What Are You Reading? Chapter Two

[Oxynia]

Last thread was getting as long as War and Peace, so start over here...

[tiggertoo]

I just starting The Lincoln Highway, by the author who wrote A Gentleman in Moscow. I’ve heard good things.

[groovethang]

Just finished The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager, which was very good - up until it took a weird turn. I kept reading, though, and somehow he pulled it off because I thought he made it work and it didn’t take away anything for me.

ETA: If all of his books have similar elements, though, I probably won’t read anything else by him.

[Ginger]

I finished Jennifer Grey's autobiography in one night. Things I learned:

-Dancing with the Stars is the most important thing she has ever done in her life. Really. I think the DWTS chapter was much longer than the Dirty Dancing chapter.

-She's been best friends with Tracey Pollan since high school.

-Matthew Broderick does not come off well in it at all. Granted, he was young. He was a perpetual cheater (and liar since those go hand in hand). He was manipulative and unsupportive of her career. (He didn't want her to audition for Working Girl because Mike Nichols was "his director.") They broke up when he cheated on her with Helen Hunt.

-She accepted the world's least romantic marriage proposal from Matthew Broderick when they were broken up: "Let's spend the rest of our miserable lives together and have miserable children in our likenesses." Then she broke it off and three weeks later was engaged to Johnny Depp.

-She mentioned that Johnny Depp was "crazy jealous" and was always questioning her about what she was doing when he was out of town. He wanted to tattoo her name on his arm and she said no. His career was taking off while hers was stalling, and basically after 9 months she decided she needed a fresh start and he wasn't going to fit in with it.

-Matthew's mom was a nasty piece of work who didn't like Jennifer. When Jennifer's parents split up, Matthew's mom was the first person to bring to her attention that her father "is a f--". "And everybody knows it except your mother". Ouch.

-At one point, a very young (pre-Johnny Depp) Winona Ryder lived in the same apartment complex as Jennifer and would talk to her about famous guys who were interested in her. One of them was Sean Penn. Jennifer enlisted her friend Madonna, who was recently divorced from Sean, to help her convince Winona that dating Sean Penn was a very, very bad idea. Winona repeated everything they said to Sean, who then left an anonymous threatening message on Jennifer's answering machine.

[royalwave]

I read The Lincoln Highway recently too and, while I finished it, I found it a bit of a slog for some reason. Maybe because it wasn't what I expected? I found the constant turns of events that kept upending the protagonist's agenda frustrating rather than enjoyable, and got increasingly annoyed with Duchess and Wooly.

There is no doubt that Amor Towles is a gifted writer. I just couldn't get excited about this one.

As for memoirs, has anyone here read "Mean Baby" by Selma Blair? I'm pretty curious about that one just because of all she's been through with MS these past few years.

[Deleted]

Aug 17, 2022 8:34:23 GMT -4 groovethang said:

Just finished The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager, which was very good - up until it took a weird turn. I kept reading, though, and somehow he pulled it off because I thought he made it work and it didn’t take away anything for me.

ETA: If all of his books have similar elements, though, I probably won’t read anything else by him.

I know exactly what you mean, his books have a slightly similar element but not as out of the blue like in this one. Definitely not as weird.
I've read most of his books. They are fine, quite readable but nothing revelatory. Just a quick, twisty read that keeps your attention and is written decently enough that the writing doesn't get on your nerves.
A good author who writes similar books (but with more realistic and less odd twists) is Megan Miranda. I read her latest book recently, The Last to Vanish. It was an enjoyable read.


ETA: Ginger, I agree re: the Jennifer Grey book. (Matthew Broderick really did not come off well AT All. He sounded like such a jerk.) The only thing you left out of your excellent summation was her long, detailed explanation of her nose job (pre and post analysis!) I thought it was a bit overkill.

[Ginger]

I remember, even though I was only 13 at the time, that Wind was supposed to be Jennifer's big movie that would establish her as a top actress. And then she got a nose job in the middle of filming the movie that made her unrecognizable and suddenly she was finished. It really did end her career!

I just realized - she didn't mention her relationship with George Stephanopoulos in the book at all! My sister told me that when Stephanopoulos published his autobiography back in the 90s, Jennifer went on some talk show and complained about how little he had mentioned her in his book. So as payback, Jennifer left him out of her book completely.

[Deleted]

Aug 17, 2022 22:20:01 GMT -4 Ginger said:

I remember, even though I was only 13 at the time, that Wind was supposed to be Jennifer's big movie that would establish her as a top actress. And then she got a nose job in the middle of filming the movie that made her unrecognizable and suddenly she was finished. It really did end her career!

I just realized - she didn't mention her relationship with George Stephanopoulos in the book at all! My sister told me that when Stephanopoulos published his autobiography back in the 90s, Jennifer went on some talk show and complained about how little he had mentioned her in his book. So as payback, Jennifer left him out of her book completely.

You know, that's interesting, because I was kind of waiting for her to mention George. And then she didn't, so I assumed it was just short term, non-serious relationship ( I remembered that they had been an item back in the 90s but none of the details). She also didn't go that into detail about her (now ex) husband. But, reading between the lines, it didn't sound like he was the huge love of her life. Just, he came into her life right around the time she suddenly developed baby fever. If not for her getting pregnant, they probably would have dated for a short time, then split amicably.

[PearlySweetcake]

I'm about fifty pages into Where the Crawdads Sing. It's like John Grisham wrote Girl of the Limberlost, but it's okay. I'm killing time, waiting for Laurie R. King's latest novel Back to the Garden, which drops in a few weeks.

[Ridha]

Aug 17, 2022 13:35:19 GMT -4 Ginger said:

She accepted the world's least romantic marriage proposal from Matthew Broderick when they were broken up: "Let's spend the rest of our miserable lives together and have miserable children in our likenesses." Then she broke it off and three weeks later was engaged to Johnny Depp.

-She mentioned that Johnny Depp was "crazy jealous" and was always questioning her about what she was doing when he was out of town. He wanted to tattoo her name on his arm and she said no. His career was taking off while hers was stalling, and basically after 9 months she decided she needed a fresh start and he wasn't going to fit in with it.

How… does that work though? Had she known and dated JD before MB and so they picked up where they left off, or did they meet date and propose in the 3 weeks after she dumped MB?

Did you find her narration of Johnny was crazy jealous and she dumped him, convincing? Somehow I’m surprised to learn this; both personality and looks wise Depp seems to go for the more exotic indi girls? I would have put her down as the one more into him.