Fame Adjacent is, for the most part, a good book, but not a very good romance. This story addresses the addictive nature of the internet and the toxic effects of fame through the narration of Holly Danner, who finds love on a road trip with Thom, a fellow internet addict. The story is more rom-com than romance novel, but even by the standards of rom-com the romance part of the book is pretty weak.

Back in the 1990s, Holly was part of a TV show about a group of orphans who live in the San Diego Zoo and are forming a band. It’s very Mouseketeer-ish. Of the six kids in the show, five found future fame. Holly dropped out of college to help her sister recover from psychosis and stayed to co-raise her niece. By the time her niece is ten, Holly’s sister wants to move on, Holly’s friends are all famous and out of touch with Holly, and Holly has no steady job, no friends, no fame, and nothing to do but hang out online obsessively researching and writing about the show and her co-stars. She is a freelance writer but instead of working she posts on reddit and feels sorry for herself.

The story opens with Holly at an experimental Internet rehab facility. Other than her devotion to her niece, Holly is self-centered. She is frequently and unrepentantly dishonest and manipulative. She was the class clown on her TV show as a child, and she’s the class clown in rehab, where she manages to avoid any real growth or introspection.

When Holly finds out that all the cast of her show has been invited to a reunion except for her, she manipulates Thom, the one friend she’s made in rehab, into giving her a ride to the reunion so that she can crash it. They bond during the road trip and Holly develops new insights into the lives of her friends and the effects that a life in the limelight has had on their own mental health.

So, there are things about this book that I liked very much. I found Holly to be an “unlikeable” heroine in a realistic way, and I found her to be an interesting character with a believable character arc. The story was compelling and I wanted to know what would happen next. The book was often very funny. There was real emotion and heartbreak, not only in Holly’s life, which we learn about as the story unfolds, but also in Thom’s life and the lives of Holly’s co-stars. The digs at the 1990’s kids’ TV shows and Hollywood culture are spot-on and both funny and sad in the very best parodic fashion.

I need to warn readers that Thom’s son, who is staying with grandparents while Thom is rehabbing and roadtripping, has behavioral issues that suggest that he may be neurodivergent. While the son is depicted as an intelligent and endearing child, the story also addresses Thom’s struggles in raising him as a single parent. I considered this part of the story to be ableist because Thom’s son’s issues are portrayed entirely negatively. I think it’s absolutely valid to talk about why Thom might struggle as a single parent and as the parent of a child with special needs. However, I don’t think it’s valid for the book to suggest that no improvement in Thom’s quality of life or his son’s quality of life is possible. There’s no indication that any change will or might occur. Why is there no diagnosis? Why is this child not getting any services? Why isn’t Thom getting any support or even checking out a library book or two on the subject? These important questions are not answered.

Another problematic part of the story is that early in the book Holly attempts to persuade Thom to have sex with her and pushes him (physically and verbally) despite his frequent refusals. Eventually Holly backs off, but she never apologizes for having tried to coerce Thom into having clearly unwanted sex. The lack of consequences for this behavior bothered me all the way through the book. Thom is clearly uncomfortable and says “no” more than once, and Holly is unrepentant in the moment and afterwards.

As is common in romantic comedy novels, the focus is much more on Holly than it is on Thom, and I did not feel that their relationship was fully developed. However, the book leaves us on a Happy For Now, which is more plausible than a Happy For Ever, with:

I’ve pointed out some major problems with this book, but I did like the way the book addresses fame from both Holly’s viewpoint as the “un-famous” one, and from the viewpoints of her co-stars who stayed famous in their teens and twenties. The storyline involving Holly, her niece, and her sister is painful and sad and has no bad guys, and the resolution hints at healing within the family. The satire is clever and sharp without being mean. As a romance or a romantic comedy, I’m not entirely sold on this book, but as a story about the toxic effects of fame when given and then taken away, the book is solid and entertaining. Unfortunately, it made missteps with regard to ableism and sexual assault that were never adequately addressed.