Public Relations

                                        

Public Relations by Katie Heaney and Arianna Rebolini tells the story of  Rose Reed, an up and coming publicist at the fast paced fictional PR firm of Weaver-Girard. Desperate to impress her hard-to-read boss Joanna, Rose is an anxiety riddled mess who happens to be a bit of a genius when it comes to music PR. She gets the chance to sit in on a meeting with Archie Fox, an obvious Harry Styles stand-in, who is in serious need of a career boost and manages to impress him with her idea - a staged romance between Archie and too-cool-for-life new artist Raya. As time goes on though, Rose starts to feel like maybe a real romance is in order with her as the leading lady..

Public Relations is one of those books that needs to be a movie. It's a fast-paced, ridiculously over the top, full of cliches, romantic comedy that somehow just works. There are parts that I hated (for the love of god, don't base your hero on such an easily identifiable real-life guy!!!) but mostly I loved it.

I did have a few issues (of course). I would have been so much more impressed if Rose's issues had been dealt with more. Why is she so anxious? Why does she have so little self-confidence when she's clearly very gifted at what she does? As is too common in these sorts of books (spoiler alert!) the focus is mainly on the heroine getting her man by the end and less on the heroine becoming a complete, healthy, independent, successful human being. This book, like so many others out there, sends that tired old message that says you can't be complete unless you've landed yourself a man.

Also: Harry Styles? Really? The obviousness of the real-life counterpart took me out of the story a lot. A lot a lot. That aspect of the book made it less like a "real" novel and more like fanfic. And don't get me wrong - I like fanfic. Well-written fanfic has its place. Just not in a book you pay money for. At times I felt like I was intruding on the authors' private fantasies and it felt kind of squicky.

The writing is strong enough to overcome the books flaws in the end and I highly recommend this one. And I seriously do hope it gets picked up and becomes a movie. It would be an excellent addition to the genre of rom-coms that everyone loves to bitch about but also secretly watches every time they're on tv (I'm looking at you 27 Dresses).