E. Making this book an extremely gripping tale of mind games and manipulation. Manifesting the worst sides of devotion and determination. Passion becomes poison. Lies become life.

Highly recommend for those who enjoy character studies. This one will not let you down.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing an eARC of Make Me Famous in exchange for my honest opinions.

Maud’s mind is such a glorious place to visit. I loved My Husband and although seemingly quite different, I did love Make Me Famous as well. Cleo was insufferable from the very first page (which I love). We follow her on her quest to find fame and onward. I have always said it takes a certain kind of mental illness to desire to be in the spotlight and this was the perfect manifestation of those thoughts. I loved the tiny tidbits we got into her relationship with her parents. Very fitting.
The ending??? I have so many questions but in the same breath I adored it.

i loved Ventura’s first book, so I was disappointed that this one didn’t resonate with me as much. the story felt repetitive, and the main character’s personality made it difficult to stay engaged. since I’m not particularly drawn to celebrity culture or the pursuit of fame, the themes didn’t fully hold my attention. that said, Ventura’s writing remains intense and immersive, just like in her debut, and she continues to depict obsession with remarkable precision, the subject matter just wasn’t as compelling for me this time.

Now having devoured her sophomore translated novel with the same vigor in which I consumed her English debut, I can say with full confidence that nobody can write a compulsively driven main character like Maud Ventura. This time, we are laser focused on Cléo who is determined to reach stardom in the music world, come Hell or high water. The daughter of French academics, Cléo is incredibly intelligent and uses the same razor-sharp focus to reach the highest of marks in school, but this is just what she does while she passes the time, waiting for the right moment to reveal her secret: her sultry voice and need for fame. At 23, Cléo reaches overnight success, now it’s just a matter of maintaining it.

Through Cléo we watch with rapt attention the unveiling of a “monstrous” female celebrity behind closed doors. She has always been, at her core, easy to dislike, calculating, selfish, and judgmental, but that isn’t the persona she wears for her fans — the people who have the power to make or break her. In the public eye, Cléo is grateful, aloof, and engaging, begging the question: what are celebrities really like underneath the mask they wear?

This novel is one part sociological experience and two parts the fly on the wall, taking it all in. While an obvious departure from the manic housewife featured in My Husband, there is still that signature intensity I’ve come to expect and admire from Ventura’s work. The thoughtful, subtle twists are always a delight, too.

You’ll have to put up with a fair amount of not-so-riveting detail about what’s required for a pop singer to make her way to the top in Maud Ventura’s “Make Me Famous” – it is a novel about ascension to stardom, after all – but if you hang in there you'll be rewarded with a couple – yes, a couple – of very much riveting climaxes, even if I found the second one somewhat unconvincing.
It finds the protagonist, one Cleo Louvent, on an island that’s been promoted to her as a respite or escape from the frenetic pace of her celebrity life, free of all the usual distractions, which would make for a welcome break for the rest of us, but not, I felt, for someone so driven as she has been presented – indeed, I found it implausible that she would consider a getaway of any sort.
More in keeping with how she is presented, I felt, is the other climax, which has to do with her relationship with her latest assistant, Linda, whom she treats abysmally, though it’s far from the only instance of her bad behavior which she dispenses democratically to anyone and everyone. But unquestionably it’s Linda who bears the brunt of Cleo’s nastiness, to where her lover calls her a tyrant and I wanted to take a poke at her. Particularly egregious, for instance, is when Cleo tells her to kneel before her and apologize and kiss her feet and realizes she has wet herself.
It’s to author Ventura’s credit, though, that through all this, she’s able to make Cleo not a complete monster, but to some extent simply someone who’s driven to fame at whatever cost and one who, with her obvious intelligence and talent, has a low tolerance for anyone not similarly endowed. Still, she’s hardly someone to be admired in a novel which, in the vein of the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” (which is in fact cited in the novel), is an engrossing consideration of the corrosive effects of unbridled ambition.

“Fame isn’t a victory, it’s a vengeance.”

This book had so many elements that keep me interested and immersed. POV is from a woman that is very vain and self focused stopping at seemingly nothing to become famous. Ventura does such an incredible job of laying out the inner landscape of a woman who has numbed herself to reality and sees the world revolving around herself. The reader gets to go along for the ride of this unreliable narrator and see how her perception of life and herself colors the way she interprets the world. This is my second read from this author, and she manages to give these books a thriller type of suspenseful feel to them which I very much enjoyed. Looking forward to her next book!

