Can Child Stars Have A Normal Life?
Plus, events, book anxiety, reviews and more.
Hi everyone,
Where Are You, Echo Blue? has been out for 3 weeks and 2 days! Everyone’s asking me how I feel, and honestly, I feel… exhausted! (But also super excited for more people to read my book. ) There are so many emotions in putting out a book, but it’s basically a rotating cycle of these three feelings: anxiety, fear, excitement, anxiety, fear, excitement repeat repeat repeat.
If you want an autographed or personalized copy, all you have to do is order a copy from Watchung Booksellers. It’s still so important to leave reviews and tell people about my book. Please leave a review on Goodreads, Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Libro.fm. Reviews are SO important for sales. So please humor me.
Also! If you don’t see Echo Blue at your local bookstore or library, please ask if they will order it for the store. This is the best way to support me and I thank you thank you thank you.
Lastly, if you already bought or are reading my book, please post it on social media and tag me! I love seeing all the love.
Events
Tuesday, August 13: Thunder Road Books, Spring Lake, NJ at 7pm
I will be in conversation with the amazing Laura Sims at Thunder Road Books in Spring Lake, NJ at 7pm about Echo Blue. If you are down the shore, or if you’re a South Jersey kind of person, I hope you come to the event. It’s going to be so good. Laura, who wrote Looker and How Can I Help You? is the queen of writing characters who completely fall into madness. Looker is about a woman who becomes obsessed with the actress in her neighborhood, was one of the inspirations for Goldie Klein, the journalist who stalks Echo Blue.
Saturday, September 7 at 2pm: Barnes & Noble, Lake Grove, NY
In conversation with The Cheerleaders author Kara Thomas about her new book, The Champions
Thursday, October 24, at 7pm: Book Soup, Los Angeles
In conversation with Halley Sutton author of The Hurricane Blonde.
Can Child Stars Have a Normal Life?
As I researched my novel about a missing child star, I didn’t have to look hard for the most salacious and disturbing stories. The downfall of the child star is a constant narrative. There was supposed to be a reckoning about how young stars were treated in the press after close examination of how stars like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan were treated. But when I follow the conversation around JoJo Siwa and how she’s being belittled everywhere, I wonder if any of that has changed.
Former child stars have written about their harrowing Hollywood experiences, detailing their abuse in the hands of their parents, industry professionals or both. In April, former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell accused a dialogue coach of sexual abuse in the docuseries, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. There's “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy, “Little Girl Lost,” by Drew Barrymore and “A Paper Life by" Tatum O’Neal. In the documentary Showbiz Kids, Evan Rachel Wood said her childhood was idyllic. But because she was always working with adults, she felt the need to be the “Good girl.”
We see so many instances of child stars being abused by either neglectful parents and exposed by industry insiders or both. It’s made to seem that child stars are destined for failure. It begs the question: can child stars have a normal life?
Raegan Revord, who played Missy in the CBS show Young Sheldon, is the kind of child star who has her own agency. She started a book club for her 1.2 million Instagram followers a few years ago called Read with Raegan. She has her own book Rules for Fake Girlfriends, coming out from Wednesday Books in fall 2025. Raegan chose two of my books for her book club. First The Falling Girls back in 2022. And then this summer she chose Where Are You, Echo Blue? for her July book club.
Raegan is a great person. She’s only 16, but inhabits the mind of a 40 year old. Yet, she’s also still very much a kid. She interviewed me for her book club and we had such a great, fascinating conversation. It was pretty meta: here I was an author writing about a child star and here she was an actual child star. She felt super connected to Echo in that she understood what it felt like to be chased by fans, by what it meant to grow up in the public eye.
Look, there are plenty of child stars who have made it through. Who went to college. Who have had successful careers. Who aren’t falling apart at the seams. Jodie Foster. Natalie Portman. Zendaya. Daniel Radcliffe.
In her book The Cultural Significance of the Child Star, sociologist Jane O’Connor wrote:
The idea that there is a curse on child stars which inevitably leads them into disaster in adult life… is a pervasive one in our media culture and is consistently reinforced through sensationalist newspaper headlines.
It’s true, right? Those are the stories we see. About Miley. Lindsay. Before them it was Drew Barrymore. It was Tatum O’Neal.
But here’s the truth: child stars give us hope. We like to see children reflected in our entertainment because, as O’Connor says, “They are are what we can never be again.” Do they grow up with problems? Yes. Just like adults do.
And to answer my own question: Can child stars have a normal life? No, probably not. That’s because they’re not “normal” from the start! They’re growing up in the public eye. They can sometimes feel lonely and isolated. They’re working with adults at an early age. And they have fans who want to be near them at sometimes unhealthy levels. And why should we want them to be normal? They’re extraordinary kids.
I hope I’m not spoiling anything for anyone at this point, but in Echo Blue, I give Echo the gift of freedom. She leaves her world of shitty parents and exploitave adults to find herself and decides what she wants in life. I wanted to give that to Echo, give her agency, because after I met Tatum O’Neal and was so deeply affected by her story, I reimagined what her life would look like if she left Hollywood after making all of her movies as a kid. If she had supportive adults around her to guide her. A best friend who wanted to to take care of her. Would she be able to start new? Would she want to. For me, that was my gift to Echo. I wanted her to have peace.
Thanks for reading. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
-Hayley