Rating: 
Summary: putting it on the line
Review: Okay. Straight out, this is a book about the porn industry. Actually, I don't think there IS very much fiction about the porn industry. However, this is a very witty contribution, and a bit more, er, shocking than I was expecting from Red Dress publishers. I thought this was a very interesting premise, and despite whatever shocks the reader might get, the story was quite good and the characters were well developed (no pun intended). If you have the stomach for it, it is quite an interesting romp.
Rating: 
Summary: How did this get published?
Review: Take heart, aspiring writers. This novel proves that even the most talentless novelist can have his/her book published. This "fictional" account reads more like a recipe than a story as the writer uses a whopping 46 characters to tell her boring tale. As soon as I saw the catalogue of characters on the third page, I should've just put the book down. In fact, many times I was tempted to stop reading but it is my habit to read a book to its conclusion, hoping to find some redeeming quality.
Let's begin with the basic premise...A struggling Hollywood writer gains fame while writing best selling "Thinking Man's Porn." What the author fails to realize is that the zillion dollar porn industry is driven by a male audience. Men simply don't care about a storyline, however compelling it may be. In fact, men tend to fast forward to the "good stuff" as they are visually driven creatures. Best selling porn is not meant to change your life, it's meant to give you your jollies. Even if you suspend reality and try to enjoy this book for the characters, you will be disappointed. The characters are drawn in a very sketchy manner-maybe because there are so many of them-and it's hard to care about any of them. The writer had loads of material to work with character-wise and she didn't take advantage of it at all. The story of the gay brother, the loopy mother, the missing father-all of these could've been interesting if they'd been developed. And finally, I cared not a whit about our heroine Laura. Even when her worlds collided, it was anti-climatic. This writer needs to get off the chick-lit bandwagon and stick with writing screenplays. She outlined many fabulous screenplay ideas in this book and should devote her time to exploring them.
Rating: 
Summary: Ms Isenberg needs some writing lessons and a good editor
Review: This book is a 'sexy/romantic comedy' sort of chick lit novel, although unfortunately it fails on all accounts: it's not sexy, or particularly romantic, and I don't recall laughing even once through the long and drawn out 300 pages. Perhaps I managed a smile or two - if it had been a screenplay, the in-the-closet gay brother who invents leather socks could have been quite a character - but any humour here was quickly displaced by poor quality writing that you might expect from your average high school student.
I won't go into detail about all the various flaws this book has since many other reviews have done that already ('clunky' writing, way too many characters etc), but my main general criticism would be that Lynn Isenberg breaks one of the most basic rules of all good fiction writing: show, don't tell. Ms Isenberg doesn't want to let the reader work things out for themselves, so instead she tells us what someone's reaction is instead of letting them react; or she makes it bleedingly obvious that a certain event or conversation is a pivotal moment by dropping in awkward phrasing like "I didn't know it then but...". It hints at something to come, instead of just letting us wait to find out. This is sometimes called authorial intrusion (although it may have another name as well) and is very old fashioned. It's not in and of itself a bad thing, but just because it works in Flaubert's Madame Bovary doesn't mean it's going to work in 21st century chick lit. Mostly it's lazy and sloppy writing, a cop out for not being able to imaginatively work the plot in such a way that the reader is not clubbed to death with 'the point' of the story. There is A LOT of it in this book.
Apart from that the main character Laura Taylor, who writes porn under the atrocious pseudonym Bella Feega, spends virtually the entire book doing the Clark Kent/Superman thing: only a small handful of people know they are one and the same, and so the number of occasions where Laura has to make up excuses why they can never appear in the same room together becomes so tedious you just wish the whole thing would come to an end about two thirds of the way through.
There's also little about it that's daring considering it's about making porn films (the characters don't even 'have sex', they 'make love'). Yes, you'll find mention of sex toys and threesomes, but it's hardly erotica. It's all so cumbersome and unexciting, and Laura herself seems like such a prude (even after having written half a dozen porn films) that I find it hard to believe that there's anything much in here that normal adults would find 'shocking'.
I really think that the plot of this book had some potential to be a fun and maybe slightly sexy read. But it reads like a rough and unedited draft and falls flat on its face from almost the first page.
Rating: 
Summary: Inside Hollywood indeed!
Review: This novel mentions a show called Inside Hollywood. The aforementioned title fits this great book down to a tee. My Life Uncovered is a fun, witty and realistic tale about the life of a struggling screenwriter. Laura Taylor has written the American Screenplay. However, like most Hollywood screenwriters, she has difficulty selling her work. Her life takes a strange turn when she stumbles upon the adult film industry. With a provocative pseudonym and a mind full of fresh ideas, she becomes the most sought-after and respected screenwriter in said obscure film genre. She continues to struggle in Hollywood as her adult film career reaches legendary status. No sooner does she obtain the aforementioned fame than her two worlds collide. My Life Uncovered is full of ironic circumstances and hilarious twists. Ms. Isenberg's takes on Hollywood are insightful and earnest. The one thing I find troublesome about this novel is that it has too many characters. She does not mention all of the characters in the screenplay-like "Cast of Characters" listed in the book. Most of the secondary characters are agents, and I had difficulty remembering all of them. Other than that, this novel is a must-read. Another winner from Red Dress Ink. Highly recommended...
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