You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
A very bleak take on life and struggles in Hollywood during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Like a grim , nasty cousin of ‚The Great Gatsby‘ we follow Tod Hackett, an young man, and his encounters with Faye Greener, a wannabe starlet, and Homer Simpson (!), serving as her sugar daddy.
There isn’t really a tightly knit plot but more vignettes of glimpses into a rough, bleak and nasty life of people struggling to make it in the seemingly glitzy and glamorous city of Angels.
I enjoyed the prose style and the descriptions and the increasing uneasy feeling that something has to go wrong looms over every scene.
There isn’t really a tightly knit plot but more vignettes of glimpses into a rough, bleak and nasty life of people struggling to make it in the seemingly glitzy and glamorous city of Angels.
I enjoyed the prose style and the descriptions and the increasing uneasy feeling that something has to go wrong looms over every scene.
dark
tense
fast-paced
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Whew that was a grim read! And here I was thinking nobody got disillusioned with Hollywood until the 1970s.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment
Minor: Child abuse
ok like I get that the point of the whole thing was to make you feel absolutely miserable, and it worked and I guess in a way that’s impressive? I just feel like the novella didn’t have that much to say
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I decided to read this short novel because my favorite author (Chuck Palahniuk) said it inspired his early writing, and I can definitely see what he got from this novel and where he found inspiration. This novel gave the vibe of The Great Gatsby and overall was pretty good.
So viscerally uncomfortable. No one in this gets off scot-free, they are all horrible and are beaten down by their paradise of orange trees and silver-screen glamor. First metaphorically, then literally. West carries us to the end in extreme fashion.
dark
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes