When I Think of You by Myah Ariel

When I Think of You is a second chance romance that, while enjoyable, would have benefited from a 3rd person vs 1st person POV. I enjoyed the inside look into the film industry it provided, but found the storyline of the vengeful ex a little tiring and overdone.

Kaliya Wilson has always dreamed of being a movie producer, but is stuck working the front desk at a studio, finding it difficult to get her foot in the door. When her ex, Danny Prescott, shows up for a meeting one day it’s a blast from her past.

Kaliya and Danny met at film school in New York when they were younger. Danny was a little bit older than Kaliya and she helped him make his thesis film, but when things got serious between them Danny seemed to panic and, afraid of abandonment, Kaliya more or less ghosted him.

Now the studio that Kaliya works for is producing Danny’s latest film. Danny is the son of an Oscar winning director, so he didn’t find it as difficult to break into the industry as Kaliya has. When he sees her working a front desk job he feels like her talent is being wasted and offers to make her the director’s assistant on his upcoming film.

There’s a scene I really liked where Kaliya calls bullshit on Danny’s astonishment that she hasn’t gotten further in her career (they are on the phone in this scene):

I roll my head on my shoulders and sit up straighter in bed. “I’m not like you, Danny,” I say. “I’m not in a position not to take it personally when I’m repeatedly overlooked and disrespected by the people in positions to either help or hurt my career. It’s a privilege to not care how those in power perceive and treat you. And as much as I desperately want to just show up and ‘do me,’ that’s a privilege too—another one I don’t have.”

Danny’s privilege comes from his family legacy, and I liked that the book acknowledged that.

Despite his status, when Kaliya shows up at work she finds out a studio executive’s niece has taken her job and Danny has had to bump her to a PA role.

It’s moments like this in the book when I wished we had Danny’s perspective.

Kaliya is blindsided by this change and while Danny later explains and apologizes, it felt like a pretty big slight for me, as the reader, to bounce back from, because I have only Kaliya’s experience and perspective. If we had seen the internal battle Danny fought on her behalf earlier on, it would have smoothed things over for me.

Kaliya was honest with Danny about how difficult and sometimes heartbreaking being dismissed and discounted in the film industry has been for her. When she shows up at work only to find out her job is gone (and she’s already quit her last one), she is completely surprised, and so was I.

When Danny texts her back with a frantic “working on it,” it felt like such a betrayal given what she just shared with him. I felt her humiliation and fear vicariously. For me this was such a huge fuck up on Danny’s end that as a reader I lost a lot trust in him, even though he did eventually make things right. Because I didn’t see Danny getting blindsided or see his reaction to the news or see him advocate for Kaliya, it was hard to let go of his betrayal.

This pattern of unexpected bewilderment and unexpected pain for Kaliya continues with Danny’s ex and a producer on the film, actress Celine Michele. Initially Kaliya (and the reader) think that Danny and Celine are still a power couple.

I didn’t love the Celine angle very much. I’m tired of the “beautiful but mean ex girlfriend” trope in romance, and Celine’s petty cruelties to Kaliya really didn’t need to happen to move the story along. There is certainly some realism in having a famous and rich actress treating the crew of a film like garbage, but in some respects it just detracted from the main conflict. Some of the issue is that as a character, Celine isn’t much more than a mean, pretty rich girl. She’s a caricature, not really a person.

What Kaliya doesn’t know (and I didn’t know because I didn’t get Danny’s POV) is that when they were in college part of the reason Danny pulled away from her is that he was struggling to navigate his grief surrounding his father’s death and the support his mother needed. Kaliya, for her part, runs away the second she thinks she could be abandoned. There was plenty of emotional conflict and growth to work with here, without the inclusion of Celine being jealous, although the solution to most of it was just Danny finally telling us things.

I did enjoy that this was a celebrity romance that didn’t focus solely on actors. We get to see the work that goes into preproduction of a film, from scouting to casting, and it was really interesting and different.

Overall, I really did enjoy the main conflict and growth both Kaliya and Danny need in order to come together and I found their development really satisfying. I think the novel would have benefited from Danny’s POV and Celine could go, but this is still an enjoyable second chance romance and a new take on the celebrity trope.