Child Star by Matt Thorne

This was a remainder I picked up at Chapters. It was a first-person novel about a man, Gerald, who, as a thirteen-year-old, had acted in a short-lived British tv soap opera. It alternated between his current life, as recently-single twenty-something in a dead-end job, and the detailed account of the audition, rehearsals, filming and televising of the soap.

While it kept me reading to the end, I found myself irritated by the narrator's excessive insight into his deepest psyche in each of the two settings (child and adult). Although he was recounting the story of his acting triumph and the spinoff effect it had on the rest of his life (truly, a Formative event), the child Gerald understood way too much about his family, his actions, his motivations, to be really believable. Even the adult Gerald had an unlikely amount of understanding about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness to make him a realistic character.

It did tie up nicely in the end, with a satisfying conclusion, but overall, if, as the critic quoted on the front cover it is "... Matt Thorne's best book yet...", I'm not sure I will be in a hurry to read another one.