The Famous One - Nicole Petrino-Salter

Sex, drugs, the blues, and a Hollywood career: The Famous One by Nicole Petrino-Salter has it all. It’s a coming-of-age story about Joey Parr and his reluctant rise to fame. Joey’s a troubled boy from a dysfunctional family. Life isn’t easy and Joey only finds solace in novels about the detective Joe Pavarone. There is an emptiness in Joey’s life that he just can’t seem to fill.

Make no doubt about it: this book is the story of Joey Parr. It begins with his childhood and progress throughout his life and career, oftentimes reading like the most intense, gripping, and intriguing biography I had ever read. Joey’s sense of emptiness and aloneness is evident from his childhood, and we watch as he grows up and tries to fill his emptiness. Sex. Drugs. The blues. It’s his ability to sing the blues that jump-starts his Hollywood career. And that takes us from a story about Joey Parr, the kid, to Joey Parr, Hollywood superstar.

Reluctantly thrust into the spotlight, Joey embraces his acting with a passion, trying to make it fill the emptiness in his soul. Finally, it appears he has it all together. He’s found love, has a family, and is America’s most critically acclaimed and beloved actor. But there’s still that emptiness. And as Joey Parr comes to find out, there is only One that can fill the void in his soul.

As I was reading The Famous One, the thought kept running through my head. This is the best coming-of-age story I’ve ever read. I wept when Joey wept. My heart was broken when he made the wrong choices. I felt the despair of his loneliness and emptiness. But the story has a turning point. When despair leads to prayer, Joey finds his life completely and utterly changed by Jesus Christ.

It was then that I realized that this was not a coming-of-age story. It wasn’t about a boy overcoming the struggles of his life, pulling himself up by his bootstraps and making himself The Famous One. It is a coming-to-life story, and tells the compelling journey of Joey Parr’s journey into the hands of God.

Nicole Petrino-Salter has crafted an exquisite story of redemption, with well-written true to life characters that will inevitably remind you of somebody you know. The book is written so viscerally, it seems so real, that oftentimes I had to remind myself that it was a work of fiction. Without shying away from subject matter such as sex or drugs, Petrino-Salter handles the topics with subtlety and dignity, and gets the story across without diving into explicitness. The dialogue is crisp and precise; the plotting is tight and controlled. Though the book covers a series of circumstances that ultimately leads to the climax, not one scene can be seen as extraneous or out of place.

The Famous One is absolutely outstanding. You will not be able to read this book and not be touched by it.

The Famous One - Nicole Petrino-Salter