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Summary: The Yummiest Piece of Trash You'll Ever Digest
Review: Forget Jackie Collins, this is the REAL Thing. The greatest piece of trash ever written. No wonder it's the best selling work of fiction ever.
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Summary: read this
Review: this book rocks
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Summary: FABULOUS!!
Review: Valley of the Dolls is my absolute favorite novel of all time! I am 17 years old and I relate everything to this book!! It's suspenseful and I love Jaqueline Sussan's style of writing! i definitely suggest this book for everyone!
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Summary: The best book I've read all year!
Review: It is said that reaching stardom is like climbing Mt. Everest. You climb and climb and when you finally get to the top, no one can touch you. But on the other side of the mountain, you look down and that's when you see the Valley of the Dolls. The fall from grace, the valley you reside in when you are no longer the star on top. In Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann tells the story of three women though two decades. Anne is a girl from a small town who comes to New York looking for nothing more than an office job and someone to love. She finds herself almost married to all of New York's richest men, and eventually becomes a supermodel and television star. Her best friend, Neely becomes the Mariah Carrey of the 50's and becomes a star so big, she destroys herself, but not before destroying everything around her. Their other friend Jennifer is an actress who is considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. Her beauty brought her to the top, but the inevitable truth that it would someday fade brings her to her death. I read this 440 page book in only 5 sittings. I just couldn't put it down. This book has everything: drugs, glamour, suspense, sex, deceit, and most of all excitement. There was never a boring paragraph. Valley of the Dolls gives a detailed look at how women in Hollywood were tormented and abused in order to attain the perfect image of a star. It also gave a good look at how women in the 40's, 50's and 60's were treated in general. It shows a lot hasn't changed. All in all, this book was a blast to read and I think any woman with the inclination that she wants to be famous should read it.
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Summary: How Trashy was my Valley!
Review: The first, greatest, near-epic novel, written by the unique Jacqueline Susann is now an incredible testimony of an era: since post-war to 60's, showing the actual American society much more than more intellectual novels of those times. Hard to dislike, I read this satisfying pulp in only three days, and I enjoyed the multiple characters, the trashy plots,...It's just funny. The 1967's film version is just as campy, with lovely performances and kitschy style. The book is more accurate and devastating; the film is crazier and lovelier. Decide among both, or just take the two!
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Summary: A Sixties time capsule and a proto-feminist tome.
Review: Not a single boy in Anne Welles' New England home town is capable of thrilling her. Armed with both a small inheritance and a Radcliffe degree, Anne moves to New York in hot pursuit of excitement. Frigid New England, however, makes a frigid gal of poor Anne and the men of New York don't thrill her. Except for the caddish Lyon Burke. Lyon is no bargain, but Anne pursues him from the Postwar Forties to the Swinging Sixties, indefinitely delaying - or dooming - her own elusive happiness. A comfortable living, first as a secretary, then as a cosmetics model, falls into Anne's lap. Her girlfriends, singer Neely O'Hara and actress Jennifer North, are equally successful, but, like Anne, are desperately unhappy. Valley of the Dolls tells of a woman's price for success in a man's world. Booze, pills, mental hospitals, weird health spas, suicide and cat-fights litter the way as the three girls harden their hearts on Madison Avenue, on Broadway and in Hollywood. Anne, Neely and Jennifer meet the hard-bitten Broadway war horse Helen Lawson, foreshadowing their fates. Though the 1967 film version has its own merits (as one of the all-time great Bad Movies), fans owe it to themselves to experience the novel. The film tacks on a silly happy ending and shies away from the book's bittersweet tone and savage frankness. Despite some awkward writing (such as Susann's over-use of the past perfect tense), VOTD is compulsively readable. An epic that spans twenty years and a dozen characters, VOTD makes millions feel blessed with by utterly ordinary lives free from the lurid thrills of beauty and success. Susann's empathy for the characters, even the villainous and self-destructive, is probably the book's richest achievement. All the women, in pre-feminist times, are trapped by their sex. Anne, raised to eschew her happiness for the happiness of her man, fights against the limited choices offered to her. Neely pursues stardom and discovers that success is a weapon she can use against anyone. Her neediness, which she tries to control with Seconal, Demerol and speed, sends her on a long trip to hell. Jennifer, who wants a home and family, is forced into the limelight by her trashy family and endures years of humiliation. Even Helen Lawson, whom we meet only after she is well-weathered and cynical, elicits empathy as a woman who learns to live with the circumstances the younger girls are just beginning to face. Before VOTD, Susann was known as an actress and as author of a novelty book about her poodle (Every Night, Josephine!). Publishers expected a sequal. Instead, they got a lurid potboiler openly discussing the taboo subjects of drug addiction, homosexuality, and even a hint of incest. (Incest became a more explicit theme in Susann's Once is Not Enough.) Though the book industry regarded the novel as pornography, Susann tirelessly promoted the book herself (with the help of her publicist husband) and broke records that stand today. The publishing industry took quick notice; the agressively marketed, long-winded, lurid blockbuster "woman's novel" became a staple. The new edition, published by Grove Press (home of Henry Miller and William Burroughs), is out of the closet as a favorite of the new literary intelligencia. Dozens of today's edgiest writers learned about sex, drugs and harrowing storytelling (under the covers, with a flashlight) from VOTD. Valley of the Dolls is a Sixties time capsule and a proto-feminist tome. Out of print for over 15 years, VOTD, rediscovered and taken seriously, takes its place as a pop culture classic.
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Summary: ENTERTAINING, AND A PROFILE OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS!
Review: Vally of the Dolls is a real look at the way some of the famous people live their lives. It portrayes the myth of good and evil in the world of making it to the top. In this book, we are looking at how stardom and money make or break the people. It's certainly a great look at courage, an power, and how differn't people use it.
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Summary: valley of the dolls an unforgettable first book
Review: Valley of the Dolls was the first book I read for pleasure. I stole it from my mother and read it in about three days in our back porch mostly laying on a hammock. What I remember most is the femminity of the characters. The combination of strength and vulnerability. And who can forget the outrageous lifestyle. Valley of the Dolls was a great first read. It wet and spoiled my appetite for that perfect trash novel. But unlike a regular trash novel Valley of the Dolls captures the era in which is was set unlike any other book of its time.
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Summary: It's Not Trash!
Review: Though it's seamier elements may have been sensationalistic in its day, Valley of the Dolls has aged to become a rather elegant piece of work. The characters are deftly portrayed and the showbiz mileau is convincing--though I don't work in Hollywood or on Broadway, so who's to say if it's accurate? And--who cares?!
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Summary: BEWARE! by M. Boucher
Review: VALLEY OF THE DOLLS was my introduction to trashy novels. I was 15 then. Now that I'm almost twenty years older and that I'm more mature, I have to admit that this novel is downright...wonderful! Jackie took a lot of heat from the critics for having penned a «bubble gum» novel. But little did they know that she would end up being ahead of her time. Just look at the top of the bestseller list today. Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins, Sidney Sheldon... Even John Grisham, who's considered by many to be a great storyteller, is from the same school. One only has to compare his work to Susann's to discover that his prose is exactly the same : simple and fast-paced. VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is a great novel, and anyone who proudly blasts it, may blast a favorite author along the way. Beware!
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