The Garden on Sunset
2011

Ratings1

Average rating3

15

I grew up in Hollywood, so the local color of Hollywood in early 1930s was interesting and nostalgic. However, it runs into problems using actual historical people as characters when their actions as character diverge too far from what we know about the actual historical figures.
For instance, I found it hard to get engaged with the mystery of where Alla Nazimova "disappeared" to at a period in her life when she was starring on the Broadway stage in New York. It didn't help that she was "found" living with Dorothy Arzner when we know she was living with Glesca Marshall at that time.
To me it read like a contemporary young adult sitcom set in 1930s Hollywood. Some episodes were rather transparent treatments of contemporary social issues transplanted into that milieu.
Fairly fast-paced and readable, it is fairly light-weight. The blurb at the end of the book teasing the first chapter of the next book in the series seemed like a fairly wooden exposition for season 2 to me. Can't say it made me want to rush right out and buy it or borrow it from the library.

September 2, 2023Report this review