Charity Trickett Is So Not Glamorous by Christine Stringer (2025)
What a juicy plunge into behind-the-scenes Hollywood filmmaking and dealmaking. It's a La La Land world of preening egos, conniving backstabbers, and striving, talented young hopefuls, gasping and grasping for the golden ticket to fame, fortune and a three picture deal.
Having toiled as a studio production assistant herself, you can tell from the storytelling that author Christine Stringer knows her subject all too well.......and lays out her depiction of the film business with unerring, take-no-prisoners wit.
At the roiling center of this asylum run by the inmates (around 1997) is Canadian production assistant and aspiring screenwriter Charity Trickett. She's now settled in Hollywood to help an up-and-coming director finish post production editing on the studio's next box office blockbuster. Charity's Gal Friday efficiency may work wonders on a movie set, but navigating the jungles of studio politics exhausts and confounds her. She's stuck in a toxic 'Devil Wears Prada' duel with Saffron, a so-called 'Associate Producer' who ruthlessly pursues her own agenda while sabotaging Charity at every opportunity.
Charity's fortunes (and hopes for making a deal for her own script) take a catastrophic turn for the worse - a terrible unforeseen misstep makes her a scorned pariah in the industry and puts her in the crosshairs of an FBI investigation.
Can Charity find romance, restore her good name, stay out of the slammer and get her script into production? Hey, it's Hollywood where anything can happen and that's the fun this book delivers on every page. You'll find yourself cheering her on as she encounters, outwits and fends off more topsy-turvy characters than Alice ever found through the looking glass.
For anyone who loves an insider's peek behind the mad, mad world of film showbiz, consider this one a must. Make a "let's do lunch, baby, mean it sincerely" date with Charity ASAP.
Having toiled as a studio production assistant herself, you can tell from the storytelling that author Christine Stringer knows her subject all too well.......and lays out her depiction of the film business with unerring, take-no-prisoners wit.
At the roiling center of this asylum run by the inmates (around 1997) is Canadian production assistant and aspiring screenwriter Charity Trickett. She's now settled in Hollywood to help an up-and-coming director finish post production editing on the studio's next box office blockbuster. Charity's Gal Friday efficiency may work wonders on a movie set, but navigating the jungles of studio politics exhausts and confounds her. She's stuck in a toxic 'Devil Wears Prada' duel with Saffron, a so-called 'Associate Producer' who ruthlessly pursues her own agenda while sabotaging Charity at every opportunity.
Charity's fortunes (and hopes for making a deal for her own script) take a catastrophic turn for the worse - a terrible unforeseen misstep makes her a scorned pariah in the industry and puts her in the crosshairs of an FBI investigation.
Can Charity find romance, restore her good name, stay out of the slammer and get her script into production? Hey, it's Hollywood where anything can happen and that's the fun this book delivers on every page. You'll find yourself cheering her on as she encounters, outwits and fends off more topsy-turvy characters than Alice ever found through the looking glass.
For anyone who loves an insider's peek behind the mad, mad world of film showbiz, consider this one a must. Make a "let's do lunch, baby, mean it sincerely" date with Charity ASAP.
4 stars (****).
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