REVIEW for SKINNYDIPPING

Thank you, thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for sending me this book.

TITLE:                 Skinnydipping

AUTHOR:           Bethenny Frankel

GENRE:              Fiction

RATING:  

I was an avid reader in the 70’s and 80’s (granted I was in my mid teens) when books written by Jackline Susann were flying off the shelves.  However, slowly, this genre disappeared and I stopped reading this type of novel.

Skinnydipping reminded me of these types of books, in fact, Betheny Frankel kind of resurrected this genre for me.  As I was reading Skinnydipping, I kept thinking back on those ‘good old days’ when books were written with chock value in mind.

In short – Skinnydipping is about shock value – which I completely embraced. Our main character Faith wants to be an actress and moves to L.A. to do so.  She is a mixture of a lot of guts, some brains and a level of immaturity that created some truly cringe worthy moments in this novel.

Faith was interesting to me because she was not written as your typical LA spoiled brat (i.e. Lohan) but she was also not that mature when she needed to be.  She made some horrible choices in many instances, yet, at the same time, could be sensitive and caring.  In short – she was basically an immature girl with a dream shared by so many other young women.

I thought the situations Faith found herself in were, for the most part, entertaining and certainly, reading about the ‘high’ life of Hollywood (read: ridiculous) was a riot.  I found myself shaking my head in so many spots thinking ‘no way’.  Yet, I do believe that the stories depicted in this novel are probably very close to the ‘true’ Hollywood scene.

The writing was engaging, light and fun (it should be considering the subject matter) and I found myself looking forward to Faith’s next escapade (how could she possibly keep finding trouble like this?).

What I did not like:  Firstly, Faith’s luck is a bit much.  All she seems to have to do is ‘need/want’ something and she gets it.  I got this feeling from the first pages where she just happens to sit with a elderly gentlemen on a plane who can magically get her a job, but not just ANY job.  Then, he magically finds her a place to live.  These are but two examples of coincidences that felt a little forced to me.

The second thing was the length of this book – it was just too long.  At about ¾ of the book, I was starting to fade and lose interest in Faith’s life.

Otherwise, this was actually a good read and I must admit to being a little surprised by this.