Okay, enough about motherhood already. I picked up this book because it had been recommended to me as a mystery. A hundred pages in, with no mystery having appeared, I set it aside. That’s twice as many pages as I usually give a book that doesn’t grab me, but I found parts of it funny and hoped it would get better.

Set in Hollywood, the book is about two men whose paths keep intersecting. Frank Bones is an on-the-verge-of-failing comic who is obsessed with sex, drugs and the Kennedy assassination. Lloyd Melnick is an insecure sitcom writer, obsessed with sex, status and not embarrassing himself.

These unattractive main characters simply did not interest me. I didn’t care what happened to them. And the satire about Hollywood—though occasionally quite funny—was too broad to keep me reading. I’m sure if I knew more about television shows I would have picked up more references, recognised more caricatures of Hollywood celebrities, and found the book more amusing.

I don’t get the whole celebrity thing. Who cares? I remember visiting my sister in L.A. many years ago. She invited her friends over to meet me, but all they could talk about were what celebrities they had seen around town, like kids trading baseball cards. They told me that if I was REALLY lucky, I might catch a glimpse of Jack Lemmon crossing the street. Oh boy.

I have looked at some of the gossip shows on tv, but couldn’t work up much interest. Anyway, knowing too much about actors distracts me when I’m trying to watch their films. There are few actors who can actually make me forget who they are and what other roles they have played. I don’t want to be thinking about their love lives or fashion sense when I’m sitting in the movie theatre.

Even though this book was not to my taste, I’m sure it is to others’ or it wouldn’t have been recommended to me. I’ll donate it to the library or put it on the book exchange shelf at the coffeeshop.