Customer Reviews

Whacked

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Whacked is an easy read, but it is not a well written one. I got used to the clunky prose ('that halted me"), but the book failed to come alive for me on almost any level. The characters are flat and so is the emotional landscape. I didn't like the main character - not because she is 'whacked', but because she is vapid and tends to blather in cliches. The ending is surprising. It makes surprisingly little sense.

Even more baffling is the lack of descriptive detail in a Novel of Hollywood. Whence the perfume of night-blooming jasmine in the Hollywood Hills? The heat of an LA afternoon? Surely there is some Pilates Studio to the Stars I don't know about! I have no image of the narrator at all. I suppose she's 'hot' because, well, that's just the level of discourse here. The writer either lacks interest or an eye for visual or social nuance that makes these kind of books worth reading - at least for me.

Much has been made of the author's Hollywood Insider status, but the book is not enriched by it. On the contrary, the reader is served a smaller than usual portion of 'dish' - followed by a smaller than usual serving if sex. Is there such a thing as a low fat/low carb beach read? Flavorless! Neither delicious nor filling!

I heard about this book in a magazine's list of "fun beach reads"--it was definately not fun. The main character is petty, whiny and miserable, not to mention crazy. The ending was so out there that I had to re-read a few pages to make sure that I hadn't missed something important. The author kept adding characters to the book for no apparent reason other than to fill up pages and I could never find anything to like about the main character. The author uses plenty of profanity and some lame sex scenes that didn't really do anthing for the story.

I bought this book because it was on New York Magazine's summer recommended reading list. Jules Asner should be embarassed, as should her publisher. The book was silly, plot-deprived, and a bore (I forced myself to finish it). The book centers around a man-crazy and borderline psuchotic LA woman with no redeeming qualities, though she end up a "winner" at the end. Anyone puchasing the book is wasting their money.

Hollywood dish meets chic-lit noir in this engaging tale. The writing may be somewhat art-less, but the character of Dani is certainly vivid. (You may find yourself wanting to yell at the pages to try and get through to her!) There are also some laugh-out loud passages about the single life and the entertainment scene. I just wish the big twist in the novel happened earlier, as it kicks the suspense up to a different level.

Despite allowances for the limitations of the genre, this book is lifeless and sub-literate. It's surprising, given the author's assumed experience as a pop culture insider, when the novel fails to deliver any fresh insights into a targeted, and rich, vein of LA life. Then there's the lack of dimensional characters, dynamic plotting, any sense of place or a decent turn of phrase. I have to believe Whacked was some sort of bet between Asner and Gigi Levangie Grazer. Can't figure out if Asner won or lost.

With all the wonderful reviews in the papers and online about this book, I was expecting to sit down to a funny, exciting story. That never happened. The characters were very one-dimensional, the story was just dull and the ending bizarre. If you really want to read this book, borrow it from the library - don't waste your money.

I had to give up on Whacked after a few pages. It lumbered along very self consciously, a writer writing about a writer. It is nearly impossible to do after Proust. He played that game so many years ago and won it so convincingly that it you are going to play it, you have to be both brilliant and crazy. Very brilliant and crazy. Some of the stories about Hollywood were not bad, but the second assistant hating her starlet boss and writing hatefully about her starlet boss...it was too clunky to merit more of my time. And I just have to say: what kind of nepotism is going on here when this novel received so many good reviews in the mainstream media?! Thank goodness for forums like this which, I hope, offer more honest reviews.

It reads a lot like the former to me. I guess that's not surprising considering the Hollywood pedigree of the author, but it's still a disappointment. The plot borders on the absurd and the characters are paper thin. Let's hope the inevitable film version has a good director.

Please do not waste your money on this book. If you just have to read it, use a library.

From reviews I had read, I expected a much, much better book. It didn't happen. There is no Hollywood "dish", there is no likable character, there isn't much of a plot. Other than using this book as a guide for stalkers, this is a useless read.

Steven, honey? I wrote a book. Can you call Harvey Weinstein and ask him to publish it?

Why don't you ask him yourself Jules, tonight over drinks at Koi?

Enough said.