Book Review: Unrivaled by Alyson Noel

Success can be a vicious game. Unrivaled by Alyson Noel follows three young people participating in a competition to best promote the hottest new clubs in downtown LA. They all hope to win best promoter and use their victories to pursue other ambitions.

None of them could foresee how fiery the race would become.

Aster, Tommy, and Layla are not the only competitors, but they’re clearly putting the most effort. This whole book follows their often desperate attempts to sit well with the boss, Ira Redman. Ira owns the nightclubs, and he’s going to determine who wins this competition…but since it’s unclear what his standards are, the participants pull strategies of near Hunger Games-level riskiness.

Luring celebrities in is an obvious shortcut; by the midpoint, they’re circling like flies around Madison Brooks, impeccable actress and America’s sweetheart. (I kept thinking Taylor Swift.) Since Madison is almost impossible to come by, their second-best choice is her also-famous boyfriend, Ryan Hawthorne. Through him, they each hope to reach her.

But the quest for Madison’s attention soon becomes a dramatic search—because she disappears. Aster, Tommy, and Layla all wind up as suspects.

This all started because they wanted success, money to make their marks in the world.

LA was a town of actors and storytellers, populated by those more comfortable playing an imaginary role than being themselves, and the prize always went to the one who faked it best.

This is not a genre I typically read. I was sent a copy to review, and found myself hooked by writing that pulled me along with the characters. Some of the quotes were truly beautiful, others intense—there’s enough cussing to make scenes properly intense. All the characters, even Madison and Ryan, were sketched perfectly; they felt like real people.

Having been in LA, it was nice to read descriptions of streets; I pictured myself strolling the Walk of Fame, could almost smell big city air. It was like stepping through a window back into California, a place where you never know what you’ll find around the corner.

The character Aster is my only criticism. Most of her choices were too childish, like she was trying to fit into a grown woman’s shoes. Then again, this is an LA version of the Hunger Games; I can forgive her losing sight of reason in the race to beat Layla, who ironically becomes an ally towards the end.

More than the characters, it’s the situation which I found addictive, like a bad tabloid or a reality show you can’t turn off…except this is well-written, a journey into the dark part of fame. By the end of Unrivaled, you’ll ask yourself what you’d do for success—and if it’s worth the losses.

You might even lose yourself in the process.