Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood

By Maureen Ryan.

I'm gonna quote from this interview.

Hollywood is a moving target. The book will be out of date a year from now, maybe six months. But I think there are things that are eternal. And I think that for me, the biggest thing is let’s illuminate these norms and these myths and not hide behind the thinking that “Well, everyone’s trying their best, and everyone’s basically a good person. And these things are outliers and anomalies.” These bad, terrible things that we heard about are not anomalies. I wish I could say there are a lot of people working to make terrible work situations an anomaly, but we’re not there yet.

Five stars. Literally everybody (unless you have zero interest in television, anyway) should read this book. Especially women. Especially people of color. Especially everyone with societal privilege they may be misusing. Go buy it or put yourself on the list at the library, I care not. But go read it. In the meantime, please read these excerpts from the book of the juiciest drama so you at least know what everyone else around you is talking about. Lost, Sleepy Hollow, The Goldbergs, and SNL are particularly called out for having abusive environments for the staff.

I'm not going to recap all of that here since the excerpts should cover that, but I'd like to mention since it isn't covered already online that Adam Goldberg decided to send his staff links to Jennifer Lawrence naked because "the writing staff (including the women)"  wanted to see it, and "I have a rule that there is no nudity or p0rn shown on their computers, so I sent the writers a link so they could look at it on their own time." (Apparently that wasn't followed, either.) There's also mention of a guy who literally didn't want to let staff out to pee and openly said they should get catheters if they really cared about the show. Bathroom Guy was reported to HR, HR said he did nothing wrong, and it took years for Bathroom Guy to finally get fired. (I note the author keeps some people anonymous/under false names for safety.) 

Mo Ryan has been writing about television for a long time, and after hearing all of this shit for years, started feeling like she was writing a crime beat. "All the industry anecdotes I had eaten like candy in the past--this time they tasted of ashes." She also says, "Each time I have done a big, wrenching story, I have vowed never to do it again." And also that she can only do work like this thanks to a husband with a stable job in another industry. 

Anyway, half the book is dedicated to shitty behavior, and the other half is how to stop doing that shitty behavior and how to practice having a safe work situation and how to NOT have crap like this going on. It's flabbergasting how much rigamarole will go on to keep and save an abusive star or showrunner just because they are making people a bunch of money, but also think of how much money goes to say, revolving doors of staff being driven out of the industry.  Fire one asshole, and you can make things better, gee, who knew? I appreciate that she has a half of the book dedicated to rare good stories and other ways to not be like THIS in Hollywood, or elsewhere.

Everybody go read this.

A Merry Little Meet Cute

By Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone.

This kind of perverse book is right up my alley: combine wholesome Hallmark-esque Christmas movies with P0RN P0RN P0RN (note: link not to actual p0rn whatsoever, this song just came to mind.). Nope, seriously, that's the plot. Teddy Ray Fletcher runs both Uncle Ray-Ray's p0rn movie company AND to keep up with his children's expenses, has a much more clean quickie film company to boot, and he's just booked his first Hopeflix film, "Duke The Halls," which even films in a Christmas Town that's so booked that they are making this movie literally during December*. But when several of Teddy's "clean" staff are taken out by a tusk accident and his leading lady gets ill thanks to some Burning Man-ish "Unfestival," he needs to quickly sub in with people he knows working in the p0rn industry. And his p0rn star client, "Bianca von Honey" (a.k.a. Bee Holmes) is somehow tapped to replace the leading lady even though she's a total unknown in the regular world, and is plus sized to boot (I'm surprised no commentary was made about having to really redo costumes at the last minute).

* I note usually these things are filmed in summer, but...y'know, plot wankery. I also note that this squeaky clean town has a strip club that everyone is also visiting.

"Bianca" apparently does movies but seems to be known more for her "ClosedDoors" account. Bee is a happy p0rn star and secure in her job and abilities, but would certainly like to try acting with her clothes on for a change, something she never got to do much before the p0rn due to well, you know how life and human judgment go. It's quite nice how healthy the whole p0rn aspect is treated here, that Teddy's a reasonable employer, Bee likes her job and is out to her moms, etc. (even if boyfriends may not want her to be out so much). Somehow both Teddy and Bee assume that this sort of thing won't be noticed because those two areas of the world do not combine into a Venn diagram. To which I am all, hello, Internet? I'm thinking much the same things I was when I saw the fairly bad "#xmas" movie on Hallmark this year and I was thinking, "SOMEBODY'S GONNA NOTICE THAT A WOMAN WHO'S BEEN SINGLE IRL AND ONLINE FOR YEARS SUDDENLY HAS A HUSBAND AND BABY." (At the very least, her mother wondered.) But really, you know just picking up this book that This Will Come Out, so....I will note that the costume designer should probably stash his assless chaps for this film? 

Bee's costar is Nolan Shaw/Kowalczk, the former bad boy of the boy band INK, whose career took a turn when he was caught with a sick Olympic skater and two speed skaters. Now Nolan lives in the Midwest trying to take care of his teen sister and his bipolar mother, who's having some medication issues right now. Nolan needs to clean up his act and get some money right now, hence this movie. But obviously he recognizes Bianca von Honey, his favorite ClosedDoors star, when she shows up on set.

