The Famoux by Kassandra Tate (Review)

Title: The Famoux
Author: Kassandra Tate
Type: Fiction
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Dystopia
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Date published: January 19, 2021

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Fame can be deadly.

Out of the wreckage of environmental collapse, the country of Delicatum emerged. Its most popular celebrities are the Famoux, uniquely beautiful stars of a reality TV show called the Fishbowl. In a world still recovering from catastrophe, they provide a 24/7 distraction.

Sixteen-year-old Emilee Laurence is obsessed with the Famoux—they provide a refuge from her troubled home life and the bullies at school. When she receives an unimaginable offer to become a member herself, she takes it. Leaving behind everything she’s ever known, Emilee enters a world of high glamour and even higher stakes.

Because behind their perfect image lies an ugly truth—an anonymous stalker has been dictating the Famoux’s every move, and being popular really is a matter of life or death.

⤖ My Review ⬻

I feel that my experience with Kassandra Tate’s The Famoux is kind of unique due to how the flow affected my reading. When I started reading, I remember thinking that I really liked the writing and that I could continue reading The Famoux for the way it was written alone. Then the plot hooked me a little bit and I read to about halfway into the book at around a steady pace.

It was the halfway point where things changed for me. I realized that the story wasn’t turning into what I expected it to be based on the synopsis, and the things that were happening weren’t holding my attention.

Also, aside from the first third of the book, I didn’t really sympathize with the main character, Emilee. And the characters that I did sympathize with and wanted to know more about, I found that I didn’t spend as much time with as I would have liked.

I definitely had to push myself to make it through the latter half of this book. And I will say that part of it is due to my expectations based on the synopsis. Also, I would like to mention that there is a twist that I didn’t predict and which piqued my interest in the story and the characters once again. If a sequel for The Famoux is released in the future, I would likely pick it up.

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Kassandra Tate has been writing stories for as long as she can remember. Her work on Wattpad has accumulated over five million reads and a Watty Award for Science Fiction. She was featured in the anthology Imagines: Celebrity Encounters Starring You (Simon and Schuster), and worked alongside Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonny Sun as curator for their New York Times Bestselling novel Gmorning,

Gnight! (Penguin Random House). She graduated from Chapman University in 2020 with a BFA in screenwriting and currently lives in Los Angeles with her sisters and––most importantly––her cats, Purrsephone and [Good] Will Hunting. The Famoux is her debut novel.