Review summary: A story for the young internet crowd that is diverse and entertaining but suffers from an ending that feels unfinished
The plot of this novel poses a question that few other works of fiction do: how much can you draw from real life before it’s lazy, or even something worse? I first came across this kind of discussion concerning Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas and how it basically replicates the infamous Amanda Knox case. I have mixed feelings on so much of the plot and characters of “I Was Born for This” being based on the real-life people and events of One Direction. Obviously there have many boy bands that skyrocketed to dizzying heights of fame, though One Direction are the only ones to have done so in our current social media age, the same setting for this book. It’s not just the premise of a mega-popular British boy-band about to break America, however, it’s the specifics. One Direction and its hyper-focused fanbase gave rise to the infamous ‘Larry Stylinson’ - the shipping of Harry Style and Lois Tomlinson: there were hordes of fans convinced that they they were in love and hiding it by order of their management, that their girlfriends were beards, that they needed their fans’ support in order to reveal their love to the world. Some devoted their lives to the proving of it, and some still do, even though the band has broken up and the two of them don’t even seem to be friends anymore. That is replicated here with ‘Jowan’ - a significant plot point for the first half of the novel - and the same written analyses of their every interaction, the ‘real person fanfiction’, the video edits etc. Lister Bird is very obviously the Harry Styles of the group, and he recounts his first sexual experience as being with a 32 year-old woman when he was 16 - much like 17 year-old harry Styles dating 31 year-old Caroline Flack. There were probably more 1D-specific details included that I could point out if I had actually been involved in the 1D fandom the way Angel was with The Ark - yes, I wasn’t even a fan of 1D and all these things were obvious to me. My best estimation of how many specific elements Oseman took from real life is that it was lazy, my worst is that it managed to feel like cheating or even stealing, in a way.
Otherwise, the plot was enjoyable. The ‘action’ rose and fell in the right places, and the pace didn’t dawdle. Though events felt somewhat unbelievable at times, this is fiction so who cares. To top it off, any YA novel not including romance as a major plot point is a minor miracle, and always appreciated.
The characters are a diverse and interesting assortment of people. I liked where the character arcs were going, but felt that they were left extremely unfinished and brought down the whole novel as a result. Any story that revolves around young people and what they want to do with their lives is most likely going to have an ‘open’ ending, because one novel not only cannot cram a whole character’s life into one book, but it also doesn’t need to. And in the case of a character like Jimmy, where their character arc is about struggling with mental illness, getting rid of the mental illness is not necessitated by a ‘resolved’ character arc - because mental illness is never truly ‘resolved’, only managed for the rest of your life. A character arc is not the character’s life journey from A to Z, but rather an important period in their life where they experience events and emotions that shape who they are and give us an idea of how the rest of their life will continue. A character arc doesn’t have to end with all of their problems solved, but they must be in a place where have a feeling of how they will continue from here and (in a novel like this one, at least) that they will be okay.
[SPOILERS in the next paragraph]
Angel has decided what she would like to do for a career, but that was the least of her problems. She acknowledged that her single-minded focus on the minutiae of a boy band was unhealthy and was the result of deeper issues with herself, but we don’t find out what she plans to do about it. Jimmy’s bandmates now know that he is struggling with anxiety, and likewise Jimmy and Rowan know that Lister is an alcoholic, but we don’t get even the vaguest suggestion what steps either of them are going to take to do anything about it. The boys have collectively decided to negotiate their new contract, but the novel ends without even the beginnings of that process and all earlier comments were that it would be impossible. These are all big issues, so their open-endedness is not only unsatisfactory for the reader, it feels like a cop-out on Oseman’s part. Likewise, she has been praised for including all these important but often ignored themes, but I felt that she merely introduced them, explored them a little, and then abandoned them at the point where they become difficult and called it the end of the novel. The bulk of the novel that so heavily established these character arcs should have been cut back, and more added to the end to give them a satisfying resolution. Angel is more self-aware but doesn't seem to know what to do about it anyway, and the situation the boys end in is hardly any different to how they began except they’re all now aware of each others’ problems. Honestly the most major difference is probably that Lister’s been stabbed. The level of open-endedness felt like the type of indie movie that cuts off at a point you weren’t expecting and leaves you wondering what it all meant - though that’s obviously not what this novel was going for at all. Tying-up a novel in a way that is neither to messy nor too neat is perhaps the most difficult part of all; I felt that Oseman nailed it in her novel “Radio Silence” and messed it up here.
Oseman’s prose doesn’t stand out as beautifully crafted or emotionally hard-hitting, but it is endlessly readable. This is my second Oseman novel I have read since I returned to reading after putting it on hold due to cognitive difficulties, and I powered through both at a reading speed I didn’t know I was capable of; not even because I was dying to know what would happen, but because her writing is just so easy to read. Oseman’s greatest strength is writing how teenagers actually talk and think, unlike the college-age philosophy students that authors like John Green try to pass off as teenagers. It can border on cringy, since the written word comes across quite differently to the spoken, but it’s realistic, and I’m sure it’s highly relatable to actual teenagers.
A novel with an unsatisfying ending puts you in a weird situation: when as you’re reading you’re enjoying every element but then the novel ends when you didn't feel things were finished at all, and you have to reevaluate everything you had enjoyed and try to form a totally new opinion. As a result I’m not entirely sure if this rating is too harsh or too lenient, but it’ll have to do.
