A story about celebrity, self-discovery, and being true to oneself, Christa Comes Out of Her Shell is weighed down by its overly-quirky narrative stylings. Ultimately, though, it’s a decent story about figuring out who you are and how much of you belongs to the world.
Christabel – Christa - Liddle has settled into a life of science. She works on a remote island in the middle of the ocean as a marine biologist studying sea snails, far from the hassles of humanity, and her exhausting family.
Her father– Jasper Liddle, naturalist and host of Liddle’s Great Big World – disappeared when his plane crashed in the Canadian wilderness and he was never found. Christa is the baby in the family, and each of her sisters -- middle child, Eleanor, a conservationist, and eldest, Annabelle, a musician – have coped with his going in different ways. For Christa, the solution was a party phase and then exile after becoming online tabloid fodder. Denny, their mom, emerged from a supporting role on Jasper’s shows to keep the show going and handle his legacy. Is it any wonder that her youngest wants to disappear into ocean sciences?
Everything changes when Jasper, still alive, emerges from the woods after decades. The Liddle family reunites to deal with the dilemma and to meet with their father, forcing Christa to cope with the Hollywood world she abandoned and this strange new father who ‘died’ when she was a toddler. Christa has a prickly but loving relationship with her family, and she has no idea how to deal with the press. The only thing keeping Christa sane is the continued support of her long-term crush, the family’s driver, Nate. Can Christa figure out her place in the family’s dynamic, discover if she really wants to be in the public eye, and navigate a romance with Nate?
Well, yes, but there are bumps along the way. Christa Comes out of Her Shell combines character study with steady-going romance and a family dramedy that works fairly well apart for a few bumps that keep it from a higher grade.
As I said, Christa is quirky, sometimes too much so, but has enough meat on her bones to make her interesting. Her mother is amusing though sometimes insufferable, her sisters decent. But Nate feels too perfect, too good to be true, willing to sacrifice himself at every turn and always reliably there for Christa with little life of his own to speak of.
Jasper, meanwhile, is an enigma – perhaps too much of one for the book’s own good. As for what really happened during his years of absence, I’ll leave the twists related to that to the reader to find out for themselves, but I found it predictable, and I wanted a little more of him spending time with Christa. I couldn’t really buy the choice he made, which the novel thankfully does not romanticize.
Christa Comes out of Her Shell is, ultimately, a perfectly okay book, but its flaws mean it never reaches real greatness.
NOTE: there is a scene in which Christa is roofied and saved from a sexual assault.
Sensuality: Warm
Publication Date: 04/2024
Recent Comments …
Hopefully it will get onto the poll. I’m 100% sure there’s some obvious book that I forgot about.
Yes, sorry, I meant e-books – I don’t read anything else these days. My library is county-wide, too, but I…
You’re welcome. If you want to know more, I can add some information to the spoiler, just let me know.
Thanks for sharing that insight, Caz. I haven’t read *spoiler* but it’s helpful to read your thoughts as I assess…
Is that true for ebooks as well? Because my library (bless it!) is part of a county-wide system for ebooks,…
I loved their interchanges. It is a lovely romance. I so wish there would be a second season!