There's an authentic nose-pressed-against-the-glass feel to Mahin's smart and funny debut, a spot-on poke at Hollywood celebrity and the longing that plays out in the fame factory. Jess, born and raised in Tinseltown, is the smart-aleck narrator who has a jaded view of the strivers who flock into Hollywood, yet she confesses her own vulnerability. "Maybe I'm not famous, but I'm famous-adjacent, and the glow from the heavy klieg lights is good enough for me," she says of her employment as an assistant to actress Eva Carlton. Her fame-centric stage-mom from hell, Donna, however, triggers all Jess's insecurities and anger at a childhood pushed toward careers she had no talent for-and toward people who abused her. "She lost `Mom' when I was fourteen," Jess explains to Eva about why she won't call Donna Mom. When best friend and actress Megan faces her own crisis of love, outsider Jess learns to embrace and forgive the people who really matter. There are numerous places in which this heartfelt tale of acceptance could have careened into schmaltz, but Mahin expertly steers clear, gently guiding Jess from "square zero" to home. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Recently divorced, 29-year-old Jess Dunne returns to her hometown of Los Angeles for a fresh start. She moves in with her best friend and gets a job as a barista, but her coffee days are over when she starts working as a personal assistant to an Oscar-winning film composer. Jess's new routine includes shopping for luxury goods and cooking. She's a great cook, which draws the attention of a famous actress, along with a job offer. As Jess quits one job and starts another, her life is further complicated when her estranged mother moves back to town. Jess struggles to hold it all together as she deals with her mom and navigates the demanding world of working for a celebrity. Being third-generation Hollywood, -Mahin knows L.A. life, and it shines through in the authentic details in this novel, her first. While Jess is often too clueless about what's going on with the people in her life and the story meanders at times, the memorable characters, witty banter, and fascinating world of celebrity assistants make these faults forgivable. VERDICT Recommended for readers who enjoy novels with a Hollywood backdrop, such as Gigi Levangie Grazer's The Starter Wife and Maria Semple's This One Is Mine. [See Prepub Alert, 10/27/14.]-Amy Stenftenagel, Washington Cty. Lib., Woodbury, MN © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A debut roman clef from the wry perspective of a celebrity assistant.A proud third-generation Hollywood resident, Jess has a well-honed ability to see through the endless layers of LA bullshit and render the revelations in sarcastic bons mots. At the same time, she's just as susceptible to the power of celebrity as any average American. In the course of the book, she manages to land two ascending assistantships, first for an nonfamous but successful movie composer, which she then leverages into working for Eva, soap star on the rise. Being Eva's personal assistant gets Jess the fame and fortune contact high she so craves. Of course, it comes with complications, and not just the type endemic to celebrity assistantships (being essential but disposable, meeting ludicrous demands). Eva is the best friend of Jess' friend Scout. Eva is also a potential rival of Jess' best friend, Megan, a hardworking actress. Add Jess' mother to the mix, newly arrived in LA and representing a damaging legacy of being alternately absentee and narcissistic, and Jess is living in her own soap opera, largely of her own making. Like many novels of this genre, a traditional plot arc is substituted with a series of vignettes, many of which seem added just for fun. And they are fungossipy scenes and high-living details, loaded with specificity. Jess' sardonic views are not limited to Hollywood; she's equally effacing about herself but doesn't seem to have the same ability to peel back layers and discover the genuine, independent person striving right below the surface. Though tensions pile up, the novel falls short of a satisfyingly cathartic resolution. Mahin's writing is more thoughtful than a gossip blog and occasionally delivers something poignant or lovely but inclines toward voyeuristic pleasures. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

