This is all Donna Tartt's fault.As with The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P, I wish I wish I wish I'd read this book before I read The Goldfinch. Seriously you guys, that fucking book is so good that it makes everything else seem like bullshit.I mean, I was excited about this book for a long time! Emma Straub is kind of a big deal in the Brooklyn lit scene. She is universally known for being really nice and also very talented, and I don't recall hearing anything bad about this book at all. I definit...

I made the mistake of thinking Laura Lamont was some lesser-known film star with whom I wasn't familiar. Turns out she came straight from Emma Straub's imagination. The author did a lot of research about the golden age of Hollywood, and she put great care into the development of her story. Sorry to say, without any actual Hollywood touchstones, there's not enough stardust to keep it interesting. The novel is rather bland and lacks the tang of reality. Even the film studios, execs, and names of o...

I had such great hopes for this book. I heard Emma Straub on NPR talking about the book, realized she was Peter Straub's daughter (who doesn't love Peter Straub??), and I liked the subject matter. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations.The book is told soley through the point of view of the main character, Laura Lamont, who is one of the most vapid characters ever written. Life rolls over her, and she just let's it happen, over and over again. She is completely inactive. The only mo...

I can't really judge this novel objectively as the author is a dear friend of mine. We were in our nonfiction workshop at Oberlin together! I attended her Russian Nightclub house party! We've double-dated! Emma and I got reacquainted a few years ago, after college, and found we had much in common, particularly that were both (still) writers and lovers of books. I have been SO excited to read her debut novel! It didn't disappoint.I love the prose here: it's as milky and winsome as the book's name...

I had a dream a few nights ago that I was living in Hollywood. I don't mean to say that I'd moved back to that horrible, horrible apartment I lived in for years in the early 2000s, but rather that I was in the entertainment industry. More specifically, everyone I knew--from my friends, to my sister, to one of my co-workers--had been cast in a movie. It was a big musical, the kind they don't make anymore, really, and it was all anybody could talk about. One day, I rode to work with my sister and

There is a definite possibility that I won't finish this book. The writing style isn't bad but the characters are bland and boring. It's like a dish cooked with no spices, not even a dash of salt & pepper. The main character, Laura (aka Elsa) has no definition. She is just there. I can imagine that if I could hear her voice it would be filled with sighs, monotone, languid. Nothing seems to get a spark or a reaction out of her. She just accepts whatever takes place, good or bad. Is she insecure?

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did.As a huge fan of movies from the 30s-40s, I began this book with quite a bit of knowledge about the studio system and the time period itself, so I was hoping this book would be a fictional treat to satiate my love of the "Hollywood golden age."Not quite.For a book that has a premise of taking place in said era, most of it does not. The plot largely consists of Laura's fade-out, her fizzle into obscurity. I found that I really didn't buy it when

A spur of the moment vacation read. The cover, the premise of vintage Hollywood glamour, and the making of a star captured my interest. My Reactions: -I thought it was all right. An "Eh, not so bad". I probably wouldn't be recommending it to anyone, not because it was awful, it just isn't the sort of book that comes to mind to tell a friend "Hey, read this. Seriously, read this". Premise: Laura Lamont, screen name of course, grew up in rural, woodsy Wisconsin. Her father staged theatrical produ

It wasn’t until after I finished this book that I realized the title might have two meanings: the obvious one (that it relates to a film star’s life) and the thematic one (that this is a novel as told by a series of snapshots of the titular character’s life). Now, I might be completely wrong about the dual meaning (I haven’t seen the latter referenced in any press on the book, although I haven’t looked that hard), but the dual meaning makes me like the novel slightly better so I’m sticking with

Digital audiobook narrated by Molly RingwoldFrom the book jacket: An enchanting debut novel about a small-town midwestern girl who finds fame as a sensational movie star during Holllywood’s golden age, this work is also a story of family, ambition, and sacrifice. My reactionsI get a certain little kick out of reading a book set in my backyard, and this one begins in idyllic Door County Wisconsin. Add a family tradition of theatre – Elsa, is the youngest of three daughters born to the owner/opera...

Wheee! This is my first Goodreads "First Reads" giveaway win! CAUTION: The review below contains some mild spoilers.August 12, 2012Though I'm not quite halfway through the book, I have much to say, so I'll start my comments here. This is hard for me, because I really want to like this book, and I feel that Emma Straub is an author I want to encourage, but I have some issues with the novel so far. For me, the book is a little slow to get going. I would have started the book with the second chapte...

My father was a child of the great movie studios. At the ripe old age of 4 or 5 he made the transition from Vaudeville to Fox Studio, and had several silent films under his belt as "Little Eli." He also was in a precursor to the Little Rascals, called the Sunshine Kids. One made it; one didn't. He used to talk about Jackie Coogan as his big rival. We have posters and pictures, and at least a copy of one film he was in. As a child, it fueled my imagination to think I could have been the daughter

Say we were all sitting around a table right now. A big bowl of tortilla chips, a rainbow array of San Pellegrino flavors at the ready. We’d just chipped the Yahtzee cup from overuse. We all took turns sighing dramatically until I suggested a way to kill time: “I have an idea. What if we all tried to imagine the life of a young girl from the Midwest who makes for California and is built into a good old fashioned Hollywood starlet?” We would, undoubtedly, create something that sounded a lot like