Customer Reviews

Glitter Baby

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Glitter Baby was Susan Elizabeth Phillips' first contemporary novel, and it is quite different from the Avon romantic comedies many people have come to love (including me). This book chronicles the life and times of Fleur Savagar, daughter of a 1950's would-be Hollywood starlet and a certain very aging has-been former Hollywood star (read the book to find out who it is). As she grows up, she knows fame from the runways, and heartbreak from all those she loves. Yet she manages to persevere and find the happiness she deserves.

Glitter Baby is very dated; the author herself has said she has no plans to reissue it for that very reason. It's not a bad book by any means, although the characters are not nearly as sympathetic or sparkling as the usual SEP fare. However, if you happen to chance upon it at a used bookstore, buy it. Besides, then you can say that you own SEP's very first contemporary.

I found this book by accident at UBS while traveling up the coast. Boy, was I lucky because it was only like... $2.00!!! I actually can't make up my mind if I like this one more than I liked "Hot Shot" again, this writing style reminded me of earlier "Judith Michael" books. Definately takes you through time from Fleur childhood to womanhood, her relationship with her mother and her lover. I enjoyed this one and I do highly recommend if you can find it buy it. Someone mentioned in a review also on here that it is a rather dated book. Well it is but if you can keep that in mind while still enjoying the depth and details of the story, you won't be dissatisfied.

Happy Reading

This is now my favorite Susan Elizabeth Phillips book, right up there with Hot Shot, Fancy Pants, and the ultimate novel: Honey Moon. I loved it for the same reasons I loved those other titles. She writes a moving story with romance that does not come quick and easy for the characters involved. I think her characters are very complex and well-drafted. And I am consistently amused by her dialogue. From where do these ideas spring? I completely agree with the former review that Susan Phillips is a natural at this writing thing. I have never read a story by her that did not touch me. While it can be cute to see two people fall in love and have the biggest problem they face be that of who tells who they love each other first and will he/she marry me ('cause I like those two types also), Susan Phillips takes her characters on a journey of self-discovery transforming them into characters with the same strength in which they're written. Fleur Savagar, Honey Moon, and Francesca all fit the bill. I like it when characters (in film or books), who are already intelligent and special, discover that they are stronger than they think or know they are. Glitter Baby is a gem with everything that I like to read in any book. I'd buy it again!

I have read both the old version and the new one. And even done a comparison now, by rereading some of the old chapters and the new parallel - I was curious.

An URGENT REQUEST first: Out of respect for readers, I would appreciate knowing precisely what "updating" means. In this case, it means shortening the original by about 50 to 100 pages by streamlining it a lot (an estimate just looking at print size, amount of text on page and page numbers), and adding a few smallish things to make it flow. For other books, it may just mean adding one scene, or an epilogue. Please, be very clear about it - it is my money!

Next:
I like these 80-ies types books, Judith Krantz, etc. and I do not mind rereading them now. So much juicier, so much less p.c., with flesh and blood people who manage to be accomplished and happy to some degree while being fallible and messed up and making horrible mistakes. And some of the oversized guts and glory stuff of ultra-rich people is fun too, from time to time.
Just so other readers know where I come from.

Now to the book itself:
I love the character and growth of the Glitter Baby herself. She works for me very well, I can easily connect to her. In both versions. SEP made the new one a bit better, as to her motivations, just a shading that was good, more modern, less victim to a small degree.
I can respect Jake, although he is a hard man, and quite unpleasant in a lot of moments. However, for me to believe in his "breakthrough" and HEA, I would need a bit more showing of how he has changed and moved on from his traumata. This was all too much a "quick fix" at the end for me. I would not trust him not to fall back into very destructive behaviour that hurts the heroine, again.
So unfortunately, the HEA does not really work for me.
A minus, but not a total dealbreaker.

Which brings me to the book's immense flaw:
I feel that SEP never actually has the courage to bring justice for Belinda. She is weak, and in her own way, quite evil by allowing truly evil people to do horrendous stuff to innocent children and to take relentless revenge over years for despicable motives. She actually stands by and profits from it, never for a moment giving up her luxury life. And the ending shows her forgiven and happy. Unbearable. And she so much dominates the book, she ends up being the main character, or very close to it.

This does not work for me as a romance, it does not work as a women's fiction, neither now nor then.
This book would have better stayed where it was than be re-written and getting a second chance at a wide public who loves SEP. Which I do.

I give two stars for the lovely Glitter Baby, and for some wonderful secondary characters and scenes (the whole rock bank passage, Kissy) but this is a deeply flawed product.

I usually love SEP's books as they are full of humor and witty lines. But this one was far from the typical SEP story.

