Hollywood is Like High School With Money

Book Review of Zoey Dean’s New Novel About Movie Making Business

Sep 20, 2009

From filmmakers to talent agents to movie studio executives to actors to screenwriters, this fictional tale tells all.

Hollywood insiders, and outsiders longing to be insiders, should greatly enjoy Hollywood is Like High School With Money, this latest work of fiction from Zoey Dean, author of the best-selling The A-List series and Privileged, which was adapted into a weekly television series.

Zoey Dean Writes About Making Hollywood Movies

A 24-year-old film school graduate, Taylor Henning leaves Cleveland, Ohio, for a new life in Hollywood, California. Dreaming of making meaningful movies someday, she must content herself with starting at the bottom with a lowly job as second assistant at a movie studio. Even so, she’s thrilled at the opportunity.

Her job satisfaction plummets quickly when she discovers that her immediate supervisor, Kylie, a first assistant who just got promoted from Taylor’s job, relentlessly attempts to sabotage her efforts to succeed. Not wanting to lose the job she fought so hard to obtain, the clueless Taylor enlists the help of Quinn, a teenaged diva and the daughter of Iris Whitaker, her boss and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood.

When she starts taking the girl’s advice, Taylor finds her career improving, but her social life falling apart. Even her best friend/roommate isn’t sure she likes the new, cool Taylor who wants to fit in with the Los Angeles movers and shakers.

A Long-Time Relationship With a Filmmaker

Throughout her years in film school and new career in Hollywood, Taylor has maintained a strange correspondence with a reclusive filmmaker named Michael Deming. Greatly influenced by his film Journal Girl, she has sent him hundreds of letters and postcards over the years without a single reply. Afraid of appearing too much like a stalker, she just signs her letters “T.”

When her newfound connections, assumed bravado, secret relationship with Quinn, and tenuous relationship with Deming collide, Taylor experiences a career crash that threatens to send her crying back to Cleveland.

Throughout the novel, the author drops names of fashion designers, fine dining establishments, movie stars, Hollywood celebrities, and trendy grooming practices as is common with today’s chick lit. However, because it’s Hollywood, the character’s sense of style and attempts to assimilate become even more important. Quinn’s advice to “Fake it till you make it” indeed helps Taylor turn into a fake.

Whether or not readers can rally behind Taylor’s newly acquired false facade is the crucial question in terms of how much they will enjoy this book. Funny and snarky, Hollywood is Like High School With Money revisits the pitfalls of high school – the snobs, cliques, and hierarchies based on power, money, prestige, and possessions.

Dean, Zoey. Hollywood is Like High School With Money. Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-446-69719-4, 278 pages, Fiction, Softcover.

The copyright of the article Hollywood is Like High School With Money in Celebrities/Pop Culture is owned by Leslie C. Halpern. Permission to republish Hollywood is Like High School With Money in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.