The Idea of You: A Novel
I found the premise of The Idea of You very compelling. An older woman falls for a much younger man. The icing on the cake for me was that the hero is a member of a boy band, and that makes his creditability even more questionable. Who takes boy bands seriously, other than their fans? Certainly not the general public, and certainly not the rest of the music industry. Who cares that these guys are selling out stadiums all over the world and selling tons of their records. Their millions of young, female fans don’t count for much, evidently. This is totally an aside, but any entertainment that appeals to mainly girls or women is not held in high esteem by our society. But I digress.
Solène is lassoed into taking her daughter and her friends to a meet and greet for August Moon, the hottest boy band around. Her ex husband has flaked out, yet again, so Solène packs her bags and steps into the biggest adventure of her life. She and Hayes, one of the boys in the band, hit it off, flirting with each other. When the flirtation grows into something more, Solène faces several personal crossroads. She knows that a relationship with one of the boys in the band will crush her daughter, she is afraid of how it would impact her business at her art gallery, and what will her friends think? Or her judgmental ex?
This is a hard to put down book, and though I found it compelling, I also found it overly long and somewhat repetitive. I readily admit that I got bored with the sex. I found the double-standards and public backlash that Solène was forced to confront far more interesting. The globe-hopping was a plus, as Solène followed Hayes and the band on their world tour. Solène also did globe-hopping for her business, attending art fairs to sell art work as well as search for new talent to represent. I enjoyed all of the travel. I could see how Solène would be caught up in the boy band lifestyle, with rented mansions and five star hotels, enticing. Like all good things, though, it quickly became overwhelming, and all she wanted was to be back home, with her daughter and the life she worked so hard to build for herself.
The life in a fish bowl would put a damper on the romance with a pop star. Solène, once their relationship was out in the open, quickly learns the downside of dating a superstar. Stalker fans are frightening. Public contempt is difficult to deal with. The backlash to her career was also unwelcome. In a society where an older man dating a younger woman doesn’t even merit a comment, it’s unfair that the reverse isn’t true. And what is the future of such a relationship? The ending killed me, because it seemed like Solène was just giving up, and I was really hoping for a better payout for all of the emotional investment.
Grade: 3 stars
