book 25

Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger
368 pages


I recently read Everyone Worth Knowing and I loved it.  Last Night at Chateau Marmont?  Not so much.  It followed the structure of EWK so closely - a young woman gets thrown into the spotlight and tabloids overnight.  Celebrity names abound.  Yadda yadda yadda.  I felt like yelling "Hey Lauren, you already did this, just a little different!"  So that was lame.

Actually, it's kind of a strange coincidence that I read this book randomly right now.  My boyfriend is currently in Japan on tour with his band (that broke up in 2003.. apparently Japanese people still dig them) and I'm grappling with some of the same issues that Brooke struggled with while Julian was away.  In that way, I could REALLY relate to the story.. Feeling left out, how it feels bad to work so hard and not get to share in the rewards he is reaping.. So there's that, which kept me pretty glued to the book.

A couple of things annoyed me (as usual).  Well, I can really only think of one thing besides the above mentioned similarity to another book by the same author.. The book is told in third person, which I sort of enjoyed, but Weiseberger uses the same phrases repeatedly - "it was all Brooke could do not to [insert action]".. '[character] was holding court..." .. "[character] slammed the table with his/her palm".. it happened less as the book progressed, but I don't know, these things bother me.  Maybe they don't bother other people.  Maybe I'm crazy.

As I got to the last two-thirds of the book, I was anxious to finish and see how it all played out so that was also a redeeming factor.  Overall, it was a decent read and I think I'd have liked it much better had it not been a rehashed tale told differently.