Hollywood Kids - Hardcover

Collins, Jackie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671666274 ISBN 13: 9780671666279

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1994

Synopsis

The idle children of Hollywood legends and moguls are surrounded by money and luxury and searching for love--but a murderer lurks in their midst and a tough New York detective comes to town to change their lives forever. 500,000 first printing. Lit Guild Main. Tour.

About this title

Reviews

Collins (Hollywood Wives; Hollywood Husbands) grabs fans with a no-holds-barred (and no subtlety shown) surefire bestseller spun around the disaffected children of Hollywood moguls. Tired of club-hopping and sexual flings, 24-year-old Jordanna Levitt is immobilized by ennui when a massive fight with her father-a famed producer married to a woman younger than his daughter-forces her out of her cushy nest. She lands a gofer job with Bobby Rush, the hot-ticket son of an ungracefully aging movie star, then quickly makes her mark as an actress. Her best friend Cheryl Landers deigns to try working, too, and becomes a successful Hollywood madam. On the periphery are Grant Lemon Jr., the dissolute son of a celluloid icon; anorectic Marjory Sanderson, the whiny, daughter of a TV magnate; and Zane Ricca, a movie-star wannabe and Mafia boss's nephew jailed for seven years for murdering a young actress and now stalking the women who testified against him. Collins festoons her pulp sundae with dollops of hot sex in cars, beds and driveways; Fatal Attraction-like trysts between stars and a cascade of trademark names. Overlapping plot lines are propelled by rude energy and blazing tabloid-style tales of suicide, substance abuse, towering egos, dubious parentage and truly star-crossed lovers. 500,000 first printing; major ad/promo; audio rights to Simon & Schuster; Literary Guild main selection. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Egomaniacs in fast cars, Armani-clad spoiled rich kids, their movie mogul parents, ``lavishly appointed'' Tinseltown homes, and always-sensational sex--it's Collins romping on her well-trodden but ever-fertile ground. Jordanna Levitt and her pals--precocious, underachieving children of the movie industry's most important and dysfunctional families--are known as ``The Hollywood Five.'' Jordanna is a slut without ambition, Marjorie Sanderson is suicidal, Shep Worth is in the closet, Grant Lennon and Cheryl Landers operate a call girl operation. When she's bounced from the mansion of her producer dad and his pregnant, younger-than-she-is new wife, Jordanna takes a job as the assistant (and later costar) of ``incredibly good- looking'' movie star/director Bobby Rush, the child of a brilliant but cruel famous actor. Their devastating physical attractions and broken homes make the two kindred spirits, but Jordanna's got a problem that even a top Bel Air psychotherapist couldn't solve: She's being hunted by a madman against whom she testified at his trial for murder. Luckily for her, handsome Brooklyn cop Michael Scorsinni has just relocated to L.A. He and a top-notch celebrity reporter for Style Wars, the gorgeous and down-to-earth Kennedy Chase, team up to stop the crime (as well as grapple with their own lives' melodramas) and in so doing, fall in love. All this races in front of a backdrop of superlatives: the hottest clubs, the harshest drugs, the seamiest sex, the meanest mafia, and the prettiest posers. The Hollywood Kids are palimpsests upon which are listed the traumas of the trust fund; Michael and Kennedy are cut from the ``beautiful but damaged'' cloth; supporting characters (the black cop buddy, the lusty Latina newscaster) are straight from Central Casting. Plot, though suspenseful, offers few surprises. Still, it's a Porscheload of fun. It's logical: Hollywood Wives and Hollywood Husbands breed Less Than 9 Zero 210 offspring. (First printing of 500,000; Literary Guild main selection; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

You have to hand it to Collins. Her writing is banal, and her characters are cartoons, but her books are always page-turners. Using her familiar Tinseltown setting, Collins, who has already covered Hollywood Wives and Hollywood Husbands, now takes a look at the sons and daughters of the stars and starmakers, young people who like their drugs mellow and their sex hot (though dutifully strapping on condoms on every other page). You can only go so far with Hollywood kids, though, forcing Collins to throw in a few other characters: the alcoholic cop with the heart of gold (10K, anyway); the serious journalist who nevertheless has long blond hair and legs that won't quit; the Jack Nicholson-like, laid-back legend; and the serial killer whose story line knits the rest of the cast together. So how can something so bad be so good? Like another Jackie, Jackie Susanne, Collins knows how to write a trash story that's larger than life and keep it moving at a breakneck clip, never giving us time to feel guilty for enjoying the ride. Still, Collins has pretty much squeezed the California orange and probably should try moving the action to another coast. Even she couldn't do much with Hollywood Pets. Ilene Cooper

Originally scheduled for April (see Prepub Alert, LJ 12/93), this novel will now be published in September.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671666274
• ISBN 13: 9780671666279
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528