All you need is one cut, to kill it in this town.
UnREAL meets Bringing up baby, in this oh-so-relevant dark and wacky coming-of-age story.
"They’re waiting at the grave. We plant the seeds ... Next year they’ll bloom, technicolor fed by darkness. Like this town."
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, June 2015: A freshly dug grave.
Halloween, 2014: Mona arrives in Los Angeles.
Mona knows how to edit a film and cut off all feelings. Her brother Joost is directing a remake; but he intends to represent, to turn the world upside down. Mona just wants to drink and float in the pool. Working for her brother is a drag, always turning into major drama.
Then she meets Elki— a K-town native, who spends her days chasing obscure memorabilia, healing a traumatized puppy, and acting as de facto leader of a group of rowdy girls.
Elki is an insider who explains the Industry’s wicked games, and, why not, even life. Making Mona believe she can stand up to her brother's selfish demands.
But Mona gets pulled in like never before. When everything spirals out of control, she finds herself in charge, on the point of destroying her family.
Worse, about to put her only friend in mortal danger.
A novel plotted with madcap energy about friendship, the freedom of frustration and finding one’s way.
Simona Moroni's Hollywood Daze is a dark, witty, coming-of-age tale playing out amidst the pretentious dazzle of California's Tinseltown. A young woman makes strange new friendships, confronts family issues and attempts to navigate an emotionally charged world. Dutch filmmaker Joost Larvink invites his young sister Mona to work her editing magic on his first big-budget production. Joost's desire is to transform the film, a sci-fi remake of a classic Cary Grant romantic comedy, into a gay love story. Viewing the original as a piece of Hollywood history marked by fake heterosexual relationships, he emphasizes, "My Favorite Wife was a screwball comedy, and censorship created the genre." The well-paced first-person narrative reveals Mona’s newfound involvement with a motley crew amid continuous action: break-ins to collect movie memorabilia, crashed celebrity gatherings, stolen morphine for a suicidal landscaper and, ultimately, film edits that might destroy careers. Artful backdrops become characters unto themselves, from seedy bars and mansions to the Woodland Hills retirement home that pays homage to aging Hollywood wannabes, where Moroni uses humor and wisdom to showcase quirky elders offering wisdom to the flailing younger generation. "LA is like bubblegum," her new friend Bama tells her, speaking to the city's enticement, buzz, hook and disappointment. While youthful indiscretions might lure young adult readers, Moroni's writing should also attract fans of Hollywood’s golden age. Appropriate details – from a Carole Lombard sequined dress and cigarettes smoked Bogart-style to movie-titled chapters and footsteps resembling "echoes like the voices in Citizen Kane's ‘Xanadu’" – frame the characters and subplots. Moroni cleverly brings the story full circle with unexpected twists. While a final inference might suggest that in reality— and on the big screen— the best-laid plans sometimes go astray, in La La Land, that seems to be a sure thing.
A young European gets lost in the parties, traffic, and unbelievable characters that make up Los Angeles in this novel.
After a traumatic breakup, the confused and often drunk Mona, a native of the Netherlands, finds herself in LA. People ask where she lives, but she can only respond, “South Catalina something? You can see the Hollywood sign from the house.” Her brother, Joost, is an up-and-coming director whose recent success at Cannes has led him to turn an old Cary Grant movie into a sexy, space-set romance with blockbuster potential. Mona careens from power lunches to studios with Joost, trying to conceal the truth that she actually edits his films and maybe controls her brother’s creative force, before meeting Elki—a free-wheeling Angelino from Koreatown. Elki’s mother gave good enough pedicures that both family members ended up in the glitzy world of Bel Air as well as on the eccentric fringes of old and new Hollywood. Now Elki profits by stealing movie memorabilia and partying. While Joost struggles to deal with his producer’s bottom line and conniving manipulations, Mona watches the crowns of palm trees out car windows blur together as Elki takes her deeper into a world of parties, broken relationships, robberies, and the surprise of just how small a town LA can be. A tendency toward self-destruction, impulsiveness, and outlandish outbursts makes Mona the type of tormented enfant terrible that drives bleak coming-of-age classics like The Catcher in the Rye and Girl, Interrupted. Yet at the same time, Mona can feel flat compared to other characters—her perceptions as a Dutch citizen in a new country are never quite addressed, for example—and there are long stretches where she becomes an apathetic camera simply capturing the wild scenes of LA. Still, Moroni (Medusa Blues, 2006, etc.) clearly understands and loves that city for all of its contradictory excesses. “LA is like bubble-gum,” a character named Bama says. “You need it bad, then the buzz fades, but you’re hooked, and all your teeth fall out.” The same could be said of this book: The story never gives Mona quite enough depth, but its zany, surreal situations and whip-smart dialogue make for an addictive ride.
This tale of a troubled film editor effectively captures the dark excitement of sunny LA.
