Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub

Hi!

This book is set during the golden age of Hollywood. It follows Laura Lamont, previously Elsa Emerson  during about 40 years of her life,
I love books that show you a large portion of someone's life because I always find myself wondering what happened eventually to characters.
Elsa Emerson was born in Door County, Wisconsin in 1920. Her parents own the Cherry County Playhouse and so Elsa is surrounded by actors from an early age. After having a small part in one of her father's plays, she is bitten by the acting bug and decides that all she wants to do is be an actress. However her family suffers loss which Elsa feels very deeply. She marries an actor, Gordon Pitts at 17 so she can go with him to become an actress in Los Angeles. There she meets the charismatic and powerful producer, Irving Green, who turns young blonde Elsa Emerson into glamourous brunette Laura Lamont. The book then follows the ups and downs of her life, with Elsa/Laura constantly reinventing herself and fighting for the people she loves.
I loved Laura/Elsa, and I felt everything she went through. This book also has a wonderful set of secondary characters, especially her children who were all really well rounded characters. I loved too that even the minor supporting characters, you got to find out what happened to them and all of the loose ends were tied up. It felt very realistic and well researched. I was sucked into the world and felt like I really knew all the characters. Something that stood out for me was the treatment of gay characters. Homosexuality was still illegal at this point, but the other characters in the book treated it as being very normal. It was never made a big deal of, jus accepted, and I really liked this.
I wouldn't recommend this for anyone under 13 as there are some more adult themes e.g. drug use, suicide, swearing. However, for anyone who enjoys history, romance and Hollywood, you should read it. I really enjoyed the entire book, so I would give it 5/5.

Thanks for reading,

Ellie

The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes Review

Hi!

(Slight spoilers ahead- but not many)

The only way I can endure is to be in a place I will never see you, never be haunted by the possibility of seeing you with him. I need to be somewhere where sheer necessity forces you from my thoughts minute by minute, hour by hour. That cannot happen here.  I am going to take the job. I'll be at Platform 4, Paddington at 7.15 on Friday evening, and there is nothing in the world that would make me happier than if you found the courage to come with me. 

After reading Me Before You and crying A LOT I decided that I wanted to read more books by Jojo Moyes. The Last Letter from your Lover appealed to me because, firstly I has a character called Ellie who is a journalist (hello future me?) but also because I'm fascinated by love letters.

Its a book which tells the story of Jennifer in 1960 and Ellie in the modern day. Ellie finds a letter from Jennifer's lover which has been lost and she becomes fascinated with their story. This book cuts around a lot in time, jumping to focus on lots of different characters, which can be confusing if you are not paying a lot of attention.

Jennifer wakes up from a car accident with no memory of her life before, so when she discovers beautifully written, very romantic letters from B she wants to find out who her mysterious lover is and what exactly happened between them. Ellie is a journalist who is sleeping with a married man. She thinks that he makes her happy, but her friends are disapproving. She's struggling at work and her boss is not happy with her. On a trip to the newspaper archives she comes across a letter from B to Jennifer which sparks her interest. She starts trying to find out what happened to them and writing an article about their love affair.
This book has made me question my ideas about love and whether affairs are ever alright. I loved the characters, which are very 3 dimensional, even the minor ones. It had me laughing, crying and yelling. There are twists which I didn't see coming and until quite late in the book I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen. This is a story of missed opportunities, fate and love and it was beautiful. As a writer I love reading about other writers and journalists and there are plenty of these in this book. It was very believable and felt well researched. I loved comparing the differences between newspapers in the 60s and modern day.
There's a lot more I'd love to talk abut, but it would mean major spoilers, so I wont. I loved that each chapter started with a quote from a real life last letter from a lover.

I recommend this for anyone who likes historical fiction or romance . I will rate this 4.5/5 as it was so good but confusing at times when it jumped around.

If anyone wants to write me a love letter, please feel free, Valentine's day is just around the corner...

Thanks for reading,

Ellie