Book Review: Starlet by Danger Slater

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“We’re all hungry in this town. But only some of us get to eat.”

📚

Los Angeles transplant and aspiring actress Déjà Seawright has dreams of making it big. She’s worked hard to shed her Midwestern past, diving into the acting world with both feet, but is frustrated to discover how difficult things in Tinsel Town actually are. She lives in a noisy, dumpy apartment in The Valley — a place overflowing with young wannabe actors — barely scrapes by working in retail, has a single friend, and has nabbed only one role in a post-pilot-canceled series.

So, when Déjà has a chance encounter with seasoned A-lister Brandon Bowers, she’s instantly dazzled by him and the success, renown, means, and opportunity he and his fellow Hollywood Elites represent. Convinced she’s scored her winning ticket, she accepts Brandon’s invitation to his home after a short period of increasingly flirtatious and progressively strange and discomfiting exchanges. Will Déjà finally get everything she wants, or is there something sinister and terrifying lurking beneath Brandon’s charming veneer?

Interspersing Déjà’s contemporary storyline with chapter openers chronicling Brandon’s film career, Starlet delivers a gruesome and scintillating blend of horror, satire, absurdism, and humor as grim and horrifying as it is profound and insightful, bizarre and entertaining. All the world’s a stage, and, in this case, La La Land serves as the fetid microcosm through which racism, wealth, entitlement, and societal inequity shines, and where the worst of humanity is played by the best of Hollywood. It’s a dark, labyrinthine, and utterly appalling story of fortune, fame, and jellyfish; youth, age, and mortality; ambition, determination, and delusion; pretension, deceit, and sacrifice; fear, risk, and reward; creation, destruction, and fabrication; use, privilege, and abuse; orchestration, coincidence, and destiny; cruelty, chauvinism, and dehumanization; naivety, desire, and authenticity; stereotypes, clichés, and hierarchies; ignorance, roles, and monsters; and introductions, exits, and arrivals. And yes, this is a novella, and yes, all of these elements are expertly woven into only 140 pages!

It’s an over-the-top yet wholly plausible (and sadly relatable and recognizable) reality where what’s “buzz-generating” is derivative, disgusting, and offensive and the cream of the crop are cutthroat, petty, ugly, and entrenched in covert horrors. Filled with cringe-worthy, intensely uncomfortable interactions, darkly humorous interjections, and stomach-turning violence and gore, it’s an abhorrent and thought-provoking experience that’s at once straightforward and incredibly complex, producing a tale of shocking truths, brutal realities, disturbing decisions, and satisfying vengeance where inauthenticity is the order of the day and evil wears a handsome face.

Thank you to BookSirens and Ghoulish Books for providing an eARC of this forthcoming novella for review consideration. It’s a shocking and disquieting read that makes this reader anxious to dive into Danger Slater’s backlist, as well as whatever he writes next!

❤Amanda

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