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The Assistants
In this wicked, laugh-out-loud debut novel, five miserable souls struggle to make their mark on Hollywood, the city of the soulless. Rachel Burt, starry-eyed and clueless, has left behind tiny Sugarland, Texas, and her position as Starbucks employee of the month, to pursue her dreams of becoming a screenwriter. The madness begins when she eagerly accepts a position as assistant to Victoria Rush, an aging television diva with "a little pill-popping problem that two tours of duty at Betty Ford couldn't remedy."
Rachel learns the ropes from Michaela Marsh, a never-say-die, plastic-surgery perfect "midget Tai-Bo Barbie." Michaela has spent years (and years and years: she is -- gasp -- over thirty!) trying to break into Hollywood, which has given her a healthy respect for the casting couch; but even sleeping with her slimy agent hasn't landed her a meaty role, and the last pilot she almost got, some ten years ago, went to that little nobody, Lisa Kudrow.
Jeb, who operates on pure rage, has been fired from more assistant jobs than he cares to count, and he currently teeters on the edge of insanity under Randall Blume, one of the sleaziest agents in Hollywood.
Kecia Christy, a no-nonsense Pisces pining for love and addicted to Krispy Kremes, works for Travis Trask, the hottest teen heartthrob since "that other white boy, Leo." More interested in smoking prizewinning pot with his bonehead buddies than in his next movie, Travis is always looking for the next good party -- until his ex-con brother shows up at the front door.
Griffin's intelligence and ambition fail to shield him from endless humiliation at the hands of Johnny Treadway, a crass A-list manager with pec and cheek implants and a perpetual tan, courtesy of the Tropical Rays tanning bed he keeps in his office. Johnny takes all the credit while Griffin does all the real work, and Griffin has begun to suspect that selling his soul might not be worth that overdue promotion after all.
Once a week, Rachel, Michaela, Jeb, Griffin, and Kecia meet at a dark, unhip watering hole to commiserate. Soon enough, however, the system spits them out, and they must learn to survive through sheer determination, hard-won industry savvy, and luck.
At turns hilarious, poignant, and sinfully gossipy, The Assistants will keep you glued to your seat until the final page is turned.
Rachel learns the ropes from Michaela Marsh, a never-say-die, plastic-surgery perfect "midget Tai-Bo Barbie." Michaela has spent years (and years and years: she is -- gasp -- over thirty!) trying to break into Hollywood, which has given her a healthy respect for the casting couch; but even sleeping with her slimy agent hasn't landed her a meaty role, and the last pilot she almost got, some ten years ago, went to that little nobody, Lisa Kudrow.
Jeb, who operates on pure rage, has been fired from more assistant jobs than he cares to count, and he currently teeters on the edge of insanity under Randall Blume, one of the sleaziest agents in Hollywood.
Kecia Christy, a no-nonsense Pisces pining for love and addicted to Krispy Kremes, works for Travis Trask, the hottest teen heartthrob since "that other white boy, Leo." More interested in smoking prizewinning pot with his bonehead buddies than in his next movie, Travis is always looking for the next good party -- until his ex-con brother shows up at the front door.
Griffin's intelligence and ambition fail to shield him from endless humiliation at the hands of Johnny Treadway, a crass A-list manager with pec and cheek implants and a perpetual tan, courtesy of the Tropical Rays tanning bed he keeps in his office. Johnny takes all the credit while Griffin does all the real work, and Griffin has begun to suspect that selling his soul might not be worth that overdue promotion after all.
Once a week, Rachel, Michaela, Jeb, Griffin, and Kecia meet at a dark, unhip watering hole to commiserate. Soon enough, however, the system spits them out, and they must learn to survive through sheer determination, hard-won industry savvy, and luck.
