Reviews

Divas Las Vegas by Rob Rosen

naomi_branham's review

2.0

Honestly not sure how to rate this book. I picked it up for a challalenge or else I likely wouldn't have finished it. Two best friends go to Vegas to try to track down and old vase that was Em's grandmas. They pop pills and drink all day and do a lot of hooking up. In the mean time they end up at the center of a murder investigation and in trouble. The rest of the story unfolds as they navigate their situation and danger.

avid_reader_53's review against another edition

4.0

Not really my bag of tea, but the author managed to my attention scene after scene because I just to know what these drag quen divas were going to do next or what trouble would find them next.

So you funny, screaming, high matience drag queens that love to get into trouble, please pick up this book.

audreyintheheadphones's review

5.0

The bottom was about to drop out from under us and there we were, as usual, without our protective bottom-dropping safety apparatuses on. Luckily, there was a silver lining, but again, only in retrospect do I now see how tarnished that silver was. Why, oh why, is hindsight twenty–twenty? Too bad you can’t have some kind of LASIK surgery on your foresight. Oh, well, I guess, as they say, that’s what makes life interesting. Anyway, here comes that dropping bottom I promised.

I think it’s safe to say that any book that opens with a naked gay man hiding in a church closet has two things going for it, right off the bat:

One, chutzpah.

And two, nine out of ten people are gonna keep reading to find out how he makes it out of the closet (tee hee) and whether he gets his clothes back. Whether or not you’re rooting for him to succeed in that last regard, you have to admit, it’s a compelling place to start from.

Meet Em. Yup, Em, the aforementioned naked man in the closet. And in short order, meet his friends Justin and Glenda, who had quite a bit to do with why Em’s in the closet in the first place. Not that Em or Justin make any secret about their orientation and predilections: this is a sweet nelly of a book, replete with drag, catfights, drag, gay jokes and more drag, complete with feathered headdresses. And it is glorious.

The church, it turns out, is in the middle of the Nevada desert, and as Em happily tells us, what with not having a lot of places to be right about then, not his chosen milieu. That, in fact, would be San Francisco, where Em and Glenda (I know, work with it; I assure you, it’s the tip of the big gay iceberg) have just been let go from their bookstore jobs and given what must surely be the most generous bookstore-severance package in the history of organized sales: thirty thousand dollars. Apiece.

To celebrate his windfall, Em goes home, has several large drinks and watches “Antiques Roadshow” visiting Las Vegas. To his horror, Em spots a family vase that his mother sold for three dollars at a yard sale being appraised at twenty-five thousand dollars. He is outraged. He is drunk but determined. And before you can say “MacGuffin”, Em and Justin are on their way to Las Vegas with Em’s severance package in a suitcase, determined to bring the vase home.

And from there, things get madcap. There are men to sleep with, ex-boyfriends to run into, Patsy Cline impersonators, men to sleep with while dressed as women, group pedicures, Glenda, a mysterious black car filled with men in dark glasses, shopping trips and more men to sleep with. It’s hilarious.

Now, the whole book is narrated by Em, in a classically over-the-top effete gay male voice, and you’re either going to love that or you’re going to run screaming after the first few pages. It does take some getting used to, if only because there’s over-the-top, then there’s Em and Justin (I mentioned the feathered headdresses, right?). The opening section, set back in San Francisco, has a couple bobbles, where you can see the author getting his feet under him and deciding how much is too much.

“Ours,” we told him.
“Nuh-uh,” he nuh-uhed.
“Yuh-huh,” we yuh-huhed.
“No way.”
“Dude, it’s ours,” I asserted.
“Well, I seriously doubt it, all things considered.” Man,
he was aggravating.

But that quickly gives way to a smooth and frankly hilarious style that perfectly showcases the non-stop madcap action.

The thing is, I’m not a huge stickler for plot. If you give me characters I can fall in love with, crackling dialogue and smooth and well-executed writing, I’m willing to forgive a lot of plot sins. Which is fortunate in this instance. Em’s justification for seeking out the vase is flimsy at best: if you or your mother sell a knickknack at a yard sale and then later someone else sells it for $25K? They don’t owe you anything. No one does. That’s just life, kitten. But everyone around Em seems to cheerfully agree that it should be a snap for him to show up in Las Vegas, explain the situation and be on the next flight back to SF, priceless vase safely stowed in cargo.

Blink.

There’s also another big plot hole about how the villainous ringleader makes what is possibly one of the stupidest decisions in the history of villainy and no one seems to notice, but it’s a spoiler, so I’ll stay mum. Look, I can forgive even more plot sins if you make me laugh so hard I scare the dogs. It’s just a simple fact.

Rosen also employs quite a nifty little trick to keep the pacing in check: every so often, everyone stops, rests, has one or more drinks, and one of the characters catches everyone else up on the off-screen action with a long, involved and perfectly in-character story. A bold stylistic choice that could very easily have gone horribly wrong, here it works to perfection, giving characters and readers both a relaxing little breather. All the characters are skilled and funny storytellers, especially Justin, whose tales of narrow (and not-so-narrow) escapes from drag dates with straight men are spectacular. Justin’s one of those friends who manages to get everyone around him in trouble and still be adorable enough to answer your phone the next time he calls. Or as Em puts it, “…none of us ever really learned from our mistakes, so we just tried to enjoy what good fortune we had until the police, the ambulance, the press, or the preacher showed up.”

Amen, sister. Amen.