Review: Starring Me by

Starring Me 

by Krista McGee

Published: July 10, 2012

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Available: Amazon

Synopsis:

Kara McKormick is told she's auditioning to star in a new teen variety show. But it's what she isn't told that could change her life.

The feisty New Yorker moves to sunny Orlando to participate in a month-long audition, where she'll live with nine other contestants and an eccentric housemother. Kara knows that the show already has a big-time celebrity lined up for the co-host, but she doesn't know who it is.

Chad Beacon quickly rose to fame after winning America's Next Star, but he doesn't want his entire career to be about singing. There is so much more he wants to do-like act. The new variety show sounds like the perfect next step for him, but his parents want him to have a co-star who shares his faith since they'll be spending so much time together.

Acting is high on Kara's priority list. But a relationship with God? Not so much. In fact, she's tried to stay away from anything religious. But God is after Kara's heart and He's put people in her life who are showing her there's far more to Christianity than rules and judgment.

And just when it seems that Kara's going to have to give up her acting dream, God reveals that she may have a starring role after all-in a story so big only He could write it.

Review:
Starring Me is a very sweet light-hearted story. I can't say romance, because there isn't really a romance, as the main characters only interact three times the entire book. Not that that is a bad thing, but from the blurb I'd been expecting some kind of romance. This really is simply a tale about a girl coming to realize that there is a God and becoming a Christian. It is due to her new Christian faith that everything works out perfectly for her in the end.

I really wanted to like this book, but I just didn't connect with any of the characters. The main character Kara had potential. Her doubts about God and religion felt honest as did her questions, but everything was too easy for her. This is a girl who comes from a nice, loving home, who has already starred in a reality show and is now being offered two chances to make her dreams come true. She's talented, pretty, and just all around great. The only problem according to all the other main characters is that she's not Christian. Chad, her love interest, is a perfect Christian boy, who just happens to be a superstar. Her best friend Addy is another perfect Christian, and Addy's Christian boyfriend Jackson is the president's son. Chad's super nanny, Flora, was annoying as the perfect matronly Christian chaperone spouting Jane Austen every chance she had.

It was the perfection of everyone that drove me nuts. The Christians were good and the non-Christians not so good. Life isn't this easy. It's not black or white. Becoming the only Christian in a non-Christian family is hard. Being a Christian in the entertainment industry is even harder. Yet none of this struggle is there, and that is what I was looking for.  There wasn't anything about the book that I disliked, but nothing that I really did like.