At turns hilarious, poignant, and sinfully gossipy, The Assistants will keep you glued to your seat until the final page is turned.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published June 29, 2004
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83 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
January 16, 2020
The Assistants by Robin Lynn Williams tells the story of 5 assistants to stars, producers, and/or agents in the shiny world of Hollywood. All 5 of them have dreams of their own, and are trying to advance their agendas by serving at the beck and call of those who *have* made it. There's Michaela, the blonde, much altered by surgery bit actress who manages the estate/affairs of a famous actress and her tag-along husband. Then we have Jeb, an assistant to a Hollywood agent who comes up with horrendously violent mental scripts and is enamored with his male anatomy, code name "the veins". Kecia is also an assistant to an actor...a barely adult actor who likes to throw big parties involving "catering services", drugs, alcohol, etc...is the child of a dead blues singer/musician from decades past, has "overeating tendencies", and is trying unsuccessfully to dodge the IRS. Griffin assists a Hollywood manager of various stars. He's an asexual d/t a psychotic ex-girlfriend, but is pretending to be gay. He has a knack for discovering raw, new talent, but generally has all the glory stolen from him by his narcissistic boss. Finally, the 5th assistant is Rachael, a naïve girl from Small-town, Texas. She came to Hollywood with a long-time friend to escape her alcoholic mother and try to make it as a script-writer. She's attempting to get into UCLA Film School while working as assistant to a drug-addicted and overly dramatic actress.
Literature this is not. But look no further if you want a humorous, light read about famous people and those who put up with them.
Literature this is not. But look no further if you want a humorous, light read about famous people and those who put up with them.
April 24, 2016
Yes, I read this book and all I have to show for it is..oh, wait, I DIDN'T even get a crappy tee shirt.
Actually, it's not THAT bad, and I stuck with it for its slight humor value and the fact that I had to find out what happened. I rarely do not finish a book.
Ar first, I was exclaiming at every other page that this was a bald-faced rip-off of John Niven's really excellent book Kill Your Friends, soon to be a motion picture. (I have some slight embarrassment at loving that book and wonder how it can ever be filmed as there is not one scene that could possible be shown in it.) Kill Your Friends was about the music industry, divulging secrets you really almost didn't want to know but were happy to hear about. The Assistants is about Hollywood and the lowest echelon employees who toil for the movers and shakers.
It had some fun possibilities and there was some fun in it. The writing is such that the author needs to throw in a five dollar word once in a while so you know she has it in her. Puissant? In a novel that relies almost completely on industry slang, swears and uncomfortable sex scenes, words like that are show-offy. The much-better-written Killing Your Friends could do anything it wanted and did, but Niven could write circles around this author.
The hook--separate chapters written largely about the experiences of each of the five main characters , rotating constantly--keeps you mildly interested and gives you a chance to see them all meet each other and form certain bonds. The characterizations leave much to be desired, but the stories aren't too bad and if the ending hadn't been so happy-happy it might have worked reasonably well. I would not go out of my way to pick this up, but if you want a short, very light, read that you can fit in your bag or briefcase, this might keep you interested for a couple of afternoons.
Actually, it's not THAT bad, and I stuck with it for its slight humor value and the fact that I had to find out what happened. I rarely do not finish a book.
Ar first, I was exclaiming at every other page that this was a bald-faced rip-off of John Niven's really excellent book Kill Your Friends, soon to be a motion picture. (I have some slight embarrassment at loving that book and wonder how it can ever be filmed as there is not one scene that could possible be shown in it.) Kill Your Friends was about the music industry, divulging secrets you really almost didn't want to know but were happy to hear about. The Assistants is about Hollywood and the lowest echelon employees who toil for the movers and shakers.
It had some fun possibilities and there was some fun in it. The writing is such that the author needs to throw in a five dollar word once in a while so you know she has it in her. Puissant? In a novel that relies almost completely on industry slang, swears and uncomfortable sex scenes, words like that are show-offy. The much-better-written Killing Your Friends could do anything it wanted and did, but Niven could write circles around this author.
The hook--separate chapters written largely about the experiences of each of the five main characters , rotating constantly--keeps you mildly interested and gives you a chance to see them all meet each other and form certain bonds. The characterizations leave much to be desired, but the stories aren't too bad and if the ending hadn't been so happy-happy it might have worked reasonably well. I would not go out of my way to pick this up, but if you want a short, very light, read that you can fit in your bag or briefcase, this might keep you interested for a couple of afternoons.
June 16, 2016
A very reserved three stars.
