Saturday, July 19, 2025

Book Review: L.A. Women


After a steady descent from literary stardom, Lane Warren is back. She’s secured a new book deal based off the life of her sometime friend and, more often, rival Gala Margolis. Lane’s only problem is that notorious free spirit Gala has been missing for months.

Ten years earlier, Gala was a charming socialite and Lane was a Hollywood outsider amidst the glittering 1960s L.A. party scene. Though they were never best friends, Lane found Gala sharp and compelling. Gala liked that Lane took her seriously. They were both writers. They were drawn to each other.

That was until Gala’s star began to rise, and Lane grew envious. Then Lane did something that she wouldn’t ever be able to take back…changing the trajectories of both their lives.

L.A. Women by Ella Berman will be published August 5, 2025. Berkley Publishing Group provided an early galley for review.

I was not familiar with the author's prior work, but the cover here was vibrant and eye-catching. With the characters being writers, I was also intrigued.

The story itself bounces between then (the 60's, past tense) and now (the 70's, present), often switching between Gala's and Lane's viewpoints within the same chapter. Normally this kind of narrative and style can be hit or miss for me. Berman does give both characters have very distinct voices, so I thought I would be okay. Turns out, I wasn't. I found Gala to be the more interesting of the two characters; Lane came across as needy and whiny. Also, the present day scenes took the wind out of the sails of the past scenes at several points. That is a big problem I have with this bouncing time period narrative structure that has become very popular in recent years' I find very few writers can pull it off successfully.

With the right readers, this story will work and resonate. I wasn't one of them.

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