Anyone who has ever watched American Idol, and that will be almost everyone, will have the immense satisfaction of the...
Written anonymously (by an insider?), this thinly veiled account of American Idol’s first season with Steven Tyler and JLo is a hilarious tour into the world of reality divas.
Sasha King is a recent college grad working on her Novel of Immense Profundity. While struggling on the second paragraph, she takes a position at the Rabbit Network as an assistant’s assistant, but when her boss, Bill, becomes injured, Sasha (known as the new Bill to everyone on set) becomes the acting assistant producer of Project Icon. Since the flaky judge disappeared and the mean judge, Nigel Crowther, left to start his own talent competition, Project Icon is in the hot seat; ratings have been down, and they need to find two judges before Rabbit’s owner, Sir Harold Killoch, cuts the show. After the kind of surreal demands only the most childish humans—stars—can negotiate, rock icon Joey Lovecraft and actress-singer-merchandiser Bibi Vasquez come on board. The novel’s impersonation of Steven Tyler’s verbal gymnastics is so dead-on, so charmingly nutty, kudos are in order. Bibi Vasquez (the JLo stand-in) comes off less attractively—as a driven, foulmouthed hunter, out for blood, even if she’s not sure why. The most sneering portrait is reserved for the show’s host, Wayne Shoreline, a workaholic sociopath who is sexually neutral and whose culinary tastes are satisfied at the pet store. Occasionally, Sasha has a few moments to devote to a personal life: trying to reconnect with her stoner boyfriend in Hawaii, working on her novel (which consists of deleting most of the first paragraph) and even finding happiness tentatively with an LA guy, found by her nosy Russian landlord. But of course, even Sasha knows her life pales under the starlight of the Icon universe, what with the drugs, the sex and the scandal lurking at every turn.
Anyone who has ever watched American Idol, and that will be almost everyone, will have the immense satisfaction of the “inside scoop,” real or not.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-94207-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Amazon/New Harvest
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
