Emme writes songs – really good songs – and Sophie sings them. That was their blueprint as kids, and that’s the way it’s always been. Her friends in her band tell her Sophie’s using her, but they’ve been friends too long to believe that. Anyway, it frees Emme up to write on a deeper level when she knows that Sophie will be the one singing, not her.
Sophie won’t let anything get in the way of her dreams. She will be a star. Snagging rather famous Carter as a boyfriend and cozying up to her best friend Emme to make sure she keeps the songs coming is only part of that plan.
Carter has long lived in the shadow of his childhood-star status. He thought going to high school, even a performing arts school like they’re attending, would help him feel normal – but all it’s done is get him special favors in the drama department that he doesn’t want. Maybe normal doesn’t have anything to do with fame for him anymore.
Ethan has been a songwriting prodigy since he arrived, but he’s also always had darkness in him he can’t shake. He sabotages his personal life on a regular basis, which tends to inevitably spill over to his professional/student life. And because of his past mistakes he knows that there’s no way he’ll ever get the one thing he truly wants… Emme.
As all four students enter their senior year at their performing arts high school they face auditions that can shape their future…
Take a Bow has a zipping pace and an interesting look at ambitious, entertainment-industry minded students. It’s a fun bit of escapism and drama. You get switching viewpoints of all four of the main characters (I liked how with Carter’s sections the dialogue was written like a screenplay), to get a better idea of each of their personalities…
My only problem is their personalities didn’t pop all that much. They were a little cookie cutter, a little cliché. But the backstabbing, unrequited and unrealized love, newly recognized dreams, themes of friendship and loyalty and quest for super stardom do make for a light, easy read. The romance element was really the strongest, in my opinion, because otherwise the characters never really grabbed me.
Yet for a perhaps generic but relatively entertaining read, Take a Bow is certainly not bad. It just lacked the charm and cleverness of Elizabeth Eulberg’s Prom and Prejudice, which I found to be superior.
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