Book Review: Main Character Energy
by Jamie Varon | Pub: 9.5.23 by Park Row | 313 Pages
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✨ Main Character Energy by Jamie Varon
📕 Format: paperback in the OUABC 2023 New Years Eve box
🗓️ Publication: Park Row Publishing
⭐️ I Loved this book!
Read if you like these tropes/details:
🩵 Plus size female main character
🩵 He falls first
🩵 Sweet vs steamy romance but with great chemistry
🩵 Located at a villa in the French Riviera
🩵 FMC with dreams of being a writer
What you can expect:
🩵 Debut Novel (first book was nonfiction Radically Content)
🩵 Sweet authors note at the beginning
🩵 Family drama
🩵 FMC - plus size, writer, aspiring author, loves mystery books, middle child in a family that doesn’t support her
🩵 California to Nice, France
🩵 Takes place in Summer
🩵 A wonderful set of lovable, charming, and quirky characters
🩵 Beau the dog - I love sweet animals
Content trigger warnings
✔️ Emotional abuse - her mom was always trying to get her to lose weight and be thin like her
✔️ Growing up in the shadows of a sibling
✔️ Jealousy from others’ writing career success
✔️Mild - unwanted advances and internal thoughts on shame
My Thoughts and Notes:
🩵 I loved this story! I enjoyed the writing of the characters, the scenery, the overall story and that there was a little bit of mystery to what led her aunt to do what she did.
🩵 Poppy’s character is complex and honestly very realistic, the heroine in real life isn’t always perfect. We deal with real issues and insecurities and often times we’re the biggest thing standing in our own way of success and support. She had some unlikable characteristics but it’s part of what made her relatable and what made her growth that much sweeter.
🩵 The toxic relationship she has with her family is really sad, especially with her terrible mom, but the saddest is her internal competition with her brother. He’s actually really genuine and loves and admires his sister but she’s so wrapped up in shame and pride from jealously that she won’t let him in.
🩵 I loved her aunt Margot’s character and would love a prequel that focuses on Margot’s life experiences. I love her confidence and perspective on life.
🩵 I love the idea of The Colony and wonder if there are writer retreats like this that are subsidized. What a wonderful way to support new artists in their writing endeavors.
🩵 I enjoyed the author’s writing style so much that I treated myself to a hardback copy of her first nonfiction book Radically Content.
Favorite Quotes & Passages (I used so many sticky tabs in this one!):
💭Pg 10 “Do it for the plot. Do it for the story. Be bold in life, mostly because not being bold is being as hell.”
💭Pg18 “Don’t make excuses, darling. Not to yourself, not to anyone. Excuses are a great way to be on the sidelines of your own life.”
💭Pg55 Might be one of my all time favorite quote passages🤩: Be the main character of your life. If you do not actively curate the life you want, you are relegated to the supporting role in everyone else’s. If you are stuck, take a risk. If you are lost, start asking questions. If you don’t know what to do, take the next bold move. Your life is happening now. Don’t you dare waste it.
💭 Pg107 “Don’t be unkind to yourself. Life is hard enough without you being an asshole to yourself on top of it.”
💭Pg 113 built in advice for writers: You can’t do a single thing with the words you haven’t written. Every good book started as a shitty first draft. Let it suck. And let that be freeing.
💭 Pg 145 “If you interpret every difficult experience as a reason to not try, or have hope, or not believe in people and love, that’s what life will become. You’ll look for evidence for why something isn’t working out for you. I choose to stay open. I don’t want to spend my life afraid and guarded.”
💭Pg214 I loved the whole page and the commentary about core memories.
💭 Pg245 “There’s always going to be a reason to give up. What matters is continuing on when things aren’t going your way. It’s easy to keep going when it’s all working out. The real grit comes from believing in yourself when you have no evidence you should.”
