Campbell Andrews > Recent Status Updates

so bad so far — frequent flashbacks, all the dialogue is expository, structurally it’s completely amateur

oh, the Rich Urban Assholes genre

fleeing in war-torn Czechia with the print — fantastic sequence

(making an exception to my aversion of translated works, thanks to the subject matter & its reviews)

“Audiences would be under no illusions that they were in for a great time.”

Mr. Glennie is either a simpleton or he desperately needs a copy editor

Leo: “I remember Hollywood from being a five-year-old in 1974”

either Leo got it wrong or author Glennie did, because that would make Leonardo DiCaprio 56 years old, not 51 as is his official birthdate

errors like this abound in here. but never miss a chance to tell us there’s no cell phones on a Tarantino set or CGI in a Tarantino movie!

of the actor told to prepare an audition as Mama Cass, being as her resemblance is so strong:

“She purchased a Mama Cass-style outfit and decided to sing two songs. Obviously it stood to reason to sing ‘California Dreamin,’ but she also plumped for ‘Monday, Monday.’l

plumped?

this is a very strangely-written book.

not only is this repartee not as witty as it assumes, there is a LOT of it

Kelly *Preston*, not McGillis

ugh the rejoinders

Effective & engrossing, but structurally (and knowingly, to its credit)? Pulp.

beginning of a chapter: “The early 1950s were a good time to be ambitious and privileged in America.” Mr. Ryan, this is a NOVEL — not a middle-school social studies textbook.

this reads like a novel written by instruction, a kit you can buy at the hobby store. it’s paint-by-numbers.

for every incisive insight (“He’d become a guest in his own life”, page 185) there’s an anachronism (“it became clear that they were all… fighting to protect a way of life that didn’t include everyone back home”, page 187)

“Let’s just say it wasn’t a Norman Rockwell painting”

WAY too knowing — it’s 1944, Rockwell was known as an illustrator who did magazine covers. This is an elbow in the ribs of the reader, when “It wasn’t the cover of the Saturday Evening Post” would’ve sufficed.