Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

It's amazing to me how many people have never heard of this book. Screw Bridget Jones, this is the book that invented chick-lit as far as I'm concerned. Published over forty years ago, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls is one of the best selling books of all time and one of the most awesomely trashy.

It's about three women: Anne Welles, Jennifer North, and Neely O'Hara who are looking for, and eventually find, success in different areas of the entertainment business.

Anne is the classic beauty. She left her small hometown for New York, hoping to find excitement and to not be tied down with a husband and kids like her mother was. She becomes a secretary and then the spokesmodel for a cosmetics company.

Jennifer is the bombshell. She has no talent and knows she'll just have to rely on her looks to get by. She's really sweet and all she really wants is love and a husband -which she does get, though it doesn't turn out quite like she plans. She ends up doing "art films" in France aka nudies.

Neely has the voice. She becomes a huge success on Broadway, then as a recording star and actress. She has the most talent and becomes a huge bitch as a result of her success. With all of her trips to rehab she makes Lindsay Lohan look like a saint.

So the three women become friends during their early days in the city. Their friendships are tested, however, when they find out that success isn't all its cracked up to be. There are pill addictions (the "dolls" in the title), booze addictions, infidelity, cancer, suicide, abortion, and general cattiness. Of course they aren't role models and they don't pretend to be. Susann doesn't want them to be. They're just real people with flaws and that's what I like best about this book. Any other book would have them reduced to one dimensional caricatures, but because Valley of the Dolls takes place over several years you're able to see the characters grow and change. Even if you don't agree with their decisions and actions, you can at least understand them.

I can't imagine how scandalized America must have been when this was published. I'm a child of the nineties who grew up reading V.C. Andrews for goodness sakes and even my jaw dropped a few times while reading it the first time. I saw the movie before reading the book and was still surprised. Of course, it doesn't help that the two are incredibly different.

Bottom line: I love this book. There are no boring parts to skip. Just all around grade A, classy trash.

http://thechickmanifesto.blogspot.com/2008/09/valley-of-dolls.html