Rating: 5/5
Review:
Terrifically enjoyable
I enjoyed this book enormously. It is very funny, has some very shrewd observations to make on modern celebrity and is a very involving story.
The tale is narrated by Max, a successful journalist whose subject is celebrity, film and popular culture. He is a very engaging protagonist: self-deprecating, witty and sometimes waspish, but also touching in his depiction of his own broken heart over Samantha, his One True Love whom he lost many years ago. There is some wisdom among the wit and this combination makes it a very enjoyable story.
It is very readable. To give a flavour, there is a great little paragraph which begins Chapter 4, beginning, "Interviewing celebrities is not as easy as it looks. It's a delicate process, not unlike coaxing a frightened kitten out from under a bed...Whatever you do, avoid asking questions that require any serious thinking. You don't want to startle them." Or talking about the aftermath of his break-up with Samantha, "I tried to fall in love again. Really I did. I sure dated a lot. Or maybe "dates" isn't the right word for what went on. They were more like drive-by fondlings." If you like this, you'll like the book.
The prose is crisp and very readable and characters exceptionally well-drawn and believable. There were a lot of references to US popular culture, not all of which I got, but I didn't mind that. It's not especially original and is a bit like High Fidelity mixed with a rom-com, with digs at celebrity culture and musings on the nature of fame thrown in. All this was just fine with me; it made me laugh, it made me think a little, it was genuinely touching in places and was a terrifically enjoyable read. I recommend this very warmly - it's a real treat.
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