Customer Reviews

Word

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book had me laughing out loud every few pages. It was a fun read -- I was looking forward to each next chapter.

You can feel Howard's dripping insecurity, the rut his life is in, the corner he's painted for himself. The characters are all vivid and believable, with the exception of Sidney perhaps.

This is not a heavy or deep book -- just a ton of fun and really clever.

First of all, I think it is very funny that everyone gave this book a great review except the two readers from Los Angeles, where this book is set! Maybe it hits too close to home for Angelenos who (I have found) overestimate their cultural and intellectual significance. As well as being completely full of themselves.
I read this book long before I came out to Los Angeles, and would like to read it again now that I have been here a few years. Back in a rural area of the East Coast, I thought it was a hilarious book that I could not put down. It is one of those books you are disappointed to have end. Sadly, some (a lot) of the book is true of the Hollywood scene.
Ok, so it's not some grand philosophical treatise, but it is a very witty and sharp view of Hollywood. I have read other Felske books, and they do not compare to clever writing of this book.

Wow! This novel blew me away. This is the 1st piece of Felske's work I have had the luck and pleasure to come across and without being too OTT I salute this man, he is just one of those writers whose work you rarely come across, you know, it's engaging, witty, intelligent without being promiscious, hip and so swallowing. The only other author who has caused such a reaction from me is Arthur Golden and his brilliant Memoirs of a Geisha. Read Word and don't look back.

A fascinating tale. The first three-fourths of the book was a humorous story involving a struggling Hollywood writer, his unusual "mentoring" relationship with a "playboy wanna-be" Hollywood mogul, and the various types of beautiful ladies that populate their world. However, the last part of the book evolved into some serious, page-turning drama. "Word" was quite a read!

I couldn't wait to turn each page. What would Hayward do next? The characters were exciting and believable. I had great fun reading this book. Thanks.

If you haven't lived it, this book will make no sense. But if you are in the entertainment business, you have done the New York thing, you've done the LA thing, you will sit there saying, "This is amazing." It is LA in a nutshell and frightening how accurate it is.

For its first sixty pages, Coerte Felske's novel of Hollywood presents innovative antilanguage, and a unique take on the film business through its first-person narrative of a struggling screenwriter which is engaging and original. Though overexplained (as if the reader cannot be trusted), the inventive jargon reminded me of Burgess. The character, situation and language had real promise. But Felske opts to turn his tale into the most obvious and sensational kind of popular fiction -- which explains why Warners has brought this out mass market: Plot, plot, plot and more plot whose ridiculous turns and twists defy belief; graphic sex cliched in its rendering; the same antilanguage repeated without forward movement so that it grows stale and uninteresting; an attitude toward women that would make any Patriarch proud; and an ending that breaks the absurd meter. Too bad. If Felske could have sustained his metaphor, stayed with the believable struggle of his screenwriter, he might have produced literature on par with West's Day of the Locusts. Instead, it's another trashy Summer read -- silly, sensational, escapist, forgettable -- headed quickly for the remainder pile or the pulp machine.

A very engaging, highly entertaining look at the Hollywood scene from the perspective of a struggling screenwriter. The dialogue moves seamlessly punctuated by clever insights and snippets that left me laughing and crying for more. The most original and entertaining book I have read this year!!!

This book thinks it's oh-so-clever, filled with so many "unique" references to Hollywood in- and outsiders and wannabes. In essence, not much happens in it. It's about a screenwriter trying to make it in Hollywood, yet every time something writing-related happens, the narrator tells us he's not going to dwell on that because it's boring. Instead, we must endure countless scenes of him doing what becomes his primary job: pimping for a successful studio executive by throwing his unsuspecting female friends at him. Nice guy, this screenwriter. Though he "redeems" himself in the end -- in a twist befitting a mystery novel, which this is not -- it's basically a "who cares" moment by then.

For those of you that have read The Shallow Man, Word is more of the same, only set in LA, though it has to be said that it doesn't have the edge of his previous book. Very much looking forward to the movie version of The Shallow Man and I understand Word has also been optioned for a movie. Both books are a joy to read and I guarantee you'll be quoting from the book everafter.