DNF @ 80%

The synopsis of the book really caught my interest but unfortunately I just couldn’t continue on. This book was SO LONG when it didn’t have to be. I almost DNF’ed at 40% because I just didn’t care so much for the characters (the fact that it’s told from about 7 different character POVs can get quite confusing as well) but I pushed on because I wanted to know what would happen to “Tatum”, our main character who is 30 years old pretending to be a teenager, when she eventually gets caught. I didn’t make it to that part. I liked reading about the relationship between Taylor and Tatum and the LGBTQ representation but the story just got too repetitive. I’m sure there are people out there who will really enjoy this but it just didn’t hold my attention.

Thank you to netgalley and CLASH Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review ✨

I'm afraid I found this a deeply odd book and just could not figure out what it was trying to say. Sometimes I wish books came with an essay by the author explaining why they wrote the book and what they were attempting to achieve with it. This is one of those times! If this had been written by a man I would be disgusted - a lot of it reads like a series of lurid sexual fantasies about teenagers. I confess that as the author is a woman I find myself looking for a "why" to this story or some kind of "message," though perhaps there is nothing there. I cannot submit the review without a rating so I have to give this one star, although I would still like to understand the book more and know my interpretation may be faulty.

Tatum Grant was a child star. She spent her formative years in Hollywood, essentially being bounced from set to set to please the adults in her life. She totally missed out on having any sort of normalcy in her childhood. And then she became a teen age mother having been impregnated by a much older very famous actor. Soooooo at age 31, she leaves her mother and her starlet daughter in Hollywood to start her life over.

Tatum travels to small town Elkheart ( yes there’s an e in heart) Indiana, where using the ID of her 16 year old daughter, she summons up her best acting skills to take on the real life role of a high school student. She makes friends with the most popular girl in class, has sex with boys and grown men and indeed lives the life she has missed. Elizabeth Ellen is an award winning author and her plot sounds intriguing. BUT in reality, for me, it just didn’t work.

Told from a plethora of POVs I felt the story lacked continuity, became confusing and complicated causing me to lose interest. It turned out to be too much work keeping characters and events straight. Also it was just too long given the unending series of narrators. Some of the sex scenes were very descriptive. I’m usually okay with that but here it felt just too dramatic and a tad too titillating. The fact they the characters aren’t likable didn’t phase me. In the past I have loved books and despised the characters.

I’ll bet there are other readers who will enjoy this book for all the reasons I did not. I can see it as a chart topping movie. It just wasn’t for me. So a mere two disappointing stars for a book I had trouble reading until the end. My thanks to CLASH books and Netgalley for and ARC in exchange for my review. Publication date is January 28, 2025.

As someone who to this day still believes Bret Easton Ellis's "American Psycho" to be one of the greatest books of all-time, I've long had no issue with embracing the more challenging, controversial, and perhaps even offensive side of literature.

However, I never could quite immerse myself in the world being created by Elizabeth Ellen in "American Thighs," a book I have no doubt will have an audience and could easily become optioned for cinematic adaptation.

I'm simply not it.

In "American Thighs," Pushcart Award-winner Ellen introduces us to Tatum, a 31-year-old former child star and her journey from Hollywood to Elkhart, Indiana (spelled "Elkheart" in the book, though one hopes this will be corrected as it's distracting).

Tatum spent her early years on various film sets and Hollywood locales, a story we've heard before including the fact that she became impregnated by an award-winning actor fifteen years her senior. Fifteen years after his death, Tatum experiences an existential crisis and ends up leaving behind Hollywood, her mother, and even her 16-year-old daughter and heads toward the Midwest determined to, for the first time, experience a normal high school life.

In its marketing, "American Thighs" is compared to both Tom Perrota's "Election" and the film "Heathers," loose comparisons at best. There is something here, I suppose, as we watch Tatum use her childhood talents to manipulate her way into a life that never feels quite right to anyone around her. She earns a spot on the cheer team, dates a football player, befriends the schools most popular girl, and yet also shows glimpses of an uncommon maternal side and begins to show the cracks of a childhood wildly misspent.

As a reader, I don't need characters I like. This is good. There are none here I particularly cared for at all.

As a reader, I don't necessarily need a world with which I identify. I definitely don't identify with the world here and never once bought into it.

As a reader, I'm willing to be offended (at times, I was), willing to be challenged (on occasion, I was), and willing to embrace the absurdity (I wanted to, however, mostly found it too manipulative to buy into). I could never quite visualize this world, something I really wanted, and thus the little things bothered me - like a misspelled "Elkheart" or the various other little attributes of the story that would actually, in all likelihood, play off well on the big-screen.

I'm leaning into what feels like a generous three-star rating here mostly because I see what Ellen's going for and do think there will be those who connect with this novel. It wasn't for me, something that surprised me, but my hope for any writer is that their book finds the audience it deserves. I have friends to this day who don't understand my love for "American Psycho" and other books with a similar tone. While I'm not one of them, there will be readers who embrace Ellen's relentless, fearless, and at times quite touching story of culture, love, loss, and the absurdity of it all.

This felt like a 90s high school movie mixed with Tampa by Nutting. Predators. Predators everywhere. I was pretty grossed out the entire time. I couldn’t believe everyone’s responses to all of these crazy events. The format was interesting but made it somewhat difficult to stay engaged in the story.

I honestly gave this book a lot of time to get interesting but I had a hard time following the storyline. The description was great but the story didn’t hold my interest.

This is complicated. I don’t know about this one.

Tatum Grant was a child star (c’mon, Tatum?!?! Really?), spending her formative years on location and on various film sets. Then she got pregnant, the father an older, award winning actor.

