Carter Moon is a Hobbit, a girl born in Little, California she plans on staying in this familiar small town working at her family’s cafe for the rest of her life with no desire or ambition to explore the rest of the world. Carter’s summer before her senior year is taken over when Hollywood comes to Little bringing movie star Adam Jakes to town. A hopeless 17-year-old actor stuck in the world of Hollywood on his way to making his big comeback after attending rehab for drug use, Adam is just the kind of stuck-up, self-absorbed, stereotypical Hollywood star Carter hates. But when Carter is offered money, that could help her gambling addicted brother, to pretend to be Adam’s small town girlfriend while he is shooting in Little, Carter may discover another side to this movie-star. Catch a Falling Star by Kim Culbertson tells the story of two young teenagers from two very different worlds.
At first, Adam Jakes is the stereotypical movie-star Carter expects him to be; always staring at his iphone, leaving trash for other people to throw away, and always concerned about how he looks in the eyes of social media. But as she spends more time with him, she discovers another side to this super-star, a sensitive thoughtful guy who puts down his iphone to listen. The weeks of summer come and go and soon spending time with Adam doesn’t feel like a job anymore.
Carter only agrees to “fake-date” Adam in order to get money for her brother to pay back the people he owes and get him help with his gambling addiction. Now that Carter has really gotten to know Adam, she begins to have feelings for him. On top of that her parents are pushing her to go to college and explore the world outside of Little, as well as get her to start dancing again, which she quit after turning down the opportunity to go to a prestigious dance school in New York.
“You should try things on, see if they fit you. If they don’t, it’s not failure. It’s a choice. But always let yourself have a choice, let yourself have possibilities.” This books explores the opportunity of choices and possibilities. Carter was never an adventurous girl and never thought of any other possibility than staying exactly where she was, doing exactly what she is. Soon the people in her life will encourage her to try new things and discover the rest of the world.
Culbertson’s book explores themes of love, choices, future, regret and overall life. An inspiring book of two people from two completely different worlds with different kinds of pressures pushing each of them to be a certain person and live a certain life. But ultimately it’s their choice what future to pick, what decisions to make, what things to regret, and what ending is theirs. “That was the great thing about growing up. We got to write our own endings, thousands of them, over and over. That WAS life. It was a million little endings. Even when other people thought we were writing them wrong.”