Rating: 
Summary: A Great Summer Read
Review: Beautiful Wasps Having Sex has been permanantly added to my bookshelf of great new discoveries. I happened to find the book a week after I'd quit my job, and at a time when I was struggling with my own Jonathan Prince. (Hollywood isn't the only place where people like Jonathan exist.) What a great pleasure to read this book, and to get lost in the humorous, touching excapades of a character I not only liked but related to. The novel abounds with humorous and dead on observations about the way we live today, and the increasingly small role creativity and originality play in Hollywood and the world at large. When I wasn't laughing at the trevails of Frankie Jordon, I was nodding in recognition.
Rating: 
Summary: BEAUTIFUL WASPS HAVING SEX
Review: BEAUTIFUL WASPS HAVING SEX manages to be both a very funny read about the travails of a Hollywood screenwriter, and a compelling look at what drives people in the movie business. It rises way above the usual Hollywood novel in that it considers both the Jewish psyche, and the roots of the entertainment business in explaining why, "No one's very surprised by bad behavior in Hollywood."Frankie Jordan, the narrator is a forty-year-old writer whose marriage is ending and career is faltering when she meets her agent's secretary, Jonathan Prince, a twenty four-year-old whose career is just beginning. The story traces his rise to power as seen through her eyes. Jonathan, like his predecessor Sammy Glick, rises by stepping on the people who were stupid enough to trust him. But Dori Carter also guides us through the workings of the movie industry from a writer's point of view by following the struggle Frankie endures in trying to get her screenplay made with just a little bit of integrity intact. Agents, producers, development girls, studio executives...they're all here spouting dialog that made this reader laugh out loud. Most of the characters are Jewish, with a few well-chosen token WASPs. Among the Jews,Yiddish is sprinkled in conversations both as a self-deprecating reference to their poor, politically incorrect forebears - "The shvartzeh comes tomorrow" - and as an acknowledgement that they all came from the same, fearful world. The title of the book has to do with one of the many ironies in the book: These Hollywood Jews wish they could feel as carefree and safe as the beautiful WASPS whose image they have done such a splendid job in packaging. As Jerry Slotnick, a schlock producer explains: "It's the jealousy love/hate thing that the Jews have for the WASPS. The WASPs don't have to be deep...They don't feel obliged to suffer. Their God isn't as demanding as our God. He doesn't make you get circumcised, command you to sacrifice your son, and then forbid you to eat spareribs on top of it." This is one Hollywood book you will NOT be embarrassed to be seen reading on the beach.
Rating:
Summary: Dori Carter Skewers Hollywood
Review: Dori Carter is a writer with a keen mind and a rapier pen. Her novel is wry from the title on: there are virtually no WASPS in the book,which is populated by Jews engaged in the business of making movies and each other.The focal character is a struggling script writer,(as was Ms Carter), Frankie Jordan ,who gets battered by a rough crowd of producers,writers,and agents.
The story is often laugh outloud funny,somtimes moving and,in one instance,profound in its comments about the Jewish experience. This goy learned that the movie business is not unlike the making of sausage. And he will certainly look for the next book by Dori Carter.
Rating: 
Summary: Will Readers Care Beyond Los Angeles?
Review: Hollywood insiders have always been smitten with movies and television shows about the downright mean business they work in. So it would be no surprise to me if many of those same people found this book a delightfully literary black comedy. Dori carter writes well, with the voice of her narrator, Frankie Jordan almost feeling like someone Sue Grafton or Susan Isaacs would have created.Unfortunately she's not someone I ever rooted for in the book. In fact I don't think there were any people in this book I even liked let alone rooted for.-Well, maybe her Grandmother who is not integral to the plot but at least had a heart. Overall the book left me confused;Was it a cautionary tale of the pitfalls in Hollywood or a meditation on how Jews perceive themselves versus the idealized world of the WASP they're perpetuating in the media? Maybe both, or neither one. Ultimately the only thing I learned was that Hollywood is full of hateful, unhappy people.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Entertaining, a Fast Read
Review: I absolutely loved Dori Carter's book, in fact, I forced myself to put it down, because it was so much fun to read, I didn't want to read it too fast. I always love reading Hollywood stories,especially the nitty gritty...what really goes on. At times, I was laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes. Read it, you won't be sorry.
