AMERICAN IDLE

Author: Alesia Holliday ISBN: 0843953705 8/2004 CHICK LIT Publisher: Dorchester Making It! Line

REALITY CHECK When her celebrity chef boss knocks her unconscious with a frying pan, it jump-started Jules's life. She'd been stalled too long: job-hopping, man-hopping, floating in the pool with no cares - had it all been a Peter Pan act? Now, with a chance as a production coordinator on a cheezy new reality TV show, she would get herself in gear. But with an executive producer with a split personality, a hypochondriac judge with bubonic plague, a murderous coworker whose weapon was bad mayonnaise, insane fans, vote rigging, dressing room Botox, and a hot guy who thought Jules was an alcoholic - "POP STAR LIVE!" should have been called unreality TV. Plus, the publicity stunt that made Jules the "Face Behind Reality TV" and meant national attention 24/7 was even stranger. But instead of hitting the brakes, Jules only drove herself even harder. Her idle life was gone forever, in its place she'd found her own American idyll.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

How ironic that I get this book for review right at the time two media giants are spatting about who's stealing what T.V. show or idea from whom. Everything seems to be copied now, or stolen, or remade, making one wonder if all original and imaginative thinking is a thing of the past. Or as Alesia Holliday so aptly puts it through one of her characters: "It's not reality T.V. that matters. It's that our only reality that matters is our T.V." Nothing brings home that point more in a funnier, wittier and livelier way than Holliday's Making It! debut book, AMERICAN IDLE.

First, there’s wisecracking Julia Vernon, or “Jules Vernon” as she’s known to her friends, who is going through life as a walking example of “Murphy’s Law”. If anything can go wrong, it does, with Jules usually somewhere in the middle. She’s a career minded independent woman, having tried her hands at a multitude of trades with each ending abruptly in some sort of disaster. When a lawyer friend lands her a job working for a reality TV show, Jules is sure her luck will change. Sure, she thinks, she can handle this job with no problem.

Well, if you believe that, I’ve got a rare three-dollar bill in my pocket I’ll sell you in exchange for a fiver.

And it’s not just Jules’s calamities that will have you in stitches. It is the quirky cast of characters that populate this story and the backstage antics and hijinks that ensue when a $1 million recording contract is at stake that will have you smiling. From the three judges – one hypochondriac, one she-devil, and one rapper who's not sure which way he swings – to the mishmash of musically inclined (or, in some cases disinclined) contestants, you'll be enjoying your way through sharp dialogue filled with plenty of zingers. And to top it all off, Holliday adds an underlying hot romance between Jules and a sexy set construction worker named Sam, perfectly rounding out this delightful story.

Oh, and don’t be surprised if you see a few characters that give you a peculiar “familiar” feeling. After all, this is the world of reality T.V., where everything is strictly “original”. *G*

Nancy Davis