Tough slog. Didn’t work for me. Writing felt like AI or at times kind of just random words. Very odd.

The marketing of this book is that is a roman clef written by a current Hollywood star about his wild ascent to fame. I am not really buying that, but as a book this is a fun B- Brett Easton Ellis, focusing on the individual beats of debauched sex and drugs. You don’t really see these kind of 80s Vintage Contemporary books anymore, and while this doesn’r reach the heights of Ellis or Jay McInerny, I appreciated the effort.

I am really at a loss for how to describe this book, and maybe that is the point. I could not finish it, but if you are in the market for a "Wait, what is going on? This was purposely written and approved to be a published book? Huh?" experience - a car crash you can't help but watch - this probably will be up your alley. I'm going to assume, based on what research I could find, this is a sort of social experiment. And if so, interesting overall intentions. Just not my cup of tea. My initial reaction is to go with one star, but I will give two if the above is true.

Thank you, Netgalley and Scribe Media, for the Advanced Reading Copy. All opinions are my own.

This book did draw me in initially but I felt underwhelmed by it and felt forced to keep reading it. I loved the concept but it didn't hit the mark for me.

I'm hoping the whole point of this book is summed up with its April Fools Day publication date. Otherwise, I don't think I appreciated it enough.

A book clearly written by an ego-maniac. It's a crude and poorly written book, who prides themselves on having changed all identifying details about their life. In reality, the changing of the facts renders the book a work of fiction, as this biographical piece more closely resembles a fever dream than a recount of this man's earlier years.
The author is wildly inappropriate, and it doesn't drive the plot forward, and it certainly doesn't help us like the protagonist.

I, like others it seems, fell prey to the irresistible marketing campaign for this book - but I DNF'd pretty early on. Whether a real celeb or a marketing ploy, the writing felt disjointed and I just didn't enjoy the overall voice/tone.

The premise of this was just too intriguing to not give it a shot. The marketing campaign has been so absolutely brilliant, who wouldn’t want to read this and try to figure out who our A-list celebrity is? Unfortunately, it fell short and I had could not make it through.

Our author is absolutely despicable. It only takes a few pages to witness his deplorability, crassness, and pretentious behavior. There are so many slurs and offensive language that I honestly cannot believe anyone would be willing to publish this in 2025. Not only that, it isn’t written well at all. There is a lot of talk of about the author’s undergraduate novel, and this is exactly what it reads like…except I think most undergrads could actually do better.

I have a few theories on who wrote this. And if any of them are accurate, then his agent “Harrison” was right to be concerned - it will absolutely destroy him and his career. And if this all just turns out to be satire and some kind of sweeping allegory about Hollywood and celebrity culture? Well, I don’t think it achieved the intended outcome it was looking for.

this was just.... not fun to read. in most books, i would look for and be able to state a redeeming element. the prose? the characters? the concept? the plot? maybe the concept, which isn't an awful idea. but it throws together styles to create a jumble that never really feels clear. the writing is filled with homophobia, misogyny, and racism for "shock value", which feels more dull, uninspired, and insulting than it ever does shocking. the characters never feel real, instead feeling like if you stuck a few hundred characters of a certain trope into an ai and asked it to churn out a new one. missed the mark entirely. if there was editing, cleaning, and some updates to the chars, it would maybe work, but for now... 1 star.
book received as an ARC.

The concept sounded too intriguing to pass up, but once I started I was left feeling confused and uninterested. The writing style was a little too hard for me to follow - but I'm sure others will enjoy it!

This book drove me crazy. I thought it was an interesting concept for a book and was excited to grab a copy; however, when I opened it, I found the story hard to follow. While it may be a stylist choice, I couldn’t find myself drawn into the story and struggled to follow the plot. While you do t have to like a character to like the book, I found The Author reprehensible and annoying which put me off the story as well.

The kindest thing I can say is that this reads like a freshman comp project by an edgelord.

The end acknowledges that The Author is trying to ape practiced writers without fully understanding why they wrote as they did. This is a fantastic exercise for a newbie writer, but it should never be mistaken for a final draft and definitely not a full book.

