As Seen on TV
Meredith Schorr
June 7, 2022
Forever
Blurb: Emerging journalist Adina Gellar is done with dating in New York City. If she’s learned anything from made-for-TV romance movies, it’s that she’ll find love in a small town—the kind with harvest festivals, delightful but quirky characters, and scores of delectable single dudes. So when a big-city real estate magnate targets tiny Pleasant Hollow for development, Adi knows she’s found the perfect story—one that will earn her a position at a coveted online magazine, so she can finally start adulting for real . . . and maybe even find her dream man in the process.
Only Pleasant Hollow isn’t exactly “pleasant.” There’s no charming bakery, no quaint seasonal festivals, and the residents are more ambivalent than welcoming. The only upside is Finn Adams, who’s more mouthwatering than the homemade cherry pie Adi can’t seem to find—even if he does work for the company she’d hoped to bring down. Suddenly Adi has to wonder if maybe TV got it all wrong after all. But will following her heart mean losing her chance to break into the big time?
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Meredith Schorr’s As Seen on TV starts out with a great premise: a woman from NYC goes to a small town in search of a story and is really expecting to fall in love with both a man and the wonderful charm of small town living but in reality discovers that small towns can be just as unpleasant as big ones. Schorr also provides lots of nods to the Gilmore Girls and what seems like dozens of Hallmark movies with their various actors and plots, which would make this a wonderful book for all of those Hallmark movie-loving fans if only she’d taken into consideration the typical Hallmark use of language and sex. (Neither of these things bothered me but I am very aware of the expectations of Hallmark viewers and the readers of their novels.)
Those issues are, of course, surmountable. However, Adina Gellar may be one of those most fingernails on a chalkboard characters I’ve encountered in a long time. She’s immature and quickly proves herself to not be the sharpest tool in the shed and both of those character traits make for a frequently painful read for this reader. Combine that with pages and pages of dialogue that are neither witty nor move the novel along and these were just not surmountable–again, for this reader.
But, many other readers are actively adoring As Seen on TV so I do believe this one falls into YMMV (your mileage may vary) category. My mileage didn’t go very far at all but there’s a good chance yours will.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.