It's going to take a lot of willpower and inner strength to read "The Assistants." It's well-written, steeped deeply in the vernacular, social mores, and peccadilloes of Hollywood and its attendant industries. But you're going to spend most of your time hating so many of the characters and wondering if they're real, if perhaps Robin Lynn Williams is exaggerating. She's not. I lived in Southern California, knew a few people who held minor roles in the movie industry, and skirted the edge of it myself, and not only is it true that everyone in Hollywood has a script that they hope will be produced and make them rich, but that hunger, that greed for fame is rampant everywhere. You can feel it wherever you drive, including past the 20th Century Fox lot in Century City, particularly at night with the car windows down. The air is thick with desperation, of people who want so badly to become famous by any means necessary. What Williams writes here is no doubt partly based on her own experience as an assistant in Hollywood, as well as what she has observed away from her job, all wrapped up with a Hollywood ending that the industry would be proud of, after it's done frantically searching for who blabbed about who they actually are. Hollywood isn't glamorous. Not by a long shot.
Robby Benson wrote a novel many years ago called "Who Stole the Funny?: A Novel of Hollywood," possibly based on his experience directing a few episodes of "Friends." "The Assistants" will make you feel a bit skeezy, while "Who Stole the Funny?" will make you want to take 30 hot showers after reading it. Put together, they're both insights into Hollywood that you would hardly expect to be true, but in many ways, they are.
It's going to take a lot of willpower and inner strength to read "The Assistants." It's well-written, steeped deeply in the vernacular, social mores, and peccadilloes of Hollywood and its attendant industries. But you're going to spend most of your time hating so many of the characters and wondering if they're real, if perhaps Robin Lynn Williams is exaggerating. She's not. I lived in Southern California, knew a few people who held minor roles in the movie industry, and skirted the edge of it myself, and not only is it true that everyone in Hollywood has a script that they hope will be produced and make them rich, but that hunger, that greed for fame is rampant everywhere. You can feel it wherever you drive, including past the 20th Century Fox lot in Century City, particularly at night with the car windows down. The air is thick with desperation, of people who want so badly to become famous by any means necessary. What Williams writes here is no doubt partly based on her own experience as an assistant in Hollywood, as well as what she has observed away from her job, all wrapped up with a Hollywood ending that the industry would be proud of, after it's done frantically searching for who blabbed about who they actually are. Hollywood isn't glamorous. Not by a long shot.
Robby Benson wrote a novel many years ago called "Who Stole the Funny?: A Novel of Hollywood," possibly based on his experience directing a few episodes of "Friends." "The Assistants" will make you feel a bit skeezy, while "Who Stole the Funny?" will make you want to take 30 hot showers after reading it. Put together, they're both insights into Hollywood that you would hardly expect to be true, but in many ways, they are.
January 16, 2012
This book revolves around the lives of 5 different assistants in Hollywood. The main characters are all diverse and slightly jaded in their own way. This was a fun read told from the different perspectives of the five main characters. Every chapter switched to a different point of view. These POV chapters helped if you wanted to read in shorter bursts as you can read a couple and then pick up easily later on. I found myself liking all of the characters of the book, even though some could be considered your stereotypical types. I think everyone could relate to at least one character in real life. This is a fun and quirky read and I would recommend it if you wanted to read something entertaining, humorous and enjoyable. The only bad thing I could think of, and it is not necessarily about this book, is that the author only wrote this one book. I liked her style and humor and would have enjoyed reading more from her.
September 7, 2013
This was a bit of a throwback, having been released in 2005, but in a good way. Made me nostalgic for the good old days of….eight years ago. GAH! Eight years ago! Anyway, I liked that we get four different perspectives from four different Hollywood assistants. I didn’t find it to be incredibly over-the-top with the things these assistants are asked to do—and there is a lot of talk about how Hollywood assistants are asked to do some outrageous things, of which I kind of wished for juicier details—but all in all, it’s a quick, fun read with a happy ending, and the story is played out by the exact five characters you think it would be, including wannabe actress, the one good guy in the business, the hopeful always positive naïve girl, the ambitious guy who chucks it all, and the girl who kinda/sorta grew up in the business and now works in it herself, but not really.
April 14, 2007
I first heard about this book when it first came out about a year ago and was intrigued but wasn't willing to shell out the hardcover price on an unknown author. So I grabbed it when it reached the bargain racks and loved it. I read it in under day and fell in love with the quirky characters that Williams created. It also makes me very glad that I don't work in Hollywood and never plan to. While the ending was a little too "happily ever after" and neat, the assistants did give their former bosses their just desserts. A fun fluffy read; perfect for the beach or a lazy Saturday afternoon. Highly recommended.
