Book Review: It Girl, by Nic Tatano

Veronica Summer is stuck in the dream job from hell.

“The spunky New York reporter is offered the network’s morning anchor position, but she doesn’t want it because she’s a night person. Then the network plays a trump card, promising her the evening anchor chair in three years. So the fiery redhead takes the plunge, with the ultimate gig waiting down the road.

Problem is, that road is filled with two am wake-up calls and the only social life she has is one with bats and raccoons. She quickly realizes she’ll never survive the grind and decides the only way out is to get fired by being her snarky self on live television.

And the ratings skyrocket.

Veronica becomes the nation’s It Girl, so the network makes her a celebrity contestant on its most popular nighttime dance competition show, Dance Off. While her journalistic credibility is shot to hell by the show’s skimpy costumes, she’s thrown into close contact with two incredibly attractive men; her dance partner and the show’s sarcastic British judge.

And she soon discovers that love is the ultimate gig.”

Thank you to Harper Impulse for approving me for a review copy via NetGalley.

I’d never read any Nic Tatano before, so I honestly didn’t know what to expect. However, a cover that beautiful is not to be ignored, so after a quick read of the synopsis – which successfully piqued my interest – the request button was hit. Let’s be honest, if I don’t know the book or author, the cover is gonna be the first thing I judge. And when it’s such a goddamn beautiful piece, it deserves to be appreciated – then I just had to hope the story was just as good.

It was. Holy crap it was. As I said, I really didn’t know what to expect, but Nic Tatano has quite possibly created one of my favourite main characters ever. The snarky, sarcastic, witty Veronica is someone I want to be best friends with. She’s got sass, she’s got an opinion, she’s got drive and she struggles not to say the first snarky comment that comes into her head – she read like someone who needed to come hit it up with me and my girls.

Having said that, she’s a millionaire and her best friends Layla and Savannah were equally wonderful characters, so maybe I’ll go hit it up with all of them instead. Each of the girls had their own well-crafted personality, their own strengths and their own charms. I loved them all, and the friendship between the three was one of my favourite parts.

I loved reading Veronica’s personal dilemmas throughout the show, and you really get a sense of how passionate she is about her career. From her hellish ordeal of the 2am wake-ups for The Morning Show, which she’s willing to put herself through for 3 years to get her to The Chair, then the nightmare of having to appear on Dance Off, though she’s worried about her professional credibility. She’s faced with tough decisions throughout, and I desperately wanted things to go right for her.

And then there was Dexter. A judge on Dance Off, he’s breathtakingly handsome, delightfully British, powerful and fierce, and is clashing heads with Veronica from the get-go. You know, it’s weird; being British myself, I am surrounded by British men all day. I talk to British men all the time, my Mr is a British man. But, throw a quintessentially British man in the middle of an American novel, and suddenly, it’s the sexiest thing imaginable. Go figure. I think it’s his gentlemanly manner, he’s very charming and chivalrous. But, he also has his own incredibly fast wit, which makes him even sexier.

You’re kept on your toes by him as much as Veronica is, never quite sure what his true colours are. Some times he’s the world’s nicest man, at other’s, he seems to be making her life deliberately difficult, and enjoying it a bit too much. Sexy as he may be, is he at risk of ruining her credibility? Either way, I’d happily volunteer to be his mambo partner. I also love how the language barrier of slang terms makes for some great misunderstandings.

The book had me gripped from the start, with an excellent cast of characters, a fabulous story line, and a perfect ending that made me swoon. Five sassy stars to a gorgeous story and the most fantastically sarcastic heroine ever.

Well done, Nic, you’ve just got yourself one huge fan.

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