Simona's Corner of Dreams: Blame it on the Fame

Original Cover

My own copy

The blurb:

A power-trippin’ bitch, a has-been, a skanky ex-model, a press-shy indie queen, and a British stage actress no one knows – that’s how the Best Actress hopefuls in this year’s too-close-to-call Oscar race cattily describe each other. Which of them will win the much-coveted gold statue and what price will they be forced to pay as they travel the red carpeted-path to Hollywood glory?

Amidst all the press-schmoozing and angsting over which designer gown to wear, these Oscar contenders feud, commiserate, and face a succession of personal crises – scandalous secrets come to light, marriages implode, accidents land two nominees in the hospital while another receives news that could derail her career, all culminating on Tinsel Town’s biggest night when anything can happen, and does.

BLAME IT ON THE FAME is the debut novel of author Tracie Banister whose writing is similar in tone (sexy, humorous) to the works of Lauren Weisberger and Candace Bushnell. This is a full-length novel that runs approximately 136,000 words.

***AUTHOR’S NOTE*** The characters in BLAME IT ON THE FAME are a naughty bunch who live and work in the notoriously debaucherous film world, so you will find some colorful language and a few spicy love scenes in this book.

My Opinion:

This book is Tracie’s debut novel actually. I read In Need Of Thearpy first though and I enjoyed it so much, that downloaded this one instantly and I don’t regret it at all.

Firstly, I think is great and fits perfectly with the cover. This novel is very different in the style from Tracie’s other book.

Here we read about five successful actresses who are nominated for the Academy Award.

I really enjoyed getting to know them all. All the fives ladies had something special and Tracie beautifully managed to make them unique and create their own story.

We get an inside of how these ladies experience the pre-Oscar weeks and of course also who gets the Oscar in the end.

Philippa Sutcliffe is the British actress, she is beautiful and full of energy. When she is angry you better stay away from her. Miles, her former co-star and ex-boyfriend, has to experience that over and over again. He’s a man-whore, but in the story he realises that he is really in love with Philippa and I love how he is fighting for her and it was great reading about the two of them. There were a lot of ups and downs in their relationship and some very interesting and enjoyable scenes. Miles had such a cute and wowing surprise at the Oscar night! I was always guessing something like that could happen and when it did, I was so happy. These two were my favourites in this book.

Actress #2 was Jordan Schaeffer. I liked her from the beginning, she had something sweet and genuine about herself. She had to put up with her famous parents, who were both really successful in their earlier days. There is a secret she’s hiding until the Oscar night and I loved the way all this turned out in the end. A lovely character with a great personality and Tracie managed to include an important message in the book through this character.

Then there was Laurel. She’d already won an Oscar 15 years ago and really struggled after that and she never really recovered. The Oscar nomination only makes it harder. She has a great family, but her husband was hiding something, which totally broke her and brought her to a low point again. I felt so bad for her and hoped everything would turn out to be okay, I loved how her kids were caring for her and Tracie found a great way to makes us feel Laurels feelings and emotions.

Next was Danielle Jamison, oh she was a real bitch, I’m sorry. The way she treated her husband and kids was so not human and it made her so dislikeable. I always hoped for her husband Logan to stand up to her. Well, that took a while. The scenes between them for written from a great perspective though and I really enjoyed that.

Last but not least we had Anaya Reynolds, an ex-model, who is acting now. With her it was all about party, alcohol, sex, drugs and rock’n roll. All she wanted to do is having fun, she didn’t care about anything until her accident. I enjoyed seeing her change and realising her real feelings.

There were also scenes where these very different women interacted and that was just such a pleasure to read and there was something new to discover on every page. As a reader you also get an inside of what fame can do to a person and who different people behave when they’re famous. A great story with lots of depth and meaning. It makes you see life in a total different way.

The Oscar night took this story on a whole other level again. I was so impressed how Tracie managed to include all these five women and their feelings without leaving one of them out and I like the Oscar winners (also male, not only female) and some action going on on stage.

The reason why this book is only a 4.5 for me and not a 5: I didn’t like the epilogue very much. Of course it was great to get information about their future and what happened with them after this big Oscar night. I felt as though some of these things were a bit unreal and just written down for us to know. I still enjoyed it though and the very last scene was brilliant. A must read!!!

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