Starry Eyed by Katharine Pollock
“Addilyn was simultaneously deep in denial while also teetering on the cusp of regret. The idea that she’d been nothing more to Josh than a convenient black hole to be filled by his spacecraft made her stomach churn biliously.”
The tagline for Katharine Pollock’s second novel, Starry Eyed (2025, Wakefield Press), declares it “an international story of starting over,” but it seems to be less about starting over than simply starting in life. Addilyn Acker is a withdrawn character, churning away her twenties working for a dodgy call centre in Sydney, living for her pet rabbit Jolly, and managing her fanfic website dedicated to the 1990s sci-fi cult classic movie Scarlett Fever. Her days are meticulously routine, down to the unenjoyable monthly dinner with her mother and the weekly office rent drop-off to the building manager, John.
We learn that Addilyn originally set out to study film studies at university, but one dismissive comment from a professor sees her fleeing campus and landing her call centre job – a safe, grey, dull environment that Addilyn hasn’t seen fit to try and leave for a decade. This tells you everything you need to know about how Addilyn interacts with the world and what she’s (not) seeking from it.
“Addilyn read the feedback in a daze and wandered out of the lecture hall with her eyes downcast. She took a wrong turn on her way to the bus and found herself in front of an imposing building. A notice taped to the front door advertised a job opportunity.”
Her thrills in life are sought by revisiting Scarlett Fever and the online fandom that remains, if waning somewhat, around the director Josh ‘Jolly’ Courtney and the galactic world-building of the movie. Addilyn’s life, unremarkable though it is, seems set, and she wants for nothing more. That is, until an unexpected phone call arrives from none other than Josh Courtney’s PR manager, inviting her to interview him at Cosmic Con in New York City. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime and one that will see Addilyn’s long-harboured fantasies become a reality.
And so what if there have been some rumours emerging about Josh and his conduct with women? She has to go right?
“Addilyn did not believe the claim for even a second. In the deepest recesses of her subconscious she may have half-believed it for half a second, but that was the limit. Josh was a nice man! He had named his guitar after his mum: nobody who did that could be a bad guy.”
New York offers Addilyn an opportunity to begin shedding her old skin and tentatively unpack who she could – or perhaps wants – to be. A series of characters, including the audacious British hippie Sally, whom she meets at her hostel, and Anthony, a comic-store co-owner, invite Addilyn to reconsider how others perceive her and what this means for her self-perception. Tentative sparks fly between Anthony and Addilyn, but her interview with THE Josh Courtney is looming, and she cannot be distracted.
After the somewhat underwhelming interview, Josh’s PR manager calls to tell her he’s keen to meet and “unpack things”. There’s more than one fantasy of Addilyn’s on the line. And that little issue of Josh being married isn’t such an issue. They’re practically divorced. Right?
“If Josh were ever to break the sacred bonds of monogamy, it would be with someone strong, smart, and unassuming. Someone deserving. Someone like Addilyn? Perhaps, but she would never presume to say so.”
At the heart of Starry Eyed is an invitation to grow up a bit and see certain things for what they are. It’s an interesting exploration of fan culture and the blind eye these communities are often willing to turn to the unsavoury (and predatory) behaviour of those they admire. Addilyn’s sheltered lifestyle allows her to be drawn into a world of ambiguous consent in the wake of the Me Too movement, leaving a somewhat bitter taste on reading. While Pollock offers a quiet redemption of Addilyn's situation, it feels a little rushed towards the end of the novel.
In pursuit of bringing in the romantic element between Anthony and Addilyn, I felt there was a missed opportunity to go into the heart of Addilyn’s experience with Josh. I would have liked a more thorough unpacking of Addilyn’s growth from this. Pollock also attempts to explore the fraught dynamics between a mother and daughter who have lost the connecting point of husband/father between them. I again felt this was a little undercooked – it teeters on the edge of being more fleshed out and the core threads of this novel felt sacrificed in favour of each other. All the brilliant elements are there, but it suffers from a fault of trying to do and say too much with too little space and time.
This is not to say this is a bad novel. Pollock has a lot of personal experience with fan fiction culture, and this really shines through in Addilyn. It’s a fascinating perspective, and you can’t help but hope the best for Adilyn.
It feels like Starry Eyed is being positioned as a rom-com, but it is far from it. The characters are full of life and authenticity, and as frustrating as Addilyn’s choices are at times, you’ll definitely be rooting for her to find her way, not just romantically.
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
