Customer Reviews

Drop Dead Beautiful (Thorndike Core)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

For all Jackie Collins fans who have read previous books that star Lucky, you'll be glad to see/read that she's back. It's the 6th book involving her and she is quite a character. She's the kind of woman that all women would like to be because she says what she wants and means and gets away with it all.

Here she has a 16 year old daughter in this story who is now online meeting perverts and an older guy who says he is 19 without her mom knowing. She is building a new hotel in Vegas and has that to deal with. Of course no Jackie Collins book would be complete without a villan (Anthony Bonar) who is someone from her past who's planning to take everything from her.

While I'm near the end, I'm reading it at a rapid pace because it's so trashily addictive. There is something about her books that suck you in and get you hooked. I'm loving this one and with only 40 pages to go until the end, I want the next Lucky Santangelo book to come out. This is trash at it's absolute best.

Lucky Santangelo is back! This time around Lucky has given up the movie business to pursue the business venture of opening a hotel in Vegas. As Lucky prepares to open The Keys, her sixteen year-old daughter Max prepares to lose her virginity to a friend she met on the Internet. However, this Internet friend is not really a friend...he's a twisted young man seeking revenge against Lucky. Also looking for revenge is Anthony "Bonatti" Bonar, a psycho mob killer hoping to make Lucky pay for murdering his father. While Anthony runs around cheating, murdering and plotting his revenge, his lonely wife Irma realizes she has had it with her husband and plans to stop him once and for all. Add to this mix movie star Venus Maria, her young boy-toy boyfriend, an infatuated movie director, his jealous girlfriend, Lucky's ninety five year-old father Gino, and a star-studded event to celebrate the opening of The Keys that ends in several murders and you have classic Jackie Collins!

`Drop Dead Beautiful' is pure entertainment. Fans of Jackie Collins know that she has always been a master at creating fast-paced tales of wealth, action and murder, all while juggling many character plot lines. Even though some of the character story lines are boring, the least interesting being that of Venus Maria and her boyfriend, the lead plots of Max and her near-death encounter, Bonar's revenge, Irma getting even, and Lucky's hotel opening are strong enough to have readers racing through the pages.

Jackie Collins has created another winner that will fly up the bestseller lists.

Nick Gonnella

It breaks my heart to give this book two stars. I absolutely LOVE Lucky Santangelo and have been following Collins' books starring this absolutely kick a** heroine for a long time now. I was excited to hear Drop Dead Beautiful was in the works and eagerly devoured it. However, it is sadly just not up to the standard Collins has raised her trashy fiction to in previous Lucky books.

*Small spoilers ahead - nothing huge!*

The good stuff: catching up with Lucky and Lennie (LOVE them together); seeing how Venus' life is developing as an aging movie actress (at 43 or something she's ancient by Hollywood standards) and of course, watching 95 year old Gino in his element as a family man.

The bad stuff: there is basically zero Lucky plot development. The whole book is about her being angry with her daughter Max (a renamed Maria) and opening a new Vegas hotel. That's it. Hardly any of Lucky's kick a** personality is present and she never gets to dish out revenge in the typical Santangelo style we've all come to know and love. Max is kinda cool - almost like Lucky was when she was 16 - but she isn't a strong enough character to carry the book and that's what Collins forces her to do. Of course the Bonnatti family make another appearance (don't these people ever die?!) and are pretty much to Lucky novels what the DiMera family are to Days of Our Lives. I'm pretty sick of that family, and the new Bonnatti follows the bad guy stereotype Collins is very fond of - a masochist, self centred, egotistical scumbag with absolutely no redeeming features.

I guess I just expected so much more from Lucky - I'd like to see Collins take a few risks with her if she is going to write another Lucky novel. Kill Lennie off (I know, I love him too!), move that Alex/Lucky angle that has been treading water since Lennie was kidnapped in Italy several books ago somewhere, do something more with Bobby, do something more with Bridgette. Both Bobby and Bridgette were sadly underused in this effort.

C'mon Jackie Collins - I know you've got another slap down, knock 'em out Lucky novel in you...give our girl something to fight against. No one messes with the Santangelo's, right?

Nobody writes better stories about rich, famous people than Jackie Collins. In the sixth book in her Lucky Santangelo series, she shows she's still on top. No whiny chick-lit about life at the bottom of the ladder even comes close. Though I like her books that start with characters before they're rich and famous more than the ones that start with the money and power already in place, after the first couple chapters are done gushing about how rich and famous everyone is, I get in my Jackie groove and go along for the ride.

This story starts with Lucky on the brink of opening a posh new resort in Las Vegas, the Keys. Her life is already plenty hectic with two teenage kids at home, one her wild and impetuous 16-year-old daughter, Max. Max is dying to get together with the hottie she's been chatting up on the internet. She concocts a story about going out of town with a girlfriend, and she's off to meet Internet Guy in the KMart parking lot in Big Bear. Once there, she meets hot, 19-year-old Ace, just in time for the two of them to get kidnapped by her on-line buddy, who morphs into Internet Freak.

