Book Review

Off Script by Ashley Marie

Off Script is a Hollywood enemies-to-lovers romance, where the heroine has good reason to hate the dude she’s fake dating. She forgave him, but I couldn’t.

Jada is an actress who’s been struggling to land another role since getting kicked off a tv show for a love triangle with a co-star. Her luck changes when she’s cast as the sidekick friend in a time travel romance. The only problem? Her character’s BFF is played by Angela, a diva on a rampage since her co-star dumped her.

That co-star, Tristan, is a very pretty boy, with a reputation for cycling through women. He’s a fan of Jada’s former show, and flirts with her as soon as she arrives on set. But Jada is hoping to keep her head down and not get into drama, especially with someone like him. Angela and Tristan come from powerful entertainment families, and Tristan’s estranged mother is a telenovela star. Unluckily for Jada, she gets caught in the crossfire between Tristan and Angela, putting her job at risk.

At the beginning of the book, I sympathized with Jada, and loved Tristan’s nerdy love for a sci-fi show. Then, he ruined it.

Despite Tristan’s flirtation with Jada, he impulsively bangs a production assistant on set because he’s annoyed at having to work with Angela. When Jada walks in on them accidentally, he dismisses the PA and begs Jada to keep it a secret. Jada was not impressed, and neither was I:

“You won’t tell anyone?” Tristan asked, the hope and relief clear on his face.

It hit home for Jada. He wasn’t worried about her sensibilities or his lack of ethics. He wanted to make sure she’d keep her mouth shut.

“Of course not,” Jada said.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Tristan squeezed her hand in gratitude. Repulsed by his selfish motives, Jada tried not to flinch at his touch.

Now, it’s not a dealbreaker for me when characters sleep with people outside of their main relationship, but the way Tristan handles it is repellent. Angela guesses that he had sex with someone at work, and melts down. Tristan publicly blames Jada and screams at her in a vicious moment caught on video. When his tantrum goes viral, he reluctantly agrees to his agent’s plan to pretend to be Jada’s boyfriend in order to rehabilitate his image, offering her a lukewarm non-apology. I was so frustrated by the way he and his agent bulldozed Jada into the fake relationship that I struggled to enjoy one of my favorite tropes.

Meanwhile, the production assistant is forced off the film, but Tristan never bothers to ask about her.

Every single part of this was a red flag for me. I thought Tristan was sulky and defensive. He is convinced that Jada is to blame for his bad press and refuses to take accountability for sleeping with a junior staffer and yelling at Jada at work. I didn’t care that Tristan was sexy and traumatized by his famous mom walking out on him. Tristan had dug himself a big hole, and he would’ve needed a personality transplant for me to trust him. I kept reading, hoping for groveling that never arrived.

Unfortunately, my wish wasn’t granted. Tristan is attracted to Jada from their first “date” at his childhood friend’s restaurant, and Jada and Tristan go on several dates where he alternates self-absorption with moments where he stares at her “with deep, indescribable emotion.”

My least favorite Tristan moments include when Jada and his agent have to convince him not to sleep with other women while he’s supposed to be in a committed relationship. I was also annoyed by a beach date where Tristan whines when Jada tries to buy a modest bathing suit until she gets a bikini. He later tosses her into the ocean, and laughs it off when she complains that Black women don’t like to get their hair wet.

After they hook up at a party he calls her “overdramatic” and “hysterical” when she’s upset with him, which is the point where I gave up on him. It’s clear that Tristan truly cares about Jada, but I struggled to like him. His flirtatiousness felt almost predatory, given the power imbalance in their relationship. He’s a famous actor, while Jada is barely hanging on to her career. Jada has a lot more to lose when they “break-up” than he does.

If Tristan struggled with accountability, Jada was the opposite, taking responsibility for things that were not her fault. The looming obstacle to love in Off Script is that Jada’s cousin Mikayla took the video of Tristan yelling at Jada. Jada encourages Mikalya to share the video, and then feels guilty for not telling Tristan. She has nothing to feel guilty about, in my opinion. He’s the one who acted like a jerk at work. If anyone needs to be held accountable, it’s Tristan, not Jada. I was unbelievably frustrated that the book treats Jada as the wrongdoer.

Show Spoiler

When she apologizes to Tristan and he has to learn to forgive her, I was ready to scream.

