Review: Almost Royalty by Courtney Hamilton

Almost Royalty by Courtney Hamilton, AF -Romantic Comedy, 2014, ARC signed paperback, 302p, My Rating=2
Source: provided by publicist in exchange for an honest review

Courtney Hamilton is a Velveeta-loving attorney driven to distraction by a city that seethes with soul-sucking status seekers. When her friend Marcie formulates an impossibly detailed rating system for acceptable men--the Los Angeles Eco-Chain of Dating--Courtney goes on a self-destructive binge that doesn’t stop until she gets thrown out of group therapy for insulting a former child actress.
Courtney is mortified as she watches her best friends give up stellar careers in law and the arts to marry entertainment royalty and civilian overachievers. Worse, they expect Courtney to do the same. So they hatch plots to get her to give up her career, break her addiction to fake cheese, marry into high-orbit wealth and rule the stratosphere alongside them.
But Courtney resists. She doesn’t want to be a poster child for the Opt-Out Generation. And she certainly doesn’t want to be molded into date bait for the top rung of L.A. society. All Courtney wants is to be left alone so she can search beneath the surface for a meaningful life. But between a meddling, narcissistic mother, a self-absorbed therapist and friends trying to send her to dating re-education camps, it seems that fake cheese is the only genuine thing left in the city. Social ambition combats self-actualization in this biting tale of one woman’s search for certainty in a city full of mirages.

Beautiful book cover and fascinating blurb so I'm not sure what this tells about my sense of humor since I struggled reading this book.  I couldn't get into the rhythm of this class defining romantic comedy.  It literally took me a month to read this because I wasn't getting it.  It felt like reading a boring textbook.  Haha, maybe I'm too low in the "Eco-Chain" to understand!  But seriously I plugged along trying to read between the lines and see a purposeful plot.  Still wasn't getting it.  Not that there wasn't a plot but again perhaps I'm not hip enough to find the novel funny as intended.  Anyway, I wanted to like this Velveeta-loving main character but for a supposed smart, down-to-earth woman she sure makes poor decisions.  Yes, I know that smart and down-to-earth people make bad choices too but there was just too many negative vibes that I got from the read.  Also found many social group classing and stereotypes disconcerting.  Many of the characters would be interesting if given a better venue as well.  Oh, I can't explain it eloquently!  Basically, I think this book just wasn't for me.  I was hoping the ending would make up for the tedious beginning and middle but nope, just finally something good happened.  However, by that time I was exhausted and indifferent.