Rating: 
Summary: Educational Regarding Screenwriting Careers
Review: I could not put this book down, however, I must warn you -- don't look for any sex because it hardly ever and happens and when it does it is not discussed! This book was good because I was interested in knowing what the career of screenwriter is like. I found it interesting that people were interested in her writing, but then wanted her to drastically change it. HOW ANNOYING AND DISHEARTENING FOR A WRITER! I think this book would have been better if she was more forgiving to the characters and allowed us to like them more. Most people are portrayed as if they are not that likeable. Because if they are not likeable, then you don't really care WHAT happens to them. I learned a lot also about Jewishness. But sometimes I found her to be very anti-Jewish when she is Jewish. I wonder: doesn't she enjoy any part of her heritage? The book also needs a new title.
Rating: 
Summary: If you like FUN, skip this one
Review: I decided that I had to SUFFER through the ENTIRE book before making an intelligent decision about the book itself. This book was DREADFUL and I embraced each moment as a ray of sunshine when I could put it down. Dori Carter uses too many CAPITALIZED words for my taste, in addition to words in italics that I just didn't understand. I thought this book was going to be fun, based on the title and the happy couple on the cover of the paperback edition. This is an EXAMPLE of a book that defines the cliché, you can't judge a book by its cover.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let the cover fool you . . .
Review: I hadn't planned on buying this book, because my book-buying funds had been seriously depleted and I wasn't that taken with either the dust jacket or the title. But while waiting for a friend at a local bookstore, I began reading the first few pages. By the time I was 10 pages in I knew I wanted to finish it, so I forked over my plastic and I'm glad I did. Frankie Jordan, screenwriter, has been dumped by her husband, her screenwriting career is slowing veering south, and her beloved grandmother has taken a turn for the worse(brought on by the deplorable treatment Grandma receives from Frankie's father). Most of the book focuses on Frankie's relationship with her parents, her quest to see her screenplays made into movies, and her tactics for survival in Hollywood. At times, the story was poignant and at other times humorous. One humorous scene takes place in the home of Shepard Blum. I'm not quite sure what Shepard does for a living, but Frankie had not seen him for some time and thinks perhaps he has called to ask her to write a TV pilot. She agrees to meet him at his house, but soon gets her fill of his pretentiousness and wants to get on with dinner. Shepard, big on presentation, makes a big production of displaying the main course, a crisp and glistening duck. Unfortunately, in the course of showing off, Shepard encounters a spot of duck grease on the floor. As he falls the duck is propelled out of the dish, over Shepard's head and across the floor like a greased hockey puck. Shepard, on the floor with his forehead gashed open and blood and duck grease everywhere, is not amused, but I got a chuckle out of seeing him get his comeuppance. In places, the story mires down in heavy descriptive narrative. I wish Ms. Carter would have focussed more on the character's introspection/thoughts/actions and less on describing settings down to the minutest detail. And I agree with the New York Time's Book Review's assessment that there are too many Yiddishisms of the sort "you might expect from early vaudeville." I started to skip over them as they began to distract me from the story. I liked the way the author ended the story as I felt my sympathy for Frankie was well-placed. I was left with no doubt in my mind that she would go on to be successful in her own right. But, better than, that, she would go on to be a better human being as a result of the decisions she'd made. I would definitely read a second book by Ms. Carter.
Rating:
Summary: Wretched!
Review: I hate when a promising book takes a nosedive. The problem here is the narrator - she's a real whiner, and after 30 pages I couldn't what happens because you know she's just going to find a way to complain or roll around in her ultra-sensitivity. It seems to be a cathartic first novel by (surprise) a former screenwriter. A better read is The Deal by Peter Lefcourt.
Rating:
Summary: A hearty, satisfying, funny read
Review: I so enjoyed reading this book, and had to write a review to thank Carter for making me laugh at so many points. This is an insightful, warm, hysterical read. I especially recommend it to readers interested in the following three topics:
1) Jews in Hollywood
2) Relations between Jews and WASPs
3) The Writing Life/Screenwriting Life
As an filmic accompaniment to this book, I recommend the devastating "Quiz Show," which makes similiar points in an equally engaging and provocative way (though Dori Carter's take is much funnier). This book would make a great movie!
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