Been There, Married That

October 15, 2019
A Hollywood divorce with all the trimmings: luxury real estate, lawyers, TMZ, plastic surgery, an Oscar, and a night in jail. It begins at the narrator's 48th birthday party, where her A-list movie star husband, Trevor, toasts her...work ethic. "My fertility is on its last heaving throes, my eggs scrambled and crapping out, waving the white maxi pad. All that's left for me is flushing and sweat. Soon, I will be all dried out, a human tumbleweed, rolling along Sunset Boulevard to guzzle martinis at the Polo Lounge," she says. Rushing along in a torrent of inner monologue, snappy dialogue, puns, memes, and wisecracks, the narrator of Levangie's (Seven Deadlies, 2013, etc.) latest goes from the birthday celebration to a book party with signature cocktails called "Tres Deadlies" and "Deadlies on Arrival"--suggesting that the author, a former Hollywood wife herself, knows whereof she speaks. When the narrator gets home, she finds the code to the gate of her "mid-century California ranch-style estate in the famed Palisades Riviera" has been changed. After she climbs over, the guard, ordered to keep her out, tasers her. "I'm putting this marriage in turnaround," announces the extremely self-absorbed Trevor. "You know, like when I had that cartel project I was really in love with but then we couldn't get Guillermo to direct and then I kind of fell out of love and I fired everybody?" The narrator digs in her heels--after all, she needs a place to raise her daughter, Pep, hide her ex-con sister, Fin, and entertain her book club, currently reading "a multigenerational family saga set in the Burmese mountains in the winter of 1806, written by a queer-leaning Bangladeshi paraplegic." This means war. A high-thread-count sheet of jokes swathing a plot as slender as its eating-challenged narrator.

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November 11, 2019
In Levangie’s rollicking latest (after Seven Deadlies), divorce turns into blood sport for Agnes Murphy Nash, a Hollywood author who must regroup when her powerful movie producer husband Trevor decides he doesn’t “want to marriage anymore.” Trevor is not only a no-show to her book launch party, but Agnes must hop the gate to their home after discovering the code has been changed, only to get tased on the other side. After Trevor cancels Agnes’s credit cards, tries to sell the house out from under her, and gets her shipped off to rehab for her almond habit, it’s time for Agnes to lawyer up. Trevor and Agnes’s cat-and-mouse game soars to ridiculous heights, and when Agnes’s delightful jailbird sister Fin comes to stay, she’s more than happy to help Agnes drive the childish and neurotic Trevor out of his wits. However, things get serious when Trevor tries to take sole custody of their 11-year-old daughter, Pep. Screenwriter Levangie has a keen insight into the inner workings, and foibles, of the Hollywood elite, and her sharp, canny wit drives her mile-a-minute prose and spares no one. Agnes’s voice is wry and funny, and there’s just enough pathos about her to keep the more farcical elements in check. Readers looking for a fast, laugh-out-loud romp will find much to enjoy. 75,000-copy announced first printing.

December 1, 2019

Agnes Murphy Nash comes from humble beginnings, but she has managed to turn herself into the perfect Hollywood wife. The world revolves around her husband, Oscar-winning producer Trevor Nash, and every decision Agnes makes, from the bedsheets to whom she lunches with, is in service to his ego. But Trevor wants to divorce Agnes, because he is no longer happy, whatever that means. They have a daughter, and she is the unwitting pawn, also known as "leverage," in this divorce. Agnes is more self-aware than many of her contemporaries; she realizes she is living in a bubble, but she likes it there. We get to read her every thought, and she has them at a dizzying pace, making this a quick read--at times humorous, but mostly just exhausting. VERDICT The level of Hollywood narcissism shown in Levangie's (The Starter Wife; The After Wife) novel is astounding and makes it hard to empathize with or even believe the characters in this marital farce. For fans of the Kardashians, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and frothy celebrity memoirs.--Stacy Alesi, Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Lib., Lynn Univ., Boca Raton, FL

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2019
Those who can't get enough Real Housewives of Beverly Hills will have great fun with Levangie's latest send up of the over-the-top lives of Hollywood movers and shakers. Agnes Nash was perfectly happy with her role as a producer's wife, which consisted primarily of gossiping at charity events and sunbathing with cocktails. But her husband, Trevor, has decided to move on, and she comes home one night to find herself locked out of her house. Determined not to lose her daughter or the lifestyle to which she's become accustomed, Agnes sets out to make Trevor pay, with help from her over-eager staff and jailbird sister. Readers of Levangie's previous books will find that they've been there, read that, given the book's familiar larger than life characters and exaggerated descriptions of every Hollywood stereotype, but the fast pace and quick change of scenes contribute to the depiction of life in the fast lane. The tale is full of one-liners, sarcasm, and scandal, making it hard not to laugh at Agnes' woes. Fans of Lauren Weisberger and Candace Bushnell will inhale this in one sitting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)