Hollywood=HS+$

Pretty wacky title for a blog post, huh? No, I didn't have my fingers on the wrong keys, this was the abbreviation I came up with for Hollywood Is like High School with Money, the latest novel from Zoey Dean, author of the wildly popular A-List series. This is another fun chick lit summer read that both my mom and I liked and read very quickly. It is the story of Taylor Henning, a recent college graduate in film studies. Taylor loves all kinds of movies, and the process of making them. She has spent the past year working on an award-winning, yet obscure film, and is now ready to brave Hollywood as an assistant to an important female executive at Metronome Studios. Taylor is eager to be the second assistant, fetch coffee, answer phones, and make copies, because she will also have access to reading scripts and seeing how movies are put together in the corporate world. She soon learns that not all assistants are there for their love of films, when she is sabotaged by another assistant and made to look incompetent. Just like in high school, the popular, fashionably dressed girls love to play tricks on the earnest, hard working girls. How is Taylor going to navigate these waters in a town where she knows no one, and isn't sure of the sincerity of those she meets?

While performing another second assistant task, driving her boss's daughter, Taylor realizes what she needs: a coach! How to get along in LA, how to be confident, all it takes to be what I would call a "mean girl". And here she has met the queen bee of the LA prep school mean girls, Quinn Whitaker, high school junior and fashionista. Enlisting Quinn's help, Taylor is soon dressing more professionally LA, going to trendy clubs and restaurants, and making a few friends who also help her in her new world.
Again, a predictable ending is reached through a series of unpredictable situations, that are at times funny and a big one that really surprised me, although in retrospect I should have seen it coming. Hollywood Is like High School with Money is a fun, light read, with many pop-culture references, and a look into the workings of the Hollywood studio system.
Be sure to come back on Friday for my ENORMOUS book giveaway that will include this book and several others.