The Author should have met (and generously paid) The Editor to pare this down. Slice out the "I'm dangerous because I use slurs" nonsense and most of the "If I steal from a real writer, that makes me an author" pap, and there is a story here worth exploring. You could even make it nonlinear, if that makes you happy. An actual writer doesn't need to be homophobic and sexist to shock the reader. It's the height of immaturity (and utterly condescending) that The Author thought otherwise. Likewise, listening to other people's drug experiences has all the weight and interest of a dream, and we do not want to read pages of it at a time. No one cares how many uppers you take. That's not street cred. All "exciting" philosophy in this comes off as a Gen-Z with Boomer energy shaking their fist at those damned kids.

Honestly, it lost a star because you can see the tatters of the book it could have been.

Let there be no threatened second book.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced Readers Copy of this book it is appreciated.

I DNF’d this book at 20% for me the premise was so intriguing and trying to work out if this story was real or fake but to be honest the story telling of the book is so pretentious it’s annoying to the point of being unreadable.

To be honest it feels like a premise was given to Ai to write something they thought was good and it hasn’t worked out. It’s a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll which I do not care to know and let’s not mention it’s 2025 and we are still using misogynistic homophobic language- I’m out.

I am perplexed on this book and what it is trying to be.

The characters are there, they fluctuate between just being on paper or deeply unlikeable.. Most feel like they are trying to hit all stereotypes for whatever their job title is supposed to be. Some of the studio folks read like what you would expect studio folks to read if you put their personalities through google translates one to many times and then stuck it through an AI generated. They are all just stereotypes and its so frustrating to read. The main character, the author, feels so forced its like they are not even a real person. Their initial plane trip feels like its full on tell don't show and it doesn't get any better than this.

The writing is just all over the place. Some of the writing is actually not bad and other chapters are so off the wall over the top its impossible to read. It creates for a disjointed reading experience almost like it was trying to be written by both the author and the shadow author but it doesn't ever flow properly. A good dual author book should seamlessly blend the two voices together and this one fails at that. This is the type of story telling that works in a visual format but fails in a written one.

Honestly, I found the concept of this book and associated YouTube channel to be interesting yet outside of the concept it doesn't really go anywhere. I don't know if its supposed to be a satirical take on the concept of viral marketing or its a tightly manufactured attempt at viral marketing but both fall incredibly flat. Which is a shame because if this wasn't trying so hard to be something its not it could have been fun.

I really liked the idea/concept of this book, but unfortunately nothing about it worked for me. The writing style came across very over the top and pompous. I'm also still not sure if this is a real celebrity story or just all fictional from the author. I feel like they were trying to give duex moi but it didn't really work?

Real life events or total fiction? The world may never know.

An anonymous A- List celebrity writes a tell all memoir about his life before becoming a household name. At least, that is the idea, but the content of the memoir is so polarizing and explosive that nobody wants to touch it. Desperate to have his story told, he engages the help of an entrepreneur to release his brainchild out into the world and even he is dragged, threatened and bullied in an attempt to keep this book from seeing the light of day. The story of the actor known only as “The Author” chronicles the first year of his life in Hollywood as he struggles to find his way in a land of excess, drugs and wild parties. From the opening chapter, I knew this was going to be a wild ride. Starting out as an assistant to a talent agency he puts everything on the line, moving from New York to LA on a wing and a prayer and a massive lie to break into the business. But acting was only to be a means to an end as his ultimate goal is to become the next great novelist. Sound convoluted? It is.

I was turned on to The Author by the massively viral prerelease media blitz. The premise was completely new and immediately attention grabbing and I’ll even admit that I binge watched all available episodes of “The Author Show” in a single weekend. The show not only set the framework of this book but also tells a bit of the backstory of the mastermind behind this entire project, entrepreneur Daniel Thomas Hind. Naturally, with all the lore surrounding this mysterious and self-proclaimed forbidden memoir I was eager to get my hands on a copy. For me, the marketing strategy worked. I was hooked and ready to read.

Overall, the narrative is very disjointed, but still in a way coherent. There was a definite beginning and an end, but the situations and events in the chapters in between were unordered and rambling and while that may put many off, I chalked it up to what must have been the author’s drug-addled state of mind while many of the situations played out. With each chapter exploring another point in the history of The Author - anything from escapades as a youth to his drug induced days trying to make it big in Hollywood - the author does a great job of taking the reader into each scenario (memory) and immersing them to the point that when the narrator comes back into the present time it can be a bit jarring and disorienting. I feel this was probably done by design.

