Rating: 
Summary: It's like a drug.
Review: Susann's novel is like a drug. I was hooked from the beginning and still hooked, willing to try my hand at anything else by her.
As you read, you are intricately woven into the stories of three women as they battle the pressures of the New York City limelight. The lows and highs will jar you awake.
Behind all the glitz and glamour of their lives lies a shadow, a constant reminder of who they were so they desperately cling to the "dolls" to forget it all.
If you do decide to read this novel, don't be surprised if you can't put it down. Susann's characters, so cleverly written, will become you. You'll be at the edge of your seat filled with a desire to dig deeper into their lives.
Rating: 
Summary: both fun and sad
Review: This is an amazingly enjoyable, funny, and ultimately heartbreaking book which could only have been written by a show-business insider like Susann. We meet the three main characters as naive girls as they are just starting out in New York City trying to land the jobs (and the men) of their dreams. Through the rest of the book all three of them become wiser, more mature, and more bitter as they realize what will be required of them in order reach their goals. "Dolls" are the downers and uppers they begin to rely on along the way... a pop culture must-read!
Rating: 
Summary: ultimately depressing!
Review: The Valley of the Dolls was an absolutely riveting read for the first 300 pages - I read it to and from work for a week and couldn't put it down at night. A fabulous voyeuristic ride on the fame train. It's not brilliantly well written but the style matches the content perfectly.I could put up with the latent sexism (women automatically giving up work on getting married, women being washed up if they put on 10 pounds, no sight of any women with any financial nouse) because of the thrilling story. It was just good fun. As it drew towards the climax, the feeling was that this fairly shallow, materialistic and unfortunate threesome would somehow figure out their strengths and come up better people - who've lived a little and learned from it, but no - it went from bad to worse and even the best of the bunch ends up in a hopelessly depressing situation. It's not that I need a happy ending - but absolutely no one is redeemed in the book at all and the feeling is that Jacqueline Susann has a very poor opinion of the human race. A very depressing read - I'm popping off now to read some Sylvia Plath - might cheer me up.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious Schlockfest
Review: This novel is an exercise in technique: specifically, high camp. So, it isn't even a particularly interesting technique. This is why the assembled chorus of oohs and aahs are so disheartening. Have standards of readership really fallen so low that turgid potboilers can be reprocessed into art? The effete intelligentsia crowd would have you believe that this book is a daring post-modernist feminist expose on the lives of three Really Interesting Female Persons. It is endlessly lauded for its supposedly unplumbed depth. The sort of thing Melville might have written had he been born a woman into the trash bin of Hollywood during its macho dominion days. Don't you believe it. This book is tripe. Oh, it is spry, titillating, breathy, voyeuristic, dewy-eyed tripe, but it is still tripe. It tells the story of three gold-diggers who prostitute their bodies and their souls for... well... this is the hard part. We don't quite know for what. I mean, we can understand the surface goals, like happiness and true love; but early on, it is made quite clear that none of them have any delusions about actually achieving such ends. So, we can only conclude that they prostitute themselves because that is the way they are wired. After this, whatever sympathy we can muster is of the sort we feel for salmon that must wriggle upstream to spawn before they die. Many readers have said they can identify with the characters. This is scary. The characters are all shallow materialistic emotionally retarded twits. Others cite the author's writing. The writing is hackneyed cliche, filled with prose so purple it shames mashed beets. The camp-glam setting has been flogged to death in hundreds of films and thousands of books, and the themes are pop culture formulae straight out of prime time soap opera. Ultimately, this novel sold a gazillion copies and begat an entire generation of trash that levelled whole virgin forests, because it scopes out the smelly underbelly of stardom. It gives us a vicarious taste of glamour and allows us to wallow with the pigs. One can't get upset about such motives if they lead to honest writing. There are hundreds of hack writers I don't get the least worked up about. But unlike Susann, they don't take themselves seriously. This book is not good, and is not substantial enough to qualify as bad. It is just ugly. A phoney book by a phoney author about phoney people. If that's your cup of tea, you might like it. I prefer my schlock straight up, thank you.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Marvelous!
Review: Jacqueline Susann has managed to craft an edgy, sexy, thrilling and addicting novel--the ultimate in 'trash' literature. The book is far from trash though, it's well written and fascinating, a timeless story that could just as easily take place today. I recommend this novel to everyone, especially fans of Jackie Collins. It's as painfully addicting as the dolls themselves, a definite must-read. The story and characters are timeless and interesting and will linger with you long after you're done reading. Pick up a copy today, if any book is worth reading, Valley of the Dolls is it!
Rating:
Summary: definitely not trash
Review: not fond of the trash novel, i was pleasantly surprised at "valley of the dolls" in that for the first time in a long time the characters stayed with me. not a pulitzer prize winner, but a rich read.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely better than trash!
Review: Most of the reviews below have labeled this book as "trash". I think it's worthy of a better adjective than that. While definitely not a literary masterpiece, Valley of the Dolls was more than just entertaining. The story, although spanning from the 1940s to 60s, is timeless, since it just as easily could be set today. I bought this book on a whim and was not disappointed. I never read anything else by Jacqueline Susann, although I probably will now. I thoroughly enjoyed Valley of the Dolls, and think it's an excellent summer read (I finished it in three nights - its size is deceiving).
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Beach Read
Review: A fun and trashy romance novel. Just a really good time, and a quick read.
Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: Okay, so maybe it's a little "trashy", but it's pure fun. Jennifer is the "Marilyn Monroe" type -- desperate to be loved but appreciated only for her looks. Neely is the alcoholic diva/drama queen -- narcissitic and out of control. Anne is the go-getter career girl -- unwilling to settle down and retreat to the boring, suburban, domestic life of her mother. We meet these characters as young women in New York with dreams of a better future who become friends. We spend the next 20 or so years with them as dreams are realized and shattered, and the bonds of friendship are tested. What makes this book so compelling is the characters. Readers will feel as if they know these women and care about what happens to them.
Rating:
Summary: I wanna party with Neely!
Review: This novel could've been called "How to Be A Teenage Babe." These chix were ahead of their time by three decades. This book will always be socially relevant.
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