August 29, 2007
A nice, light read. Kind of cringe-worthy, and honestly a lot of it is both believable and unbelievable at the same time - you kinda want to believe that celebrities are never as nasty and snotty as rumored, but really it's kind obvious that they are. Anyway.
Witty and light. Griffin was my favorite character, he was the most complex, I think. Tasha or Kasha or whatever her name was, annoyed me. Rachel, I loved, just as the author intended for her to be loved. Michaela and Jeb I mostly just felt pity for.
A nice read to make you smile and cringe, a little. Isn't too dark of a novel, but not completely fluff, either.
Witty and light. Griffin was my favorite character, he was the most complex, I think. Tasha or Kasha or whatever her name was, annoyed me. Rachel, I loved, just as the author intended for her to be loved. Michaela and Jeb I mostly just felt pity for.
A nice read to make you smile and cringe, a little. Isn't too dark of a novel, but not completely fluff, either.
March 6, 2008
I honestly don't know how I feel about this book. It was a quick, sometimes fun read, but something about it really bothered me. I found Rachel's character charming, but obnoxiously naive. Michaela was pretty much trash and Kecia was kinda pathetic. I could barely read the chapters about Jeb. He was an oversexed man whore and every time he referred to "the veins" I wanted to throw the book across the room or throw up. I liked Griffin, even though he was a manipulative liar. They weren't even characters you could love to hate. This book was completely overrated as far as I'm concerned.
June 19, 2011
So entertaining and so simple! Nothing extravagant, nothing too much over the top, which is so rare in books like these. A group of various assistants in Los Angeles all meet up and share their stories and their lives all overlap, but not in a fake way. Like this could all actually happen. One works for an up and coming actor, one works for the agent, one works for a washed-up actor, one joins the washed-up actors’ team and one works for a big agency. The story was good and entertaining and a good mix of naïveté and experience, which was good.
Grade: C+
Grade: C+
July 23, 2012
I liked this book, I liked it a lot. Don't know if I like it enough to buy but maybe I will. What I like about this book is that it gives you an honest behind-the-scene look at how Hollywood works. I'm not cut to work in Hollywood, I'm not gonna put out for a small part in a movie/tv show. And it's not guarantee that you'd get the part. I'm not gonna work for spoiled, crazy b!tch. But overall a great book.
July 15, 2016
This novel doesn't quite fall into the "chick-lit" category, but it certainly is as light. It's Hollywood-gossipy, and very enjoyable as such; however, having five main characters is a bit much, despite the fact that they all interrelate. I found it hard to really care about any of them, and I didn't buy into the too-tidy and too-quick wrap up at the end. This was good to relax with, but certainly not great.
March 25, 2008
It's like a soap opera on acid with an ending so sweetly happy you need to brush your teeth afterward.
August 2, 2008
A good, light, quick read.
February 6, 2009
Fast, easy read but very enjoyable.
Kind of made me want to be an assistant ;)
Kind of made me want to be an assistant ;)
May 19, 2009
A quirky, up-to-date page-turner that makes me glad NOT to be an assistant!
Reviewed by Chase Brooks, author of "Hello, My Love"
Reviewed by Chase Brooks, author of "Hello, My Love"
June 7, 2009
Very funny.
Read
January 5, 2010what I learned from this book? Getting your fingernails and toenails pulled out while simultaneously getting a super duper nuclear strength wedgie can't be as painful as reading this piece of crap.
September 26, 2010
Yeah, there's a reason this book was on $3.99 new.
February 28, 2011
Easy read that was a bit boring at first but picked up at the end.
June 5, 2011
Great read.
November 9, 2011
Super quick read. Gossipy. You know, one I'd be embarrassed to read in public.
March 8, 2012
Easy read... something that I'd save for a long bus ride.
September 16, 2012
Hated the ending!!
October 2, 2013
I really enjoyed this, and I'm glad I came across it at the store. I recommend it for people who like to read stories about show business.
May 26, 2015
Entertaining, light read.
August 24, 2016
A good beach read or one to take on the plane. Low stress, high drama, and pretty wicked at times. Not too substantial but it will keep you interested
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews