Showing posts with label Roman a Clefs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman a Clefs. Show all posts

Movie Star: A Novel by Lizzie Pepper by Hilary Liftin (2015)

If you've ever been even mildly intrigued by the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage/fiasco and the world of Hollywood and Scientology, you'll love this novel.

It's a marvelously dishy roman a clef fictional memoir by "Lizzie Pepper", a young actress who marries a megastar actor who is involved with a powerful Hollywood church/cult. Sound familiar? 

It's wonderfully Inside Hollywood not only in the Scientology scandal aspect but as how superstardom really works. It's a fascinating look at how the whole process works and a great slant on an often-speculated about, complicated relationship. Fun and SO dishy.

The Bestseller by Olivia Goldsmith (1996)

Poor Olivia Goldsmith.  She wrote some fun books, and some kind of lame books.  But The Bestseller is terrific fun.  A great expose of the publishing industry of the 80s/90s, it's dishy and gossipy.  It's also super fun to play "name that author" with this book.  So much thinly veiled author dirt is spilled!

Falling Out of Fashion by Karen Yampolsky (2007)

I love a roman a clef, and this one, written by Jane Pratt's assistant about "Jill White", her founding of the magazine "Cheeky", and her eponymous magazine is great fun. 

Certainly not well-written by any stretch of the imagination, and its thinly-disguised hero worship can get a little tedious, but it was a fun read, especially if you don't care for Jane Pratt.

Model Student by Robin Hazelwood (2006)

A dishy, trashy and thoroughly fun novel about a young girl who becomes a model in the 1980s, and balances her college life at Columbia University along with trying to succeed in the modeling world. 

Spot-on 80s references, thoroughly drawn characters and the soapy world of modeling make this a frothy treat, written by an actual ex-model.

Twins of Tribeca by Rachel Pine (2005)

A thinly veiled fictionalization of a young woman's experience working for Miramax. It's super fun to try and figure out (and it isn't hard) which films and actors she's talking about. When she gets fired from Miramax and the character points out that she didn't sign their non-disclosure clause, it's a great big HELL YEAH moment. Very fun reading for movie lovers.