Title: Hollywood
Author: Connor Coyne
Genre: Literary Fiction, Fiction
Book Blurb:
Anxious Ophelia steps off the elevated train in the big city, hoping to start a new life with her summer hookup, far from her dissolving family and all of the traumas of industrial Rockville. Over the course of the next few hours Ophelia will lose her roommate, her money, and eventually, her sense of sanity when she sees a mile-long shark out on the lake, unwitnessed by anyone else, but obviously there, because if it wasn't how did she get so soaked? Ophelia cannot go back to who she was before sighting the beast, and the friends and opportunities she discovers all proceed from what and how she acts on that first, fierce, drunken night. Author Connor Coyne has created a new American myth for readers who enjoy a bit of madness in their weird fiction.
My Review:
Gotta admit, I have binge-watched tons of Friends on various services. This book struck such a cord with me; it is like reading a great friend's ep.
This is the story of one girl trying to find her way. It is set way back in the early oughts but is relevant for today's youth. I had to get out of my own small town. I ended up in someplace bigger and I can see the lake a lot so this book could almost be my biography!
Great characters that are so real. People might think the life being lived by the Hollywood gang is unrealistic but maybe they have never been 19 or 20 before. Totally captures the lifestyle of people trying to figure out their path.
The author shows us through Ophelia that he gets relationships. They are the best and the worst for young people. Some relationships are like shooting stars. Exciting but just so brief. Some are like lazy summer afternoons. Some are like 4-day weekends. Young people can't predict what a relationship will be. We just have to have them. The joy is in the living. That is the lesson of this book.
Also had to look this up, but an old-time book by Thomas Wolfe said, 'You can't go home again' and that is also a lesson I took from this book.
Something I want to read over and over. Just a book that will be perfect for everyone who is in their early 20s or once was. What a fun and comfy read.
My Rating: 5 stars
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Author Biography:
Connor Coyne (he/him) is a writer living and working in Flint, Michigan.
Connor has published several novels and a short story collection, including the magical serial novel Urbantasm, and his novella Hollywood. His work has been featured in Vox, Belt Magazine, and elsewhere. He is the director of the Flint-based Gothic Funk Press and is facilitator for the Gloria Coles Flint Public Library‘s writing workshops.
Connor is a graduate of the University of Chicago and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School. Today, he lives with his wife and two daughters in Flint’s College Cultural Neighborhood (aka the East Village), less than a mile from the house where he grew up.
Social Media Links:
Website https://www.connorcoyne.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/connorcoyne
Substack https://connorcoyne.substack.com/
Reviewed by: Tiger