review: the actor and the housewife by shannon hale

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Inspired by the stories her family made up on road trips to pass the time, Becky Jack pens a screenplay that she somehow manages to sell. Having traveled from her Utah home to Los Angeles to seal the deal, Becky meets her movie star crush, Felix Callahan. It is best friendship at first sight. But Becky is a married Mormon housewife with four children while Felix is an atheist married to a fabulous French model. The difference is lifestyle is one complication, but so is the fact that no one believes they are just friends, including (initially at least) their respective spouses.

By hitting upon only the highs and lows of the friendship, Shannon Hale spans over a decade in The Actor and the Housewife, which also causes some of the book to be passively written. The emotion is there though when it needs to be. Although I take issue with some of the elements of the book (women giving up their careers, Becky asking permission from so many in order to continue her friendship with Felix), The Actor and the Housewife wouldn’t be realistic without those given Becky’s background. The plot wholly rests on those elements and Hale does the story justice by incorporating the trials of life and how people frequently jump to the wrong conclusions.
4/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Bloomsbury.