THE CLOSE-UP

by Pip Drysdale

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers Australia, 2024

Review

by Lily Malone

I enjoyed The Close-up as a holiday read in the new year, the first time I have read Pip Drysdale.

It took me a little while to warm to the writing style, and to the main character, author Zoe Weiss. Zoe has moved from London to Los Angeles, where this story is set. 

Zoe has second-book syndrome – kind of a mix of writer’s block, but mostly a sense of writing failure – because her debut book, for various reasons, didn’t do as well as she’d hoped. Poised on the edge of achieving every goal with her writing, she’s now shoved down to the mid-list for her agent and publisher. She needs a new book idea, and she needs it like, yesterday.

On her 30th birthday, Zoe’s mates are encouraging her to reach for her dreams, seize the day etc, and so Zoe does, with a chance encounter with the boy who got away. He was a bartender when Zoe knew him, now he’s a major Hollywood star. After hooking up with her old flame, Zoe suddenly has the story idea and pitch she’s been hunting for.

By the time Zoe rekindles her affair with Zach Hamilton, I had come to terms with the writing style, and with the angsty, anxious wannabe-famous Zoe as a character, and was really into this read.

Unfortunately for Zoe, as soon as her life heats up with love, words and drama, it also spirals into disaster.

Once Zoe starts seeing Zach and gets outed in the press, astalker begins acting out scenes from Zoe’s debut novel… and the tension rises. The stalker scenes were done really well. The plot twists in this were well crafted and believable, which I always look for in thrillers. I was with Zoe 100% through her dramas, and clapping her as the story resolved. 

But then THE EPILOGUE! Oh no! But then again… Oh Yes!

Congratulations to Pip Drysdale on an engaging read.

Publisher’s blurb

Things have not been going well for Zoe Ann Weiss. Once a young novelist full of promise, now she has a failed debut under her belt, a mountain of debt, a dead-end job, and an agent who’s about to drop her if she doesn’t write something new and brilliant soon.

Worst of all, she’s blocked. Can’t-write-a-word blocked. But all that changes one night when she runs into her old flame, Zach Hamilton. It’s like no time has passed at all. They start casually dating, and Zach makes her feel like anything is possible. Like the stars have finally realigned themselves in her favour.

Best of all, her writer’s block has disappeared.

The only issue is Zach isn’t just some hot guy with a dream anymore. Now he’s a movie star with billboards and PR people and fans and paparazzi … and even though they’re dating in secret, Zoe soon finds herself splashed all over the press. Now everyone seems to know her name.

But the problem with everyone knowing your name is that everyone knows your name … including the stalker who’s obsessed with Zach. The stalker who’s re-enacting violent, creepy plot twists from Zoe’s first novel, exactly how she wrote them – except now, she’s the victim.