Review: Fame, Fate and the First Kiss By Kasie West

We were really excited about Fame, Fate and the First Kiss because Lacey was one of the best characters in Love, Life and the List. She definitely deserved her own story—and her own chance at finding love! 

Lacey Barnes finally landed a role in a Hollywood movie—her dream job. She stalls her life and moves to Hollywood with her dad. Everything seems perfect, she has a leading role opposite megastar Grant James and the beginning of a promising career. However, Lacey is still in high school. The one thing she doesn’t want to deal with is school work.

So when Lacey keeps blowing off her assignments, her dad hires her a relentless tutor…enter dreamboat, Donavan. Lacey thinks Donavan is the most stiff and boring guy she has ever met and accuses him of being a straight-laced choir boy. “Donovan: Loves homework, haircuts and harmonizing” (64). Donavan believes that Lacey is spoiled, insane and lazy, considering how hard he has to work to get her to do even one assignment.

As Lacey and Donavan spend more time together, its obvious they have more in common than they realized. Can these stop arguing long enough to realize that there is a fine line between love and hate?

Lacey and Donavan’s relationship shifting from hate to love was a lot of fun to read. The two don’t have instant chemistry, but the fact that it takes time for the two of them to fall for each other makes the book more realistic. Their banter was effortless and the reader definitely finds themself falling for Donovan along with Lacey. Donavan has most definitely been added to our book boyfriend list!

They also both have major career aspirations, Lacey wants to be a Hollywood star and Donavan plans to be a movie reviewer for a big newspaper. The more time Donavan spends on set, the more he sees the real Lacey and is drawn to her creative and dramatic personality. He even starts to enjoy her sarcastic comments. 

The secondary characters were also entertaining and helped further the story. Lacey’s co-stars Amanda and Grant were added bonuses and kept the plot going. You grew to like them the more you got to know them. We were glad West did not try to push a love triangle into the plot between Lacey, Donovan, and Grant. It was refreshing to be able to root for Donovan from the very beginning. 

The only real blip with the plot was the whole Lacey-being-sabotaged-on-set story line. Lacey has to deal with someone breaking into her dressing room, messing up her wardrobe and stealing her props. She pretty much accuses most of the movie staff before enlisting her friends to catch the culprit. 

When Lacey found out who was sabotaging her, it felt like a bit of a letdown. West built up this major plot point, just for the person behind the subterfuge to not have that great of a reason for their actions. It didn’t make sense for this to be part of the story and it just took time away from the romance.

Also, Abby and Cooper from Love, Life and the List show up for the big reveal and don’t add anything to the story. We enjoy the fact that West ties stories together, but she should have given Abby a bigger life update to make her presence worth while. 

You might have missed this, but West also mentioned a character from another book, the Fill-In Boyfriend! Spoiler Alert: Lacey mentioned that during her freshman year of high school, she kissed Hayden Reynolds during the school play! Now, Hayden is a character that we always want to hear more about.

Overall, read Fame, Fate and the First Kiss when you’re on a plane or snuggled up with some blankets on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It’s a fun book, but not our favorite from West.

Check out our blog post, Kasie West’s Contemporary Books Ranked, for our overall opinions of her books. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