Daughter of Daring by Mallory O’Meara

TL;DR: Full of some interesting information but completely ruined for me because of the authorial voice
Source: Netgalley! Thank you so much to the publisher

Plot: This one primarily covers the rise of Hollywood and film with aspects of Helen Gibson.
Characters: Helen is mentioned a lot and is in there, but it touches on so many folks they’ve kind of run together.
Setting: If you like Hollywood or LA you’re going to like it. If not it’s going to be dull.
Readability: At times there are huge chunks of information and the author tries to cut it with humor but it ends up very jarring.

Thoughts:

Full honesty here, this wasn’t for me. I went in hoping for a bit more detailed information and a closer look at Helen Gibson and perhaps her contemporaries which is what it looks to be at first glance. In reality though this seems to be a history of Hollywood and film with the cover story of Helen Gibson. The author comments at several points that information about this or that with Helen is non-existent or hard to find which is understandable. Perhaps then we should have just pitched and sold the book as what it is, a history of Hollywood.

The writing style also didn’t work at all for me. We are given large chunks of information but scattered throughout there are little snarky comments, dropped in at appropriate times but also completely jerking the reader out of the flow of the information. In addition we have quite a few footnotes, over a 100, and approximately 95 of them felt very unnecessary. The ones that had information were very casually presented, the ones that did not are simply snarky comments or one liners (even one word) to illustrate how funny our author seems to be.

If the past two paragraphs haven’t given it away, I really didn’t enjoy this. I found segments interesting but as soon as I was in the roll of learning and enjoying it there would be a jerk in the narrative, a snarky comment, and I’d get thrown out. I don’t recommend this. The only thing I can find of use from this would be the sources, one of those might have more information or better written for the topic. Skip it or get it from the library, and as always, check other reviews for different thoughts.