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A review by smitchy
All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani
1.0
This is the first Trigiani I have read and I am not inclined to pick up another. Having looked at some of the other reviews (by people who have read a lot of her work) I can't help but feel that this book is not up to her usual standard.
I'll keep this simple - here are a few reasons why you should read this book:
1. You are a Trigiani fan
2. You want to read about how Golden Age movies were made.
3. You have difficulty understanding emotional reactions and would like a book to over explain every one of them.
4. You enjoy characters reflecting on all the things you just read about (it's just a bit repetitive)
5. You like stories that are heavy-handedly and unashamedly overwrought.
Reasons you should not read this book:
1. See reasons 1, 3, 4, & 5 above.
2. You should also not read this book expecting an accurate representation of Loretta Young's life - there are a couple of glaring errors which really annoyed me (I know this is fiction and the writer can take liberties but I feel when you are dealing with real people and events you have some responsibility to the truth). The first issue I have is the timeline: Trigiani has Loretta shooting Man's Castle (and falling in love with Spencer Tracy) in 1934 when this movie was released in 1933. She also has Loretta moving straight to shooting Call of the Wild (and falling in love with Clark Gable) after Man's Castle when she in fact made at least 6 movies between the two and there was at least an 18 month gap. The other issue I have is Loretta supposedly never really gets over Gable - It's like Trigiani really wanted them to be in love and has forced it into her novel (Completely ignoring the claims Young made to family members in the 1990's that she had been date raped by Gable).
4.The constant use of full names Clark Gable, David Niven, etc. every time. It's like Trigiani is worried that if she just uses first names we might forget that these people are MOVIE STARS! and not just people.
I'll keep this simple - here are a few reasons why you should read this book:
1. You are a Trigiani fan
2. You want to read about how Golden Age movies were made.
3. You have difficulty understanding emotional reactions and would like a book to over explain every one of them.
4. You enjoy characters reflecting on all the things you just read about (it's just a bit repetitive)
5. You like stories that are heavy-handedly and unashamedly overwrought.
Reasons you should not read this book:
1. See reasons 1, 3, 4, & 5 above.
2. You should also not read this book expecting an accurate representation of Loretta Young's life - there are a couple of glaring errors which really annoyed me (I know this is fiction and the writer can take liberties but I feel when you are dealing with real people and events you have some responsibility to the truth). The first issue I have is the timeline: Trigiani has Loretta shooting Man's Castle (and falling in love with Spencer Tracy) in 1934 when this movie was released in 1933. She also has Loretta moving straight to shooting Call of the Wild (and falling in love with Clark Gable) after Man's Castle when she in fact made at least 6 movies between the two and there was at least an 18 month gap. The other issue I have is Loretta supposedly never really gets over Gable - It's like Trigiani really wanted them to be in love and has forced it into her novel (Completely ignoring the claims Young made to family members in the 1990's that she had been date raped by Gable).
4.The constant use of full names Clark Gable, David Niven, etc. every time. It's like Trigiani is worried that if she just uses first names we might forget that these people are MOVIE STARS! and not just people.