A review by bestdressedbookworm
The Monster of Her Age by Danielle Binks

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

I’m actually DNFing this with only about 30 pages to go. I can’t take this anymore. Ok I quickly skimmed the last 30 and it added no value. A stupid 5 page random argument and resolution that lacked any impact because I knew it wasn’t Riya. 

It’s a bit pathetic when the most mature character in this entire story is the 17 year old brought in as the love interest.

In this story we follow Ellie, and her family of semi famous thespians. As a young girl she played a role in a horror movie along side her very famous grandmother Lottie Lovinger.

As the story unravels we find out a lot about some of the child star abuse aspects that happen on set, made worse by the fact that she was acting alongside a family member.

Side note: did anyone else know they used to tell Shirley Temple that he mum was being held hostage to get her to cry! That’s freaking horrible! 

What really made me angry about halfway through this book is I knew there was trigger warnings for child abuse but I quickly realised it wasn’t being handled well. I get this is YA but if you are going to do this sort of plot it needs to be done better. Lottie was bullied on set and at school in some pretty traumatic ways and it seems that most people around her are more concerned with the fall out it had on the family than the affect on the child! And i didn’t even get anything in that last 30 pages that I would have hoped for. 

The story itself was really interesting, but the strong subject matters were handled terribly.