I wouldn't say it was fun reading about a sociopath, but it was never boring. The ending seemed abrupt, even though it was telegraphed throughout the book. All the little hints and teases about The Bad Thing That Happened, and then suddenly it happened pretty much when the book was almost over. Stuffed into the last ten minutes of a two hour movie, basically. A lot of the book seemed written on a speed-run (this happened, then this happened, which led to this, and now it's been three months) but it felt built into the main character's mindscape.

Wow….this scratched an ITCH!!!! If you like weird, self absorbed female characters who are unreliable narrators and say the most out pocket shit….you’ll Love this. Think the vapid nature of Perfume and Pain by Anna Dorn, the blasé feeling of Eve Babitz, and the attitude of Magnolia Parks. Our main protagonist is deeply unlikable and because of that…I loved her????? This writing was quick and witty and so good. 5 stars EASILY 💋💋💋

Also: Maud Ventura!!!!!! HELLO??? What was that ending!!!

I love books that are set in Hollywood, specifically the music business. The main character, Cleo, is a piece of work, and I mean that in the best and worst of ways. In a moment of self reflection when she's on vacation, on a super exclusive island in the middle of nowhere, we get her narration of he rise to fame and fortune as she's completely isolated and alone. We get the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Cleo doesn't play fair and she has no moral compass, which makes her an infuriating but easy to root for character. The pacing kept me hooked, and the writing was precise and clean. I enjoyed this book and look forward to more from Maud Ventura.

I really enjoy Maud Venturas writing style and literary voice! When I first encountered My Husband- I read it in about one sitting because of the pace of the story and I feel similarly to make me famous. A definite page turner! I also hate to admit I do judge books by their covers and in a world where every book cover looks the same- I LOVE Venturas. I want posters of them all!

At age four, Cléo Louvent tells her father that she wants to be as famous as Céline Dion. The only child of Franco-American academics, she is determined to become a celebrated pop singer against all odds. Despite her father’s warning to be careful of what she wishes for, Cléo ruthlessly climbs the ladder to musical success. As the novel opens, she is 32 and a global superstar. (Think Taylor Swift.) Cléo is also exhausted from fighting to stay on “top of the pyramid,” and is taking her first real vacation (costing her a half-million dollars) alone on a remote South Pacific island away from prying eyes, cell phones, the paparazzi, and her team’s incessant requests. In her solitude, she reflects on the journey that brought her here. French author Ventura’s first novel, My Husband, depicts a wife’s unhealthy obsession with her spouse. Her second portrays the making of a fame monster. The narcissistic and sociopathic Cléo is an awful person, an unreliable narrator extraordinaire, but she is also fascinating and darkly funny in her observations of celebrity culture. (“You have to reach a certain level of fame before you are allowed to be rude.”) Her eventual comeuppance is chilling but oh-so-satisfying. An intense and compelling psychological study on the costs of fame and ambition.

What an ending! I loved My Husband but I think I love this book even more. Maud has a way of making her characters so incredibly unlikable but you’re still siding with them at the end. I really enjoyed her showing Cleo getting everything she wants but the dirty underbelly of fame and how you no longer belong to yourself. This was gripping from beginning to end and I can’t wait to read more from her in the future

This is an incredible book - delicious, fun, and twisty. It is tantalizing to be inside the mind of the main character - Cleo. I have enjoyed reading about unwell women and this is one of them.

I'm so glad Maud has written another novel. I enjoy her writing style. Make Me Famous features glamourous settings and a character study of a very interesting female main character. I was lost in the pages in a good way. Meaning, I couldn't put the book down. The story is insightful, and it was like taking space in the character's head. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

First of all, I love this cover and hope that Maud's team keeps them coming. After being delighted by "My Husband" I was excited to see what unhinged female Maud tackled next and I was so excited to see it would be a famous singer. Cleo was such an infuriating interesting character and full of absolute shit (complementary). I did lose interest about half way through and it felt like more work than I wanted to spend on the story.

Cleo has wanted fame for a long time. Now that she has it, she can’t stop striving and scheming if she wants to stop on people’s minds. All that fame chasing leaves her a bit exhausted so Cleo books a three-week holiday to a remote island so she can recharge in peace and compose a new album. As Cleo recuperates, she reflect on her success.

It was entertaining (and a little frightening!) to follow Cleo’s inner monologue and reminiscences. The conclusion was a surprise and I loved it!

Thank you to HarperVia and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.