By Bianca Gillam
Coming May 20, 2025
(3.5 / 5)
In Bad Publicity, we follow Andie, a book publicist who has found out that she will be promoting a book written by the man she never wanted to talk to again, Jack. While the book seems to be marketed as a romance, I found that wasn’t the main focus of the story. Instead, it is mostly a journey of a woman who has avoided facing the grief from her father dying 5 years ago and now must face it.
Honestly, I don’t think I ever fully connected with Andie’s character. She felt very self-centered which was often frustrating. The “enemies” aspect was one-sided, with Andie being very hostile toward Jack and often not acting professionally. We don’t find out about the events from Andie and Jack’s past until about 70% of the way through the book – I think I would have preferred to have the context earlier on so I could understand where all the animosity was coming from. All of this did allow for some good character growth, but even at the end there were aspects about Andie’s actions that I found hard to explain.
All that said, the book did keep my interest well enough while I was reading it, and I think there’s some valuable insight about processing grief. I especially enjoyed the frequent setting changes while the characters traveled to different cities in Europe.
Thank you to Penguin Books and NetGalley for the free review copy of Bad Publicity! All opinions in my review are completely my own.
