Series: standalone Genre: Publication Date: August 3rd 2020 Pages: 384 (Hardcover) Published By: Berkley Website: Ella Berman The Comeback on Goodreads My review copy:
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Grace Turner was one movie away from Hollywood’s A-List. So no one understood why, at the height of her career and on the eve of her first Golden Globe nomination, she disappeared.
Now, one year later, Grace is back in Los Angeles and determined to reclaim her life on her own terms.
So when Grace is asked to present a lifetime achievement award to director Able Yorke—the man who controlled her every move for eight years—she knows there’s only one way she’ll be free of the secret that’s already taken so much from her.
The Comeback is a powerful and provocative story of justice in the #MeToo era—a true page-turner about a young woman finding the strength and power of her voice.(Goodreads)
I felt a vague disappointment, as if I'd worked myself up for a battle that wasn't worth it in the end.
We were always living different versions of the same story.
I know all about the power imbalance that exists every time you meet someone who's seen you at yourmost vulnerable, whether or not it was your choice in the first place. How you have to hope that they don't use it against you in some way.
“Sometimes we forget that we can never really know someone else,you know, all of them. And that's okay, we're all allowed our secrets, but it does mean that ocassionally we mistake our own perspective, our own narrative, for theirs.”
The Comeback is not an easy book to digest, there are so many difficult subject addressed here - way beyond the #MeToo movement - that this book feels almost physically heavy and overwhelming. I felt exhausted after finishing my listen to the audio. A good kind of exhausted, but exhausted nevertheless. There was just so much in terms of the emotional load, so many aspects of the story to be considered and mulled over, I felt like I needed another week or two just to fully absorb it all.
We all know that Hollywood is for young actresses like a dragons's den. We've seen the #metoo articles and stories all around. And I think we also know the emotional and psychological impact of a childhood lost to a glamorous Hollywood carrier. This book explores it all. There is little glamor and happiness behind the scenes of Grace's success. There is little joy and hope in her as a person. She has been exploited, chewed up and spat back out by the merciless Hollywood filmmakers, producers and directors. People to whom she was nothing more but means to make more money. And one person in particular - Able Yorke - the man who made her, controlled her, emotionally and physically (sexually) abused her, and came really close to destroying her.
This book is an unsettling and gripping look at Grace's psyche, her past and present, her emotions. Her story is raw and unflinching, not embellished in any way, not made for comfort at all. There is hope within it, too, but just like im real life, certain bad things can't be erased or forgotten, and endings are more bittersweet than perfectly happy.
