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John daughters—Elise, Giovanni, and Noele— have gathered at the family’s fabulous (complete with Ferris wheel! Sometimes in books with multiple timelines, I enjoy one more than the other and that was the case here — I strongly preferred the 1950s storyline, which I found more interesting between the two. Elise is preoccupied with managing her image and avoiding the paparazzi, until the death of neighbor Kitty Karr, Elise’s beloved mentor, who leaves a fortune to Elise and her two sisters. I found myself going back and forth with pages confirming what I read because it didn’t quite make sense/fit in the storyline. Hidden behind the glitz and glamour of 1950s Hollywood were real lives (and heartbreaking, necessary, lies).Some came right out and asked it, and social media was a cauldron of racist epithets; it was Meghan Markle hysteria times three. Elise could mimic emotions she didn’t feel on command but had no ability to express the ones that were true. Now she's been nominated for an Oscar that could expand her successful acting career, but she's not sure if that's what she wants.

It would've been easy to put this book down and never pick it back up had it not for those I was reading with. The decisions that Kitty and her mom had to make, the historical aspects of this book, were thought provoking and heart breaking. That’s the crux of the story, told through different timelines and perspectives —mainly Kitty in the past and the eldest St. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.Kitty Karr becomes a famous Hollywood actress who has made very difficult choices in her life and has had challenging decisions made for her. It captured the horrors of racism, the tight bonds that tie us generationally, the nightmare that colorism causes in the Black community. I finished this hoping for an author's note because this raises so many questions, but perhaps they're meant not to be answered. When she passes away, the world is shocked to find out she left her massive multi-million dollar estate to her next door neighbors: the St. Suspended amid the canopy of the thick sycamore branches, it was hidden from those on the ground but had an enchanted bird’s-eye view of the four-tiered grounds and the entirety of Los Angeles below the hill upon which the St.

Elise is the family’s latest star of the silver screen and up for an Academy Award for Best Actress. A compelling odyssey into the consequences our choices can have across history and generations, the moral complexities of those choices, and the devastating secrets hidden behind even the most glamorous and opulent of lives and the most 'pristine' family trees. I hope to see more modern fiction novels written with this type of honesty about the experiences of growing up “passing” in history. I just finished her April selection, Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, when I saw she picked Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?John, one of three sisters who have been rich and famous since birth because of their parents' talents.

Their parents, working through a battle in their marriage, took up residence in Paris by that December, granting Elise family separation and consequent career growth. I feel like every time I’m not overly impressed with the BOTM picks, I wind up loving the one that I picked. Days after Noele’s NYU graduation, Giovanni, the middle daughter, had moved to Toronto to film what became a hit AMC show. James was a producer who played fourteen instruments, wrote and arranged music, and had a vocal range from Maxwell to Barry White. John estate, the labyrinth was constructed of leafy green hedges and rose bushes that increased in height and girth further into the maze.If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added. With a plot worthy of a miniseries, an extensive cast, and a historical sweep, Paul succeeds in entertaining as well as enlightening. Her mother was pacing, hidden deep in the labyrinth, but every so often Elise could hear her feet kicking up gravel. I don’t want to spoil anything, but it becomes clear pretty quickly (I think, at least) how they are connected to Kitty. Though Paul crowds the narrative with far too many underdeveloped characters and makes a few too many implausible plot leaps, she ably describes Kitty’s transformation and unflinchingly details the racism, misogyny, and exploitation Kitty faced as a young woman.