Ten Days in the Hills by jane smiley

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

DNF. This is first time I have ever given up on a book. The writing was well done and the characters were even interesting but at 95 pages in still absolutely nothing had happened. I guess I just prefer books that move along at a faster pace and with more action. Hopefully I didn’t give up on this too soon.

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ZackTyce

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

My first Jane Smiley novel left me feeling that I wanted more of the author but less of the book in question (A Thousand Acres). I'm glad I elected to dig deeper in her bibliography, enjoyed this one a lot.

There's really no plot to speak of - as the title indicates, it's just ten days in the life of a mid-50s movie director at his house in the Hollywood Hills, along with a collection of guests (his daughter, his girlfriend, her college-aged son, his ex-wife, her new boyfriend, and a handful of others). They sit around for a week and a half and just have long, winding conversations about life, art, philosophy, etc... Sort of like the film My Dinner With Andre, if the dinner was ten days long.

Smiley wrote it in 2007, and it's set in March 2003, so the current events backdrop is the US invasion of Iraq. It's funny to read the most left-leaning/political of the characters talk about how much she hates the sound of George W. Bush's voice, and how angry his presidency makes her - I wish Smiley would flash forward 15 years to see how these same people would deal with Trump's presidency. That said, politics are (blessedly) a pretty minor topic in the grand scheme of things here.

Smiley sprinkles in a liberal amount of sex, and the group later decamps to an even more luxe mansion higher in the Hills, in what feels like an attempt to keep the reader from drifting off, but I was never bored by the dialogue. It's a smart, interesting book - and the lack of any real plot means you can read it in little bites and not have to worry about remembering who's doing what. Looking forward to reading more of this author down the road.

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xanax-please

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I haven't read any of the author's other works, so I don't know if this book reflects a style that one can get used to.

I started but didn't get very far. There's no way one can get pulled into a story when all the characters ever do is digress to tangential name dropping. Blah.

Picked up and put down on the same morning. And not in a good way.

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ray10

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Who knew sex, storytelling and Hollywood insiderism could be so incredibly boring? Normally I love Smiley but this was a total slog. I should have just reread The Decameron.

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JonerBaloner

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Everyone is referring to this as her Decameron, but it's really her version of "My Dinner with Andre," which she refers to several times. I loved Dinner so much I actually went out and bought the screenplay after seeing the film, but Ten Days was more character driven, arduous, and much longer. I usually rip through her books, but this one was a bit tedious, although, as usual, very intelligent, socially and historically astute, and interesting, complex and characters. I did like her cross section view of Hollywood.

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MrLief

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

1 1/2⭐️ Really wanted to like this. I enjoyed the characters & some of their discussions...choice bits & pieces along the way. Overall, not worth the effort.

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