Beautiful People

by Wendy Holden

[Leah]

Belle Murphy was supposed to be Hollywood’s hottest young star, but it all fell apart when her latest movie flopped spectacularly. To try and get herself back into the media’s good books, Belle heads off to London, via an African adoption agency, to star in Shakespeare. Can she claw her way back to the top of the Hollywood pile again? Darcy Prince is a beautiful English rose, who has her heart set on being a “proper” actress, when the call comes from Hollywood – LA’s hottest director wants her in his new movie. A movie that will rival Star Wars. It’s everything an actress should ever want, so why is Darcy so reluctant to go? Via a lot of mix-ups, the two girls eventually lock horns over men, dieting and just which one of them is the bigger star. Throw in a nanny, a chef, and a boy so beautiful he could be a model, and you have a fiery encounter just waiting to happen.

I’ve never read any of Wendy Holden’s novels but I covet her book covers. They’re really beautiful. I saw Beautiful People on offer for a euro and decided to give it a read. It was well worth my euro as it’s a thick chunk of a book – just short of 700 pages, in fact. The quotes on the front cover compare Wendy to Jilly Cooper which I wouldn’t say is accurate, bar the fact they both seem to write ridiculously long books. Although having never read a Jilly Cooper book, who knows? Maybe they are the same, although I doubt it.

Although my synopsis above mentions Darcy and Belle, they don’t even appear at the beginning of the book. Belle comes in around about 20 pages in, whilst Darcy doesn’t arrive until maybe 100-ish pages. I found that peculiar, but not off-putting. The book actually starts by introducing us to Sam Wild, who runs Wild, a modelling agency. After scouring the streets for any talent, she bumps into a bollard and comes face-to-face with the beautiful Orlando. After asking him if he would like to be a model, he scarpers, leaving Sam feeling frustrated. We then meet Emma, who it turns out, is a nanny, who has just left her parents’ home up North and is looking for a job in London. We then go on to meet a whole array of characters throughout the book, who all seem to lead separate lives to each other. And for near-on 500 pages, that’s the way it stays. Sure, a few of their lives intertwine but to all intents and purposes they’re all leading their own life with no connection to anyone else we read about. It took a long long time for Belle and Darcy to lock horns and even then, it wasn’t as if they were clawing each others eyes’ out.

The book’s title of Beautiful People is, of course, ironic. They may all be beautiful people on the outside but they’re ugly as sin on the inside. I can’t say I particularly liked Belle, or most of the characters really. She was amusing in an aren’t-you-stupid kind of way but on the whole she was pretty unlikeable and rather diva-ish. I quite liked Darcy at the beginning but even she had a bit of an ugly side, she really didn’t strike me as the type to fall for Christian Harlow’s charms (if that’s what I’m meant to call them) but she did, somehow. My favourite two characters were Orlando and Emma as they were the only relatively real characters throughout the entire book. I enjoyed learning more about those two and how they each dealt with the obstacles thrown in their way. Orlando had to deal with a pushy mother, whilst Emma had to deal with Belle. Both were struggles, as you could imagine! Even though he was rather vapid, I quite liked Mitch Masterson, agent of Belle and Darcy. Holden portrayed him very well and I really liked him. There were other characters in the book – Sam Wild, who owns Wild, the modelling agency, Orlando’s parents, Emma’s employers before Belle, the fiery chef, Marco, who doesn’t appear until right near the end of the book. Then there’s the even minor characters. They all add to the story and the book does eventually connect everyone together but there are so many of them that I wondered how I would keep up but I managed it with relative ease.

Coming it at under 700 pages, you’re in for a long slog of reading to really get anywhere in the book. For the first 500 pages, the book is all about the separate lives of all of these characters. There’s little action yet I still found myself reading away, eager to know which stupid thing would happen next. All of the major action begins when all of the characters leave, en masse, for Italy. You could say it was convenient they all, near enough, ended up in the same place but it all made perfect sense when we learnt why they were all there. As I mentioned above, Darcy and Belle barely lock horns, and I think the synopsis on the back of the book wildly exaggerated that fact, but nonetheless I found the book an enjoyable read. I will admit that it’s probably only a book you could read once and enjoy. I think if you try and read it again you’d probably end up a bit bored. Holden’s writing is good though her take on the celebrity lifestyle borders on satire. The book is like one huge parody of the lifestyle we all would like to live. It’s certainly not a beautiful life, that’s for sure, if this book is anything to go by!

Beautiful People is well worth reading, and I found it hugely enjoyable, and I know I’ll definitely be looking out for more books by Wendy Holden. Her take on the celebrity lifestyle is refreshing and it’s hugely exaggerated but it’s also hilarious and enjoyable. It’s as if she’s taken all of the recent celebrity headlines – ie. adopting a child from Africa – and has put them all together into one huge melting pot of a novel and let the chips fall where they may. Very clever and I truly recommend it.