Can a girl in Hollywood really trust her girlfriends not to sleep with her famous boyfriend?

What kind of bizarre behaviour does an aspiring actress have to engage in to earn the nickname 'Psycho Girl'?

And what is a secret celebrity anyway?

After a decade in the business, Christine Chase is a freshly-divorced thirty-five-year-old filmmaker suffering from a major life slump. So the big question for her is:

How do you jump-start a life?

Enter Richard Gault, famously elusive, mythically cool actor and musician, who went underground in the seventies rather than sell out and became, in the process, the ultimate secret celebrity.

I like the idea behind this book. The author has created an air of intrigue around this reclusive star, and the opportunity for salacious gossip is undeniably delicious. It sounds a little like the relationship between Katherine Hepburn (my hero who died earlier this week) and Howard Hughes...brought up to date in the National Enquirer age. It will either be uncomfortably exploitative or hilariously funny...either way it'll be interesting.

July 19th 2003
Up To Page 81

I'm not to sure what to make of this book. It was described in the bumph as hilarious and well-observed, but instead it's a soulless and confused mess of Hollywood clichés, tied together with a eminently unlikable narrator and her cronies.

Maybe you have to be an L.A. socialite to get it. Which I'm not.

The basic idea is a good one. A producer decides to go on a documentary quest to find her first great crush/role model. She hires Jennifer, a networking It Girl, with a perfect body and a penchant for name-dropping and Waz, her friend and cameraman.

Here's the thing. The only person the author seems willing to tell us about is Christine, the principle character, and she's kind of a pain. A mid thirty's supposedly street-wise, supposedly cynical producer, she doesn't actually seem to have a personality. I find that a problem when I'm spending time reading her story. The author appears too interested in making pop-culture references and setting up set-piece scenes than weaving any kind of narrative. Throw in the chapters written by the magazine sales-guy (who shall remain nameless, but who is undoubtedly going to turn out to be the idol guy, or the producer's new lover), which are too random and too confusing for words, and what you end up with is a book I actually have no interest in reading. I hate it when I've not only spent money on a book, but spent time on it too and it comes to a point where I just want to put it down and find something good to read.

After 81 pages I've really had enough. The book hasn't given me any reason to keep going, and so with so many good books in my to read list I've decided to put this down and move on. Maybe some time in the future I'll come back to it, but until then, I'm done.

Unfinished