Love in la la land by Lynn Forth

Sunday Update! 

In between reading Books 1- 3 of the Outlander Series,  each of which are long historical time slip novels, I've sandwiched in a quick read. I'll probably do this between the next two novels in the series, as well, since my kindle queue is pretty large and some novels have been waiting to be read for a while already.

Here's my latest quick weekend read. 

Love in La La Land by Lynn Forth. 

This quick read would be good for taking on holiday, for someone who wants a ‘one-sitting’ read or if you want a sheer flight of improbable fantasy.  

The dialogue flows nicely and the main characters are likeable within an exceptionally ideal and slightly naïve situation. Others who are very fleetingly experienced by Jane display less pleasant characteristics but they don't impinge since their appearance is very brief.

Some of the plot seems so questionable as to be impossible to me but it was an entertaining jaunt from reality as, I think, the author intends it to be. 

Jane’s meteoric rise to fame and fortune as a novelist with her debut novel being turned into a film is definitely the food of fiction! 

Having been to Los Angeles, the setting is redolent of the hot balmy air and the luxurious plantings around the mansions of the rich. I haven't toured the film 'lots' but I have met a couple of Hollywood's 'thousands' of scriptwriters who live in LA. Some of them might eventually earn a reasonable living but it seems that very few of them ever find themselves in the seriously rich categories. LA is definitely a place for making connections though:  knowing who to speak to, and who else to speak to up a very long chain is their lifeblood. The scriptwriters I met were lovely people but they really do live in a kind of warm, sunshiney, Hollywood bubble of a La La Land. 

Jack? Jack Clancy has some great connections to start with. The author keeps him enigmatic and pleasant but I wanted to know a bit more about his current status, financial and domestic. More of what made him tick. There were a few situations where he was interacting with Jane that seemed undeveloped in the novel and left me wondering about what his normal working day would be like.  The author touches briefly on the hierarchy within Hollywood which definitely seems to exist making it very difficult to be in contact with 'the top People'. However, across Hollywood there have to be many genuinely nice people who can maintain friendships across the earnings levels- Jack being one of them. Does his final decisions in the novel mean a change in character development? I think so but I'm not convinced. I didn't really get inside his head to understand what Jane has essentially has changed in him, not enough clues being dropped for me, apart from the obvious one of losing her if she goes and he stays.  

Jane? At times, I wanted to shake Jane out of her gullibility. She's portrayed sometimes as being self-sufficient yet she's incredible naive- though if that was the author's intention then it really worked for me! She gets herself to LA with her agent but where is he when various things happen to her? LA hotels are hugely expensive, so I can see her not wanting to pay for one if its not necessary and accepting Scott's hospitality however, Scott's insistence that she be looked after by him rang lots of bells that Jane is too innocently deaf to hear. But that aspect of the plot confused me just a little. Her naivety over her previous lover taking her to the cleaners doesn't seem to have made her more savvy about how to handle the Scott situation. She's a nice person but when nice intelligent, as she is also meant to be, get their fingers burned they generally learn from their mistakes. Jane insists on being financially independent enough to help solve her sister's medical bills but she's not independent enough to get herself back to her hotel when she needs a change of underwear. As an author, and a successful one, she doesn't seem to have done her LA homework before embarking on her journey. 

I read on hoping to bond better with Jane but I'm afraid  it didn't really happen. 

Why did she have to go through the 'almost tourist' route to get into the film 'lot'. As the original author I'd have expected her to have much better communication with the script writer. Of course, maybe that depends on what sort of contract is signed! Note to self and other authors- beware of the 'tiny writing' clauses in your film contract! (*wink) and (* sigh) The sigh being that few authors find themselves in Jane's position!

Other minor situations jolted me out of what was a fairly predictable narrative. 

Could a flight for such a sick child be arranged so quickly- even if the grandfather has medical connections? If I had the time I might do some research.

Writing romantic comedy- being transported from the normal into the unrealistically abnormal - is the fun of the sub genre, and getting to know the characters an essential part of the ride. 

Slainthe!