RECENT TRANSPLANTS TO Los Angeles are often mocked for their jejune view of the city. "Why, nobody walks here ... or eats bread ... and yikes, Harry, there's another set of breast implants!" But natives - declaring they never drive west (or east) of La Cienega Boulevard; name-dropping celebrities - also enforce these clichés. Perhaps none more vigorously than Jess Dunne, a third-generation Angeleno ("My grandmother slagged Judy Garland") and the heroine of this first novel by Shanna Mahin and named, the reader assumes, for the 1971 David Bowie song. "All the nightmares came today /And it looks as though they're here to stay," the song's first verse goes. Jess's life hardly seems the stuff of nightmares, though she's facing typical challenges of a 21st-century American 20-something: working as a barista, lacking a boyfriend, texting till her thumbs buckle. But she has an apartment, a car and plenty of pals, including a supportive roommate, a successful if not famous actress named Megan. The two refer to each other as "Boof." (Never mind why.) Fame and its discontents are Jess's primary preoccupation; the "gleam in the eye of a TV fan," she will tell you, is "an unlikely mix of apprehension, excitement and entitlement," as opposed to the less nuanced bedazzlement of a cinephile. Food is another, and so the reader is treated to detailed descriptions of everything from her solo meals ("a bunch of organic dinosaur kale, a perfectly ripe avocado, a can of Italian white beans, a shallot and a handful of roasted pepitas") to that hairy-nosed wombat of a dessert, the $15 banana split at the Ivy restaurant in Beverly Hills, something "no one with a vagina" ever ordered. Jess has found work as a personal gofer, inevitably placing her story in a by now well-worn groove of popular fiction carved a decade ago by "The Nanny Diaries," "The Devil Wears Prada" and their knockoffs. Girl Friday Tells All - these days, usually by Monday. Assistant Lit. The Peon Papers. All the hallmarks of the genre are hit here: outrageous demands from employers, like having to fetch gallons of cappuccino made exclusively with dry froth, no milk; madcap scenes of rushing around laden with garment bags; and a potential Prince Charming lurking in the background, in this case a muscular gardener, er, "botanical stylist" named "kirK." LESS CONVENTIONALLY, "Oh! You Pretty Things" attempts to impart psychological depth to its protagonist, and at intervals it succeeds. This is courtesy of a classic stage mother, Donna, with the irritating habit of referring to Jess only by saccharine endearments - cupcake, muffin, honey pie, sugarplum, sparkle pie, etc. - as if to blot out a childhood marred by professional auditions, verbal abuse and, once, abandonment on the side of the road (which in sprawling Los Angeles's pre-Uber era would be a true nightmare). The stretches in which Jess recollects such episodes - getting dragged to dates at dive bars, where dinner is a highball glass filled with maraschino cherries; being sent to school without underwear because of visible panty lines - are the most vivid of this fiction, even if one appears ripped rather too directly from the case file of Samantha Geimer v. Roman Polanski. And they made me wonder if Mahin, a high school dropout, has a memoir in her next, if Jess and her sass, which can grow wearing - there is needless profanity on almost every page - are defense mechanisms against exploring darker corners, whether in this confounding city or elsewhere. ALEXANDRA JACOBS, a domestic correspondent for the Styles sections of The Times, is writing a biography of Elaine Stritch.

Mahin sets her debut in the heart of Hollywood, where 29-year-old Jess Dunne, the daughter of a former child actress, is struggling to make ends meet. She quits her dead-end job at a coffee shop to become the personal assistant to an Oscar-winning composer. The quirky composer isn't overly demanding, but Jess trades up when Eva Carlton, a glamorous actress, tastes Jess' cooking and wants Jess to come work for her. Jess is plunged headfirst into the world of a superstar, and the demands of someone who is used to being catered to constantly. Eva texts Jess at all hours, sends her on errands across Los Angeles, and blames Jess for her own mistakes. But on good days, Eva acts like Jess' best friend, and the constant hustle of the job allows Jess to avoid her exhausting mother, who has recently returned to L.A. and wants to spend time with Jess. An absorbing and authentic look at the glamour, glitz, and excess of Hollywood, and its effect on those who live on the fringes of it all.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2015 Booklist