That Just Happened!

I am Participating in the TwentyTen Challenge.  (You can go to the 2010 Challenge page on my blog to see all of the challenges I am participating in and my progress.)  One of the categories is the Bad Blogger: books I have read based on the recommendation of another blogger. So, I have finally finished my first book in this category and who else would I take the advice of, but Jenners from Find Your Next Book Here!

I love Jenners and I follow both of her blogs.  If she says something is funny, then it is, because, well, she writes the funniest blog I subscribe to. Jenners read and reviewed “How I Became A Famous Novelist” by Steve Hely (Black Cat, 2009) and gave it 4.5 stars.  She mentioned that Hely is a writer for “30 Rock” (which is one of my favourite shows since they had the gall to cancel “Arrested Development”) and “The Late Show with David Letterman”.  ou can check out his work at IMDb.  She also said “ (If Pamela McLaughlin isn’t based on Patrica Cornwell, I’ll eat an entire pack of Thin Mints by myself.)”  I took that as a challenge, so I put the book on hold at the library.  Finally,  it came in and I set down to read it.

Fortunately, Jenners will not be eating a whole package of Thin Mints.  I totally agree with her assessment of the character and the book. I found the book very humorous, but I must admit that I thought the second part of the book was better than the first.  I also agree with Jenners’ claim that I “will never look at the best-seller list quite the same way again.”  “How I Became A Famous Novelist” is about a man named Pete Tarslaw who gets fired from his job and decides to write a novel (“The Tornado Ashes Club”) based on his disdain for author Preston Brooks.  He does a lot of research on what makes a best seller and even goes so far as to pop prescription drugs at his aunt’s ranch in order to finish write it.  Oh, and don’t forget he is doing all this so at his ex-girlfriend’s wedding she will realize what a mistake it was to marry her fiance and everyone would think he was a superstar.

Hely not only writes this book, he even writes up fictional reviews for the book and has a website dedicated to this fake book.  I actually forgot when I was reading this that it is not an autobiography and all the characters are fictional.  I would say you should definitely Put This on Your TBR List.  Jenners was spot on with her review, which you can read here (and I highly suggest you do).