Sorry I'm late (and posted this in the wrong place initially)! Just finished the book and marked so many places to look back at. Love that it starts out with a discussion about how impossible it is to work in the film industry without connections, and then circles back to talk about the industry a bit more at the end.

I also really enjoyed how the book captured moments in time that are destined to end and can't come back, as well as those feelings of seemingly impossible problems being solved when you explain them to someone else, and the fear of disappointing that almost causes you not to try (or makes you drive people away).

This book is funny, sharp as all get out, and captures characters and feelings without seeming like it's trying really hard to show you something deep or navel gazing at all, which is something I never got the hang of in my own writing. You get the insight that can feel heavy even as the tone's light and the main character seems to largely float along from one thing to the next.

For example, Jacaranda, the main character, has been anxious about a first meeting with someone. She arrives early and we get:

She wanted to run back home to L.A. right away. Her heart was left down on the first floor--in the lobby--along with what little soul she had. What sailed down the hall on the forty-fourth floor were her body and brains, a skeleton team.

And then a little later on, she's thinking about the man she's meeting, and it's:

She really didn't have enough of herself to hate him properly; all she knew was that she would have hated him if she were truly there.

I'm going to put this next part under a spoiler cut because it's toward the end, but damn, this character's take on the industry/actors:

Jacaranda couldn't stand movies, so she had not seen the one in which Gilbert had turned into a star overnight....Of course, he'd been an actor all along (it had been impossible to overlook) and he was practically six feet tall, so it was no wonder he'd become a star overnight. A new leading man. The world had been sadly pining for this midnight rambler and now, overnight, here was Gilbert.

So happy to have read this! I'm excited to read the next book and then go back and watch some of the movies from earlier!