Fifteen years after the actor’s death Tatum leaves L.A., her mother and daughter and goes off on a search for her authentic self. She uses her daughter’s ID and poses as a sixteen year old high school student at Dobson High School in the hometown of the actor, living the life of a popular teen, because she is Stockard Channing. Oh, wait until the police catch on. And did I mention she is having torrid sex with teachers and MINORS? Because she is. There are predators everywhere. This is one fucked up high school, if you’ll pardon my French. I’m sorry, they don’t offer French? Or any other classes? Because they are busy with cheerleading and sex? Got it.

What, if anything, are we to take from this? Based just on the title I would say it might just be an avenue to portray illicit, predatory sex. I didn’t really see much, if any redeeming roles for any of the mothers and daughters here. There are the LOLITAS of this world, then there is….this. I did like the use of multiple POVs, including real life stars and others in the film industry…so much better than the use of made up names that have no context.

Oh, if someone is going to college on a D1 golf scholarship, maybe they should have, I don’t know, have played golf at some point in the book? Just a thought. This was a bit of a mess.

I did really enjoy this book and found the alternating POVs really interesting but my god it was SO long!

In "American Thighs", former child star 'Tatum' Grant disguises herself as a high school student in order to be able to experience the typical adolescence that she missed out on.

I think the 3 stars is generous, and only slightly warranted for one reason: I kind of needed to know where this trainwreck was heading next so I kept turning the page.

The premise is promising but I found so many other factors unsatisfactory. For starters, despite her crazy backstory, Tatum fails as a protagonist. She's bland (admittedly this is purposeful) and then extremely unlikable. I don't mind unlikable female protagonists! But in this case I don't think it works- from the dedication and the initial part of the book I thought the goal was to create sympathy for celebrities (how they are under constant scrutiny, robbed of a sense of normalcy, etc) but Tatum makes this very difficult for reasons that would 100% be a spoiler (a predictable one at that). My main issue in fact is entirely tied to that exact spoiler - I think it's a heavy topic not handled very well.

My other criticism are a bit more due to personal preference: the bouncing between POVs get tiring/repetitive and makes it hard to care about any characters initially; I found the book to drag a bit and like it could do with a cut so that could be a factor as to why. Also slightly petty but I found the references to real life celebs lazy and not very relevant in 2024- do actual 15 year old girls still care about Demi Lovato?

The book could still probably find its own niche audience but overall I found it an uncomfortable yet dull read. I think some of the themes presented are interesting and worth discussing: the cycle of abuse; trauma; the difference in the way a male abuser is treated compared to a female abuser. I just don't think this book does a good job of having that discussion to be honest.

I received this free advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and feedback.

American Thighs is primary the story of two women, Anissa Grant/Tatum and Taylor Ragner. Anissa is a former child actress that leaves her family and life behind in California bound for a small town in Indiana. Elkhart, IN is where Taylor is the fifteen year old most popular girl in town. The quintessential cheerleader dating the quarterback. Told in a variety of voices the story traces events as Tatum poses as high school sophomore, sixteen instead of her real age of thirty.

This book just wasn’t for me. The plot was interesting but the constant staccato formed by bouncing between characters POVs in such short bursts made it hard to initially get interested in these characters. I think lengthening and developing some of these passages would have been much less jarring.

There is a lot of overt sexualization in this book and a good bit of misogyny. The teen boys and men sexualize the girls and the girls sexualize themselves. I think the author was making a point by making this such a constant part of the storytelling, but it did begin to feel excessive. It also took a good half of the book before the action picked up. As I said, this book was just not my my cup of tea.

I received this free advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and feedback.

American Thighs - I wasn’t sure if the title were a tribute to the song.
A child star grows up, though she was never allowed to be a child in the first place.
One of the most interesting aspects of the premise is available in the blurb, though I hope you forget about it by the time you start reading this book, just for the thrill.
I have extremely mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I trust Ellen’s creativity, I liked the premise, the themes, the vibes and the setting.
The abrupt cuts to different and surprise POVs is exciting, though the style, and the execution did not let these characters and the concept to live up to its full potential. The nuances and layers are a bit lacking. It is possible that some of the choices were deliberate and part of the humour/criticism, and might be appealing to the TikTok gen, though I wanted something else.

Thank you for the advance copy. I appreciate it.

American Thighs by Elizabeth Ellen is an absolute standout. The writing is raw, honest, and unapologetically real, making it a book that lingers long after you finish. Elizabeth Ellen has a unique voice that captures the complexities of life, love, and identity in a way that feels intimate and universal. The characters are vividly drawn, and their stories are full of emotion and depth. Every page is filled with sharp observations and powerful moments that resonate deeply. American Thighs is a must-read if you’re looking for a book that challenges, provokes, and ultimately moves you.

Super easy to get lost in! Celebs, gossip, relationships, and more! I enjoyed it! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This book could have been great. This book should have been loved by fans of Tom Perrotta, but I certainly didn’t find it appealing In fact, I found it confusing and FULL of names and characters and sub-plots and sub-sub-plots. OMG, and gratuitous sex that seems to point to sex as disgusting and unappetizing.

The author uses the old chestnut of reliving one’s high school experience through the eyes of a mature adult while masquerading as a teenager. This is an overused plot, but injecting inappropriate sex made me cringe.

So, for a novel that I was excited about reading, I am very disappointed. Characters with multiple names and little clarity are not a good idea.

I’m so sorry, but I really can’t recommend this book. Thank you Netgalley For providing me with this ARC.

Ellen is a very, very talented writer - which I want to make clear, because I think it was the format of the book that just didn’t work for me. There were too many voices to follow too quickly, so for me there was too much going on at once to enjoy the book properly - but Ellen’s writing is skilful, sharp and witty, so I’m sure many other readers will love this! Just not for me this time.