Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Byron Lane

Genre:    Fiction

343 pages, published July 8, 2020

Reading Format:   Audiobook on Overdrive

Summary

A Star is Bored is written from the perspective of Charlie Besson, a young gay man who is hired by movie star Kathi Kannon to work as her personal assistant.  The novel is not so loosely based on author Byron Lane’s time working as Carrie Fisher’s personal assistant.

Quotes 

“Travel is a wonderful alternative to suicide”

 

 “My attorney told me there are a bunch of questions I’m not supposed to ask you, so I’d like to go ahead and get those out of the way,” she says.”

 

“Beautiful people, they’re never really alone.”

 

 “Life only exists in your mind. Everything you see, everything you hear, all of it, it goes through your eyes and ears and is processed by your mind, and the mind can lie, can be sick, can get it wrong”

 

“They’re all little things until one of them kills you.”

 

“Therapista says hating others is hating yourself.”

 

“Therapista says judging others is really judging yourself.”

 

 “Therapista says a wonderful, healthy life doesn’t include a requirement to be constantly entertained. She says what we really want is peace of mind, peace in being. Maybe another word for boredom is peace.”

 

“I’m not exactly suicidal-suicidal—I don’t have a plan or anything—but suicide has always had a spot on my vision board. With my shitty news job and pathetic, lonely life, I admit I think of suicide like some people think of going back to college.”

 

“Waiting for what? For me?” Kathi asks, smiling kindly. “I’m not a leader. I’m a follower. It might look like I’m a leader because I’m in movies, but I’m just a follower who’s in movies and I happen to have other followers following me but we’re just all confused followers following followers following followers and it’s a clusterfuck of following. There’s a line of people following me and thinking I’m leading them and I’m just, like, trying to find somewhere to take a nap.”

 

“We’re all victims of what others think of us, of our identity based on our employer. It doesn’t matter who you really are, it’s how you’re perceived.”

My Take

A Star is Bored is a fun, clever read that takes you behind the scenes in the life a personal assistant to a Hollywood star.  Good choice for a beach vacation.