Many years ago I read a book called "The Boyfriend School" by Sarah Bird, which is about a photographer named Gretchen who gets tapped to cover a "Luvboree" romance writers' conference and makes friends with two of the writers. The conference has someone advertising for a new line of romance novels that break out of the box, and Gretchen is all, "Cool, I'll name my heroine Hattie and have her bang the hero in the first chapter!" and her friends have to point out to her that you can't have people just bang right away, you need some antici......pation. This book is written Gretchen-style in that despite the fact that both our hero and heroine have been told they NEED TO NOT BE FUCKING ANYONE FOR TWO WEEKS, are fucking within 24 hours. This certainly fits both of their characters, who are horndogs, but ....y'know, I could have used some anticipation? There is LOTS OF SEXIN IN THIS ONE, just so you're aware. Anyway, they quickly get into a secret relationship and all is going well, until the inevitable tabloid reporter who ruined Nolan's life returns, someone else has a sex tape come out, Nolan's mom has some medical issues, etc., etc.

I did kind of get annoyed at Nolan's agent telling him that he can't be seen as a problem child because he always has his phone on/nearby on set and actually takes his sister's panicked emergency calls--geez, really?! I note that the actual filmmakers turned out to be fine with that, though. Nolan's mom is treated with kindness and respect even if she's mostly offscreen for this, and you feel for the family trying to deal with thousand dollar med bills unexpectedly and shit like that. I also liked Nolan's erstwhile bandmates, who look like they may get sequels in the future (one of 'em, at least, according to Amazon).

Anyway: overall this is filled with pretty nice characters (except the tabloid guy), people who are fine with p0rn, Bee and Nolan clearly enjoy each other, and it all works out in the end, possibly a bit implausibly given the whole "Hope Channel" thing. I definitely think people would be clamoring to see the movie, at the very least... I do kind of concur with this review re: Bee's job at the end. I did enjoy the sense of humor in these books, what with horses being named 100% That Horse and Whitneigh Houston, and all of the silly lines here and there that fit this plot. 

• "Not everyone gets caught in a hotel room with the sweetheart of American figure skating, along with two Dutch speed skaters and a minitrampoline."
• "This morning we were filming the scene where Felicity said a tearful goodbye to the duke in the gazebo at the center of town, after accompanying him to his Christmas ball the night before, only to decide she had to return to modern times to apologize to her sister for stealing their deceased mother's gingerbread recipe." 
• "I love making people happy and nothing brings more joy than Christmas and titties."
• "Duke the Halls was being produced by the same person who'd made Trapped on Co-Ed Island 17 and Spider-Peen: Homecoming." 

Overall, I was amused, and that is what I was going for. I dunno if I was madly in love, but overall I got a kick out of it. I appreciate that this exists and amused me, even if I may not have been whoppingly in love. Three and a half stars. 

American Royals III: Rivals

By Katharine McGee.

Previous book here. 

Due to spoileration, this will be reviewed below the cut. I give it 3.5 stars, mostly good but the ending's a bit much. 

Changed For Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical

By Stacy Wolf.

This is a scholarly but not too scholarly (by which I mean "good god, reads like a sociology textbook, I can't read those"), book, which I enjoyed reading. Topic covers it. The author devotes a chapter to the 1950's and female duets during that period; the 1960's and solo dancing and musicals about fabulous middle-aged women;  the 1970's getting more angsty, the 80's hardly featuring women at all (good points on Les Mis and Phantom), and then women of color becoming more prominent in the 90's, and finally, two chapters (and a prologue and an epilogue) on Wicked, because I think that's the suthor's favorite. Mostly those cover the women's friendship being "queer" even if they don't get involved...however that goes. 

Overall enjoyed, four stars. 

Well Traveled

By Jen DeLuca.

Previous book here. I say "previous book" but that was book 2. I could not finish book 3 in the series because I was very bored and there was like no conflict and once they were like, talking about guacamole recipes or something (?) I got bored and quit it. But I spontaneously read book 4 today and liked it better. Also book 2 and book 4 are pretty closely related since they follow the same band, the Dueling Kilts. 

Lulu Malone, Mitch's cousin, is a lawyer because her family is high-powered like that, and she's been doing her damndest to make partner. But once the clue bat drops on her head that only mediocre white men are gonna partner at this firm, she not only quits, but chucks her phone into the nearest washtub, because she happens to be at a Renaissance Faire at the time.

Lulu then spends the next few months hiding from life, with Mitch covering for her and she joins her friend Stacey in following around the Dueling Kilts, wearing costumes and selling turkey legs. She also gets into organizing the various appointments of the tarot/rune readers at the faire, which she gets into more than she expected to be. It's a nice break and I enjoyed Lulu's personal journey towards a more healthy mental attitude. I'll note that she goes back to a similar situation, but a better one.

The romance is with Dex, the player guy in the band that Stacey used to have a thing for. I thought this one was sexy--of course it was--but I dunno if I was as into the relationship. Like he enjoys hanging out with her daily, they like badonkadonking, but I don't know if I felt like they were MFEO or whatever.  In the end, the "traveling musician vs. I wanna stay home and get laid" issue is worked out with some nice part-time compromising that I'm not sure how plausible that is in Lulu's profession, but it sounded nice.

I'm giving this 3.5 stars. It was a bit more interesting than books 2 and 3, I'll say, and I enjoyed Lulu's journey, even if I didn't feel that strong at the love.