Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2021
336 pages
Genre: Romance
Publication Information
Faking a love story is a whole lot easier than being in love...
The world can see that international A-list actress Whitman ("Win") Tagore and jet-setting playboy Leo Milanowski are made for each other. Their kisses start Twitter trends and their fights break the internet. From red carpet appearances to Met Gala mishaps, their on-again, off-again romance has titillated the public and the press for almost a decade. But it's all a lie.
As a woman of color, Win knows the Hollywood deck is stacked against her, so she's perfected the art of controlling her public persona. Whenever she nears scandal, she calls in Leo, with his endearingly reckless attitude, for a staged date. Each public display of affection shifts the headlines back in Win's favor, and Leo uses the good press to draw attention away from his dysfunctional family.
Pretending to be in a passionate romance is one thing, but Win knows that a real relationship would lead to nothing but trouble. So instead they settle for friendship, with a side of sky-rocketing chemistry. Except this time, on the French Riviera, something is off. A shocking secret in Leo's past sets Win's personal and professional lives on a catastrophic collision course. Behind the scenes of their yacht-trips and PDA, the world's favorite couple is at each other's throats. Now they must finally confront the many truths and lies of their relationship, and Win is forced to consider what is more important: a rising career, or a risky shot at real love?
The View Was Exhausting is a funny, wickedly observant modern love story set against the backdrop of exotic locales and the realities of being a woman of color in a world run by men.
"Married couple Clements and Datta use a playful trope to confront weighty issues in their excellent debut, a romance that's as timely as it is heartfelt...The characters leap off the page, and their dialogue, whether flirting or fighting, is always believable. Readers will come for the swoon-worthy romance and stay for the beautiful prose." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"While it is fairly clear from the start how Win and Leo's story will end, this will-they, won't-they journey is packed with emotional resonance. Nuance and humanity are brought to the celebrity story." - Kirkus Reviews
"The froth and fun of a jet-setting romance of the rich and famous is grounded by the realities of racism and misogyny in a difficult, image-focused industry. Win's choice between the career she loves and taking a chance on romance is treated with complexity, and readers who appreciate a serious approach to the genre standard of the fake relationship will enjoy that there are no easy answers for this paparazzi-hounded couple." - Library Journal
"The View Was Exhausting is a pure delight! Effortlessly cool, razor sharp, and crazy fun—I couldn't put it down. It is Notting Hill for 2021, an absolute crowd pleaser." - Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six
"The View Was Exhausting sweeps you up into the tilt-a-whirl of Hollywood relationships. This richly drawn romance is, crucially, also a journey through the unjust rules forced upon women—especially women of color—who dare to play the fame game. It's timely, touching, and a tantalizing love story." - Jessica Morgan & Heather Cocks, bestselling authors of The Royal We and The Heir Affair
"I read it all in one morning and couldn't put it down once, which frankly was of huge disadvantage to me because I had work to do. The View Was Exhausting is enormously sophisticated, tension held like a net, as it slowly holds the reader closer and closer to a fire, and I laughed many times. It's an absolute tour de force, and Win is now one of my new favorite protagonists ever." - Tamsyn Muir, New York Times bestselling author of Gideon the Ninth
This information about The View Was Exhausting was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta are the co-authors of The View Was Exhausting. Mikaella's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Hazlitt, Catapult, and more, and she was shortlisted for the 2019 Galley Beggar Press Prize and the 2018 Bridport Short Story Prize. Onjuli's work has been published in The Billfold and Daddy magazine. Mikaella is originally from Australia and Onjuli from England; they are married and live together in Berlin.
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