Whacked: A Novel [Paperback]

Jules Asner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 2009

From Jackie Collins to People magazine, authors and press alike have lauded Whacked as a dark and sexy guilty pleasure. Parade, Real Simple magazine, the New York Post, and the Houston Chronicle all selected Whacked as a summer reading pick, and author Jules Asner was featured everywhere from Good Morning America to the Los Angeles Times.

Life promises to be perfect for Dani Hale. She has an almost-perfect boyfriend named Dave and a dream job writing for the TV crime series Flesh and Bone that allows her to indulge her macabre forensic passions. But something isn't quite right with her relationship, and Dani-a wily and inventive snoop-learns that Dave's real creative talents are (1) lying and (2) cheating on her. Soon she is plunged into the world of Los Angeles singledom, enduring a battalion of bad dates with men whose peccadilloes would drive a lesser woman to kill. At her wit's end, Dani is driven to a dramatic extreme that is as shocking as it is sensible in the girl-eat-girl world of Hollywood.

Praised by critics as the perfect beach read, Jules Asner's Whacked is a wicked tale of relationships, betrayal, and very modern revenge.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Asner—ex-model, wife of director Steven Soderbergh and E! Entertainment Television personality—debuts with a dishy mix of Tinseltown hackdom, chick lit and, surprisingly, a chilling plot. Dani Hale is an L.A. TV writer for crime show Flesh and Bone who has an inordinate interest in all things forensic—one shared by technical adviser Rich Pisani, a retired LAPD cop. None of this stuff bothered me, Dani boasts about crime scene analysis. But what does bother her is slow-to-commit boyfriend and director Dave; the pretty actress he's directing, Chloe Johnson (whom Asner slyly credits as having worked with Soderbergh); her Crate and Barrel saleswoman mom; and work rival Evil Janet. But where other chick lit heroines fret about their fears, Dani hacks into e-mails and cellphones to alleviate hers. After discovering Dave has been cheating on her, Dani plots revenge on him, freckled harlot-starlet Chloe and office boor Evil Janet, but things quickly spiral out of control. Asner juggles horror and giggles and wraps it up with a subtle kicker, and though Rich's role is underwritten, the novel is still tons of fun. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Entertainment host Asner’s first novel is a send-up of the viciously cutthroat world of romance in Hollywood. Dani Hale is a staff writer for the successful forensics procedural Flesh and Blood, but while her professional success isn’t in question, she is finding her love life to be a trickier prospect. She is massively insecure in her relationship with her boyfriend of two years, a television director named Dave, and after conducting her own investigation, she soon discovers all her fears were founded when she learns he has been cheating on her with an up-and-coming starlet named Chloe. Dani dumps Dave and gingerly reenters the dating pool only to find that the prospects are grim. When Chloe turns up as a guest star on Dani’s show, Dani finds herself seeing red. This delightful black comedy shows how easy it is for someone to be driven to extremes—and how seamlessly a person can go from rifling through receipts to reading someone’s personal e-mail and beyond. Clever and witty, Asner’s debut will appeal to readers who like biting satire. --Kristine Huntley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Weinstein Books; Reprint edition (June 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602860769
• ISBN-13: 978-1602860766
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,444,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars An easy read, poorly written, July 15, 2008

By 

jjchen (new york city) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whacked (Hardcover)

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!

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No fun at all, July 11, 2008

By 

Reader_SLC "SLC_reader" (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whacked (Hardcover)

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.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Crapped, September 7, 2008

By 

F. Glinsky "Disgusted" (Manhattan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whacked (Hardcover)

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.