Oh! You Pretty Things
Books | Fiction / General
3.3
Shanna Mahin
"A Hollywood native from the wrong side of the Walk of Fame makes a play for star status" (Cosmopolitan) in Shanna Mahin's acclaimed debut novel, called "quite a breakout" by The New York Times. Jess Dunne is third-generation Hollywood, but her star on the boulevard has yet to materialize. So when she upgrades her nowhere barista job to personal assistant for a film composer, she falls as hard for the nearness to fame as she does his perfectly designed kitchen. Jess kills at cooking, a talent that only serves her intensifying urge to dig in to Los Angeles’s celebrity buffet. But then Jess’s food garners the attention of Eva Carlton, an actress on the rise, and Jess is all too eager to jump ship to Eva’s entourage, a decision that threatens to explode all her personal relationships. And when Jess’s mother—a failed actress who puts the strange in estrangement—turns up toting a suitcase full of secrets, Jess must confront the truth she’s been running from all her life.
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More Details:
Author
Shanna Mahin
Pages
384
Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group
Published Date
2016-02-16
ISBN
110198399X 9781101983997
Community ReviewsSee all
"http://www.anurseandabook.com/2015/04/oh-you-pretty-things-by-shanna-mahin.html<br/>I really liked this book. A lot. It's a great debut novel by an author to watch out for, if you like complicated characters living complicated lives.<br/><br/>Jess is kind of a mess. Actually a hot mess. She always seems either completely insecure or wildly overconfident. She quits jobs before she has other jobs lined up. She mouths off to her bosses, sometimes for imaginary slights rather than real ones. Kind of like people I know in real life.<br/><br/>Jess's relationship with her mother is strained at best, totally dysfunctional at worst. Her mother used her childhood to try to continually upgrade their life. But although Jess tries to steer clear of her mother, she mimics the same behaviors in her own life, continually trying to upgrade to the better celebrity, better job, better friends.<br/><br/>The book is a bit disjointed, messy and emotional, but intensely readable. Shanna Mahin is a great new talent."
M F
Marcee Feddersen