Meanwhile, an old Santangelo enemy, Francesca Bonnatti, is poised to take revenge. When she discovered her dead son Enzio had left a bastard son behind in Italy, she took young Anthony under her wing and raised him to be a successful businessman/drug lord. Francesca tells Anthony that it's time for vengeance on the Santangelos, so Anthony puts in place a plot to destroy the Keys Resort and put Lucky out of business. Anthony is a busy boy, flying between a number of cities where he does business, keeping two mistresses, and a wife trapped in Mexico City.

Irma, Anthony's wife, is growing bored and restless. Her restrictive existence doesn't allow for much fun, especially since her husband quit visiting her bed after their children were born. Luis, the young gardener, starts to look like a tasty pastime. Soon, she craves his touch, but if Anthony ever found out, there would be hell to pay.

The story jumps and spins from one character to another as the drama unfolds and the suspense builds. Will Max and Ace escape their kidnapper? Will Lucky's best friend, superstar Venus Maria, stay with her younger boyfriend, movie star Billy Melina? Who keeps sending Lucky cards that say only "Drop Dead Beautiful"? Will Anthony find out about Irma's infidelity with the gardener? And will his plot to destroy the Keys at its grand opening succeed?

Jackie Collins is not classic literature, but her books are flat-out fun. Her secret seems to lie in not having too much respect for any of her characters, though Lucky Santangelo has always been an exception to the rule. Raunchy, sexy, and at times violent, a Jackie Collins novel always delivers.

I believe I read all of the Lucky books, and I guess I'm done. The whole Lucky thing is just so tired. If I read one more time how beautiful, how smart, how wild, how courageous, how wonderful, how awesome, how sexy, how great this woman is, I think I'll throw up. In the same book, Collins gives a physical description of Lucky over and over and over. Tall, slim, unruly jet black hair with tousled curls, jet black eyes, sexy, sexy, sexy. C'mon, please. Enough. And the same Santangelo family sitting around saying how great they are (i.e., "I can do anything; I'm a Santangelo." "I'm awesome; I'm a Santangelo."). I know this is fiction (and not great fiction at that), but who does this?

The repetition continues with the same tired lines. I think Lucky says five or six times in the same book, "Bet on it," or "Count on it." And then the famous, "Girls can do anything!" It's just all so trite and grade school.

Again, I didn't pick up the book thinking I was going to read anything enlightening, but I just cannot stand the monotony.

Once again when I don't think Jackie Collins can make Lucky Santangelo any more interesting or cunning, she does & this is Ms. Collins' best "Lucky" book ever. A personal aside to Ms. Collins -- does Lucky ever age? She seems so young still.

Looks like I've got some catching up to do as I haven't read all the Lucky/Lennie history. I heard this book advertised and thought, "this will be my summer trashy novel". And while it met that criteria, I was a bit disappointed. Personally I was able to put this book down, and walk away from it for a while and come back to it. I've read/heard lots of talk about Lucky Santangelo and didn't see her as the primary character in this story. This book didn't focus on those two but rather more on Max who may be getting primed for the continued saga of the Santangelos in books to come. Anyway - there was alot of build up to what appeared to be the big foreshadowed climax of the book. Many subplots led to the finale' as everyone converged on the big event, with their own agendas to be carried out. Eventually I got to about 20 pages left in the book and thought with all this build up there is no way this can be wrapped up in 20 pages. Well it was wrapped up but for all the effort put into that big build up (~475 pages) - the finale didn't measure up. I was disappointed in the ending, and with that the overall result.

Drop Dead Beautiful

Wonderful ending to the Santangelo series by Jackie Collins.

You should read the entire series: Chances, Lucky, Lady Boss, Vendetta: Lucky's Revenge, Dangerous Kiss & Drop Dead Beautiful.

I have to say that I'm a huge fan of Lucky Santangelo. But this book hardly focused on her. It focused more on her daughter Max and on Anthony Bonar (whom I loved the character). Anthony was funny and did some horrible things but again the focus was completely taken off Lucky. I think next book Jackie should concentrate more on Lucky, Lenny and Alex. Now THAT would be a hell of a book. Leonardo, the child Lennie had with Claudia in the previous book was hardly mentioned along with Venus' daughter Chyna. C'mon Jackie, I know you can do better. Anthony Bonar was the only one who saved this book.

I usually LOVE everything Jackie Collins writes. Can't wait to read her latest book.

This one I should have skipped. It is the same story line she always uses.

The book just abruptly ends. Did she have a deadline to meet and just cut it off??!!