This fictional book is a series of conversations and encounters of a house full of people in Hollywood. (I listened to the audio version.) They are all involved with movies in some way so there is a lot of discussion of movies as life/life as movies. The book begins at the beginning of the Iraq war and the character's reactions (or not) to that. There were moments of truth and I think that is why I stuck with it through 20 sound discs. But it was mostly like listening to streams of consciousness. As far as the gratuitous sex, drug use, & people's search for themselves-- I couldn't tell if the author was meaning to report or was making fun of the lifestyles. I was left puzzled but give credit to Suzanne Toren for being an excellent reader. She was able to convincingly do several different voices and you could identify the character she was reading for immediately. I've always wanted to give Jane Smiley a try and now I have.

So based on the cover and the back of the book, I thought this was going to be a light, entertaining, gossipy read about Hollywood type people. This is not the case. Even though I think it is essentially a comedy, it's really all about character development, relationships, politics, and lots and lots of dialog. I mean, the characters really are fleshed out nicely, to the point where you don't even really like most of them (I imagine that's a testament to the author's skill?), and the dialog was really believable. For myself, I'm so tired of hearing about Iraq that I didn't really enjoy reading even more about it (one of the major issues that the characters spend a bunch of time talking about is whether the U.S. should have invaded Iraq). Overall, well-written, but not what I would call a "fun" read.

I picked up this audio tape for $1, because it was full text and long enough to maybe collect my interest on the way to work.

This is one of the best written books that I have ever had the pleasure of listening. If I had read this, I would have maybe gone 50 pages before getting rid of it. As an audio book it has few peers.

It tells the stories of people in Hollywood, none of which I would ever associate or ever call my neighbors. They were very interesting. Their viewpoints compelling and well-thought. Their lifestyles unique.

You have to listen to this to appreciate it. I also think that you have to have an open mind to understand some truly alternative ideas.

I will veer away from works by Jane Smiley, because this is not in my interest quotient, but because this book was such a divergence from what I usually read and in audio format, it was amazing.

This one is a hard book to rate, because it was desperately uneven, gold and dross. I dragged myself through the first third of the book with the mantra that I shouldn't stop reading just because I found the characters deeply, truly unlikeable -- so I'd give that third 1 star. The next third had better moments, but suffered from what I feel are rookie mistakes -- characters whose dialogue and inner monologue has exactly the same tone and vocabulary, that is, the author's, even though it was allegedly written in third person close. So, again, one star.

But after an admittedly arbitrary change in location that seemed to have minimal to no motivation based in what came before, there were moments in the third act that shone, and I'm glad to have them in my head, they were so right. But it did end in the wrong place giving the wrong character the final word. So, that's sort of 2.5, verging on 3 stars.

I kept reading in fascination over the writing's failures and for its rare successes. In the final analysis, I liked it, I found it intriguing to study, but it bristles with flaws, so I split the difference and give it 2.