I was intrigued by Fleur's beginnings, but I must say I didn't like Belinda or Alexi at all. They were both such horrible characters that the only reason I kept reading is because I felt so sorry for Fleur. I've even decided that I can't watch an Errol Flynn movie because he more or less caused all this.(Okay, not really, but the fictional use of him made me want to slap him.) And Belinda! Good God. I don't care if it was 1955 or not, I would have left France and gone back to California. I would never have stayed with Alexi. I don't care what the stigma would have been back in mid-twentieth century, it would have been better than staying with that cruel idiot. Poor Michel. Not loved by either parent and Solange, I feel, would have loved both children and might have even helped Belinda had she had the courage to speak to the woman.

I'm glad Fleur had a happy ending, but I feel so depressed about everyone else.

This book is written well and isn't confusing with all the multi-generational info, but it isn't something that will give you that up feeling you usually get with an SEP book. If you can handle that, then go for it.

You know you are in the hands of a good writer when time suspends, the story is so real you find yourself lost in it, and the characters are three dimensional enough that you truly CARE what happens to them. Susan Elizabeth Phillips is a goddess of romance for these very reasons!

Glitter Baby, although it is an earlier work of hers, still has all the elements that make SEP so unique and addicting! Glitter Baby has elements of BOTH romance and fiction. It is unlike lots of her newer work that focuses mainly on romance. Glitter Baby is definitely more in the vein of her books Honey Moon and Hot Shot vrs. the Chicago Stars series.

This is a "coming of age" story. This is the story of Fleur Savagar. If I had a vote for "the most unfortunate child of derelict parents"..Fleur would get my vote hands down! Fleur's mother is, to put it kindly, a flake! She is obsessed with Hollywood, and lives in an almost fairytale world of make believe with actors being the kings and queens. She will do anything to be in the company of stars. Fleur's "dad" is also a really big problem...he is manipulative, vindictive, and totally self motivated. Combine these two people and Fleur's only saving grace is that she was forced out of her home and raised in a convent!

Fleur is a pawn in her parent's twisted lives, obsessions, and desires. She is incredibly beautiful so her mother capitalizes on this by making her into an actress/model. Fleur is not interested in these occupations, but both allow her mother to be in the "limelight" with beautiful, and more importantly, FAMOUS people. Fleur, still dealing with her abandonment issues, wants to make her mom happy and agrees to a life she does not want.

Jake Koranda is one of the "yummiest" hero's I've read in a long time. He is funny and yet deep. He's tortured, but not too much so...just tortured enough to make your heart bleed for him. He and Fleur are destined and meant for each other....you realize it very early in the book and are cheering for them throughout all their ups and downs.

The best part of this book is watching Fleur's coming of age and her learning how to become her own person. It's painful to watch, but isn't life like that sometimes. What is MOST painful TEACHES us and we GROW!

This book is very hard to put down...it's separated into sections going from past to present, and has a great many characters to keep track of. It is funny, heartwrenching, and by far the best book I've read in a long time. You'll laugh through your tears...another vintage SEP experience!

This is an excellent book. In fact, I am rereading it for the 2nd time. (Yes, that means this is my 3rd time.) The characters are wonderfully developed, and I can't wait to read more books by her. It's one of those books I will never let go of. It will stay in my collection for a long time to come.

Now every one of her books I read where fun and enjoyable, even laughed out loud plenty of times but this book was just horrible. It's description says it's about Fleur and Jake and their quest for love. As every other book, there is a side story infused and this one was about Fleur's Mom. I get the side story, it was meant to show where Fleur's life has developed her growing up, but it was so morbid and depressing and kind of creepy. I would never use those words to describe a book, especially a romance, but I just HATED the "side story characters" if you will and it could have been done differently to get the same result. I don't know, I really love Susan Elizabeth Phillips but there really was no joy in these characters or this book. She writes amazingly despite my lose of love for Glitter Baby. I kept reading it because I was hoping for it to get better, but it never did. I will not be keeping this book at all, which is a shame because her other books I cherish.

This was a darker story than we're used to from SEP, I found it a fascinating accounting of human nature, at times at it's worse, and at times the human spirit shone through.
People have mentioned the women as victims. I didn't see that. The mother was spineless, immature and needy, yes, but Fleur was a worthy advisory for her father once she grew up. And Fleur had a wonderfully smart, feisty friend in Kissy.
Someone mentioned pedophile: no, she was 19 when this incident took place. And her father had incestuous ideas, but he wasn't her biological father, and had never been a father figure through her growing up years. He was disgustingly creepy, manipulative, cruel and perverted, though.
Keeping in mind that it was first published in 1987, you have to allow for how the times have changed in how books and the modern woman are written. I think it's weathered the time well, though, and found it to be an engrossing read.
I loved the story and the very interesting characters.

I picked this up before a cross-country flight, and found it hard to keep interested, even with hours to kill with delayed and canceled flights. I bought the book knowing it was a reissue of a 1980s title, but at least hoped it would keep my interest as a fluffy airplane novel. Wrong. Stilted dialogue, amazingly unbelievable behavior from Belinda, Fleur's mother, and creepy pedophiles kept me from having really any emotional investment in the main characters at all. I kept turning the pages, hoping it would get better. Alas, it did not. Please don't judge SEP's current output by this dated drivel. Skip it and move on.