I typically like romances about acting, but the minutiae of film production in Off-Script bored me, possibly because I disliked seeing the main couple interact. Here’s an example, where they network with Logan, a movie producer:

“So, what have you been up to since I saw you last?” Tristan asked. “I know your sci-fi thriller, Prototype, came out recently. It’s a hit.”

“Oh, I saw that one! It was amazing.” Jada chipped in as she got into the groove of Tristan’s act.

“Yeah. Not to talk business on your off-hours, but are you working on anything else like that? Something cool?”

“Well, it’s always good to have something in the works. [says Logan, the producer] Right now, I’m exploring a big action flick. Think Black Panther meets Indiana Jones.”

“Wow! I’m so picturing Michael B. Jordan in a fedora right now.” Jada glowed when Logan laughed boisterously at her joke.

“You know, you’re quiet, but also quite charming,” he said to her. “Good catch on your part, Tristan.”

While the romance annoyed me at times, the book also has a large cast of secondary characters and depicts the busy structure of a set in a way that might appeal to readers hungry for books that focus more on the day-to-day work of filming than celebrity.

The part of the book I enjoyed most was Jada’s friendship with her flaky but loyal cousin, Mikayla, who also works on the show as a wardrobe PA. While Mikayla is a mediocre worker, her fuck-ups were relatable and she always had Jada’s back. At the beginning of the story, Jada is still reeling from her bad break-up with Daniel, her ex-boyfriend and former costar. Daniel was cheating on her with another actress on the show, and when Jada found out, he got her fired, and destroyed her self-confidence. I appreciated the way Jada struggled with imposter syndrome, and her mixed feelings of pride and loathing about the show. Mikayla supports her growth from shaken and sad to feeling fulfilled by her work, and that arc was the reason I kept reading the book.

It also helped that Tristan isn’t a completely terrible person. He volunteers with a children’s nonprofit and bonds with a gay kid, and he’s protective of Jada when he learned about her ex. He uses his celebrity to jumpstart Jada’s career. But I had trouble forgetting his selfishness, which made it hard for me to believe that the pair would work in the long-run.

Tristan and Jada are clearly attracted to one another, but I finished Off Script not sure why they made sense as a couple. I typically love fake relationship tropes, but these two got on my nerves, and I spent much of the book wanting to yeet Tristan into a fiery sun.

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Off Script by Ashley Marie

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  1. Star says:

    Wait, so poor Jada got fired because her asshole ex slept with another cast member and managed to get her kicked out over it, and then the poor production assistant gets fired for sleeping with Tristan and… no one cares?! The author doesn’t even draw the parallel?? Or is it just Tristan who doesn’t care?

    Thank goodness for this review. I only like celebrity books when both people are in the business, so I was thinking of picking this one up, but the Tristan stuff would enrage me. Thank you for saving my blood pressure, Shana!

  2. Jess says:

    God what a nightmare this guy sounds like! I see that the book was published by Wattpad, so I’m also wondering what real-life celebrity the author was originally writing self-insert fanfic about, lol.

  3. LisaM says:

    I saw this on the new books shelf at the library yesterday, but I’m not a big fan of the celebrity fake-dating trope, so I put it back. I’m glad to know I made the right choice.

  4. SusanE says:

    What a mess. This whole book sounds like a backstory for an actual book where the characters grow up and get over all these toxic relationships.

  5. DonnaMarie says:

    Thank goodness!! The tbr list remains at status quo. Do you still have molars left?

  6. flchen1 says:

    Thanks for taking one for the team, Shana! Yikes, and no…

  7. Riley says:

    I love fake-dating, but the comprehensive take-down of Tristan in the review had convinced me not to read the book… and then I read that sample.

    Ye gods. That is some of the CLUNKIEST dialogue I have read, maybe not in my life, but definitely in the last five years or so. Tristan ‘as-you-know-Bob’ing Logan’s own movie to him? (And who says ‘It’s a hit’ instead of ‘I liked it/loved the script/saw it with my brother’? Did he hate it so much he can’t even compliment one scene WHILE SCHMOOZING THE PRODUCER?) And ‘You know, you’re quiet, but also quite charming’ is like a robot’s idea of realistic dialogue! Maybe it’s better in context, but I am struggling to see HOW.

    Anyway, I appreciate you warning me off this one. 🙂

  8. Lisa F says:

    Great review, Shana; think I’m gonna stay away from this one.

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