I Make My Own Fun, Hannah Beer
Everybody knows Marina. Celebrated actress, A-list celebrity and worldwide treasure, she’s got it all. With a doting husband and dedicated fans, she’s known for her kindness, grace, and aspirational life. Everyone wants to be her or be with her – or maybe both. They see every moment of her carefully curated life, laid out exactly how she wants. But what they don’t see is what Marina gets up to behind closed doors and, when she meets Anna - the one person she wants but can’t have -the mask just might start to slip.
Something Beer does particularly well is her use of intertextuality throughout her writing. Whilst perspectives don’t switch per say, she includes interviews and online forums to document Marina’s descent through the eyes of her fans, which serve perfectly as a comment on quite how much attention we pay to celebrity, to the detriment of both us and them. Opening with an interview with Marina, before switching to her point of view for the majority of the rest of the book, it’s a novel that’s flawlessly flippant in its dissection of idolatry and it’s fantastically biting throughout.
I Make My Own Fun is a book I got through in a day or so; it’s fast paced and almost impossible to put down once you’ve picked it up. Intensely funny, it explores celebrity culture and just how blind we can be to the faults of those we adore.
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