Weaker points:
Ending
Stronger points:
Humour
Dialogue
Relatability
No romance
Diversity
Content/age appropriateness warnings: physical assault, POV anxiety and panic attacks, non-explicit past transphobia, non-explicit discussions of sex, alcoholism
The plot of this novel poses a question that few other works of fiction do: how much can you draw from real life before it’s lazy, or even something worse? I first came across this kind of discussion concerning Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas and how it basically replicates the infamous Amanda Knox case. I have mixed feelings on so much of the plot and characters of “I Was Born for This” being based on the real-life people and events of One Direction. Obviously there have many boy bands that skyrocketed to dizzying heights of fame, though One Direction are the only ones to have done so in our current social media age, the same setting for this book. It’s not just the premise of a mega-popular British boy-band about to break America, however, it’s the specifics. One Direction and its hyper-focused fanbase gave rise to the infamous ‘Larry Stylinson’ - the shipping of Harry Style and Lois Tomlinson: there were hordes of fans convinced that they they were in love and hiding it by order of their management, that their girlfriends were beards, that they needed their fans’ support in order to reveal their love to the world. Some devoted their lives to the proving of it, and some still do, even though the band has broken up and the two of them don’t even seem to be friends anymore. That is replicated here with ‘Jowan’ - a significant plot point for the first half of the novel - and the same written analyses of their every interaction, the ‘real person fanfiction’, the video edits etc. Lister Bird is very obviously the Harry Styles of the group, and he recounts his first sexual experience as being with a 32 year-old woman when he was 16 - much like 17 year-old harry Styles dating 31 year-old Caroline Flack. There were probably more 1D-specific details included that I could point out if I had actually been involved in the 1D fandom the way Angel was with The Ark - yes, I wasn’t even a fan of 1D and all these things were obvious to me. My best estimation of how many specific elements Oseman took from real life is that it was lazy, my worst is that it managed to feel like cheating or even stealing, in a way.
Otherwise, the plot was enjoyable. The ‘action’ rose and fell in the right places, and the pace didn’t dawdle. Though events felt somewhat unbelievable at times, this is fiction so who cares. To top it off, any YA novel not including romance as a major plot point is a minor miracle, and always appreciated.
The characters are a diverse and interesting assortment of people. I liked where the character arcs were going, but felt that they were left extremely unfinished and brought down the whole novel as a result. Any story that revolves around young people and what they want to do with their lives is most likely going to have an ‘open’ ending, because one novel not only cannot cram a whole character’s life into one book, but it also doesn’t need to. And in the case of a character like Jimmy, where their character arc is about struggling with mental illness, getting rid of the mental illness is not necessitated by a ‘resolved’ character arc - because mental illness is never truly ‘resolved’, only managed for the rest of your life. A character arc is not the character’s life journey from A to Z, but rather an important period in their life where they experience events and emotions that shape who they are and give us an idea of how the rest of their life will continue. A character arc doesn’t have to end with all of their problems solved, but they must be in a place where have a feeling of how they will continue from here and (in a novel like this one, at least) that they will be okay.
[SPOILERS in the next paragraph]
Angel has decided what she would like to do for a career, but that was the least of her problems. She acknowledged that her single-minded focus on the minutiae of a boy band was unhealthy and was the result of deeper issues with herself, but we don’t find out what she plans to do about it. Jimmy’s bandmates now know that he is struggling with anxiety, and likewise Jimmy and Rowan know that Lister is an alcoholic, but we don’t get even the vaguest suggestion what steps either of them are going to take to do anything about it. The boys have collectively decided to negotiate their new contract, but the novel ends without even the beginnings of that process and all earlier comments were that it would be impossible. These are all big issues, so their open-endedness is not only unsatisfactory for the reader, it feels like a cop-out on Oseman’s part. Likewise, she has been praised for including all these important but often ignored themes, but I felt that she merely introduced them, explored them a little, and then abandoned them at the point where they become difficult and called it the end of the novel. The bulk of the novel that so heavily established these character arcs should have been cut back, and more added to the end to give them a satisfying resolution. Angel is more self-aware but doesn't seem to know what to do about it anyway, and the situation the boys end in is hardly any different to how they began except they’re all now aware of each others’ problems. Honestly the most major difference is probably that Lister’s been stabbed. The level of open-endedness felt like the type of indie movie that cuts off at a point you weren’t expecting and leaves you wondering what it all meant - though that’s obviously not what this novel was going for at all. Tying-up a novel in a way that is neither to messy nor too neat is perhaps the most difficult part of all; I felt that Oseman nailed it in her novel “Radio Silence” and messed it up here.
Oseman’s prose doesn’t stand out as beautifully crafted or emotionally hard-hitting, but it is endlessly readable. This is my second Oseman novel I have read since I returned to reading after putting it on hold due to cognitive difficulties, and I powered through both at a reading speed I didn’t know I was capable of; not even because I was dying to know what would happen, but because her writing is just so easy to read. Oseman’s greatest strength is writing how teenagers actually talk and think, unlike the college-age philosophy students that authors like John Green try to pass off as teenagers. It can border on cringy, since the written word comes across quite differently to the spoken, but it’s realistic, and I’m sure it’s highly relatable to actual teenagers.
A novel with an unsatisfying ending puts you in a weird situation: when as you’re reading you’re enjoying every element but then the novel ends when you didn't feel things were finished at all, and you have to reevaluate everything you had enjoyed and try to form a totally new opinion. As a result I’m not entirely sure if this rating is too harsh or too lenient, but it’ll have to do.
Weaker points:
Ending
Stronger points:
Humour
Dialogue
Relatability
No romance
Diversity
Content/age appropriateness warnings: physical assault, POV anxiety and panic attacks, non-explicit past transphobia, non-explicit discussions of sex, alcoholism
