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Lilah is a B-movie “scream queen,” semi-famous for her horror roles. Her latest is Scareodactyl, a cheesy dinosaur horror movie with buckets of fake blood. She’s been trained for stardom her whole life, and she’s found success in these movies–but secretly, she’s never even seen a horror movie, and she’d rather be on a historical fiction film set. Noa, on the other hand, is thrilled to be plastering fake wounds on actors. She dropped out of school to pursue union membership as a makeup artist, determined to live her dream of getting to do larger-than-life special effects horror makeup. The stakes are high, though: if she doesn’t get the hours and the recommendation, she’ll have no shot at the union (and future jobs), and she’ll have thrown away her education for nothing.
When Noa arrives at the set the first day, she’s stunned to see Lilah–the same actress who is on a poster in her bedroom. She’s a big fan, and she tries painfully hard to play it cool. Unfortunately, she manages to put her foot in her mouth the moment she sees Lilah, telling her she looks forward to hurting her. (By which she meant applying fake wounds to her.) One of my favourite touches in this is that Lilah is equally starstruck with Noa, because Noa is openly queer. To closeted bisexual Lilah, Noa is the epitome of cool. But as she also tries to keep that under wraps–especially because she mistakenly thinks Noa’s roommate is her girlfriend, she comes across as aloof (and straight).
While the cover makes this look like a Hollywood romance, I far, far prefer this art (which is part of the preorder campaign):
I loved the juxtaposition between the sweet romance and the cheesy, gory horror movie–and I wished that I had been played up a little more in the marketing (especially the cover). Far from a glitzy Hollywood romance, Lilah has to tread water in a tank that smells like sour milk and spends a lot of time rinsing various kinds of goo and fake blood from her hair.
I also appreciated that both of the main characters are Jewish, and they find connection with each other in that. There’s also a trans side character, and one of my favourite moments of the book was when Noa’s parents say Chrissy (the roommate) is welcome at Rosh Hashanah even if Noa doesn’t come, but to tell them how many girlfriends she’s bringing, because last time they had to run across the street to borrow chairs from the Glazers. It’s such a sweet, casual moment of acceptance (Chrissy is also queer and polyamorous).
Another aspect I thought was interesting was Lilah’s perception of herself. She has basically been raised to be an actress, so she’s very used to thinking of her body as an object–and one that she has to market successfully. She’s constantly thinking about angles and how she’s being perceived. She has a camera-ready smile and is careful to be an easy person to work with. She’s also self-conscious about her appearance, and she often shuts down when Noa compliments her looks, because she’s used to being reduced to only that.
Noa, on the other hand, has her own flaws. She’s quick to get frustrated with Lilah’s apparent insincerity, but Noa is judgmental and can be clueless about others (while Lilah is hyper aware of others’ feelings). She scoffs at Lilah reading romance novels, for instance, and understandably puts Lilah off with her judginess.
I did have some issues with the pacing. There’s a stalker subplot that felt very drawn out and awkward, and the romance plot seemed to get paused for a while and then pick up where it left off. It feels like it could have been a more tightly-plotted novella, so that there wasn’t a chunk in the middle where we’re just waiting for Noah and Lilah to get together and the stalker to be revealed.
Despite the pacing issues, I did enjoy this one overall, and I especially recommend it for readers looking for F/F Jewish romance who have exhausted the Shira Glassman back catalogue!