If you are not familiar with The Author Show or any of the other ads and hype preceding this book, basically providing the backbone or backstory of the overall narrative, this book will come off as extremely nonsensical, possibly pretentious, and hard to read. Truly after reading it myself I can say that this is a polarizing title and one that readers will either really like or vehemently hate. I really do not see an in between or a happy medium where the book is “just ok”. In the recent climate of knee jerk reactions to a theme, word, or idea in that respect this book will also offend those who have their feathers easily ruffled. Taking all of that into consideration, I find myself in the ‘really like’ category as I tend to gravitate more toward edgy and controversial content.

This book isn’t all just ramblings, however, there is also a human element if you take the time to look for it. In his quest to become famous and to ultimately write the next Great American Novel, the author makes several references to other legendary authors before him (this was also a huge theme in the Author Show). The way he goes about achieving this goal is where the humor lies. Throughout the 300+ pages of this book there are funny parts, as well as sad and serious parts. There is a lost love aspect with several mentions a person only as “you who I will not name”, which I feel is probably him pining for his girlfriend he left behind to come to LA. The recurring snake references peppered throughout also appears to be a metaphor for himself as he is searching for his place but destroying himself at the same time. Will he achieve his fame before he self-destructs is the big question.

After reading this title, I still have no idea if this “Author” is someone famous or just a product of the real author’s imagination. At this point, if the stories in this memoir are real I would rather not know who it is lest it shatter what could be a pristine image or serve to confirm all suspicions.

Thanks to MetaLit, Scribe Media and Netgalley for an ARC copy of this title. The reviews and opinions above were voluntarily provided. All opinions are my own. The Author is scheduled for an April 1, 2025 release

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribe Media for the advanced reader copy.

The premise of THE AUTHOR felt unique and fresh, in the satirical coverage of pop culture and obsession with celebrity. The opening "letter from the agent" was a great start to the book--the POV and writing style keeps the reader just enough off-kilter to never really settle into whether this is a "real" book or not. But once the author actually starts the book, the story is too full of itself and pretentious to keep reading. An interesting idea that doesn't execute well.

Fun concept. I was charmed by the initial marketing strategy of this novel as well. However, The Author lacks substance and a unique point of view. As someone who enjoys satire on popular culture, I found this novel to be too gimmicky and pretentious..

This is a fun concept, and it's clear that the author (or should I say "The Author"?) had a lot of fun writing it. I'm happy for him!

Ultimately, though, "The Author" makes regular reference to the writer's undergraduate novel, and frankly, that's how this reads. This felt like a personal writing exercise more than a book written for public consumption. It's unapologetic about not being written for everyone, but without significant developmental editing work, it ends up feeling as if it's written for no one but the author himself. While it's billed as "pretentious," "lowbrow," "absurdist," and "deplorable"—and it certainly hits the mark on all of those things, which, to be clear, is a good thing in this case—it intermixes styles without logic or art, giving the impression of a jumble of drafts bundled together. While I think this was meant to evoke the rush and confusion of the partying lifestyle, instead, as the reader, I felt more like I was being dragged along with a horrible hangover.

While it feels like this book is coming about 10 years after its genre's heyday, I do think it had the potential to appeal to folks who like books in this space. Unfortunately, it needs a <i>lot</i> of work first.

((We all knew there would be content warnings for this book. But on top of, well, every content warning you'd expect to see in a 2025 fratire novel (and that, folks, is all I'm going to say about my guess re: who wrote this, but I have a pretty strong suspicion—and if it's him, let me just say that he's much better with a professional editor), <b>content warning for</b> <spoiler>on-page pet murder.</spoiler>))

Sadly, I could not get into this book. I read the first chapter and most of the second before I called it. Perhaps I couldn’t connect with the character/author because of such extreme lifestyle differences. While I was reading totally sober, the book is written in a way that made me feel like I was super high as I was reading. Maybe that was the point; if so, kudos.