Violet, Audrey, and Bert are three young people with dreams
in 1938 Hollywood, all working at Selznick International studio. Violet wants a
husband. Audrey wants to be a film star. Bert wants to go back to college and become
an ornithologist. Bert also dreams of Audrey; he has such a massive crush on
her he can’t see anything but her. And Audrey and Violet have secrets as well
as dreams; secrets that could easily destroy those dreams.
Their lives play out as ‘Gone With the Wind’ gets filmed at
the studio, starting with the massive burning of Atlanta scenes. After the
movie finishes, Audrey and Bert leave Selznick Studio, but the three remain
close friends. The story takes us through WW II and after. Audrey and Violet
have times when their friendship threatens to implode, but somehow things work
out. The story is framed with short chapters set in 2012, when Violet’s family
is cleaning out the bungalow where she and Audrey lived, and a vintage hat
accidently gets sent to the consignment store. The hat is one anyone would recognize:
it’s the green velvet hat Scarlet O’Hara made out of her mother’s drapes. How
did this come to be in Violet’s possession?
I was disappointed. I couldn’t manage to like Violet; she
came across as sweet and innocent at first but turned out to be very
manipulative. Audrey was okay, but kind of flat. Bert is just a prop for the
women to use. They just didn’t seem real and the dialogue is stilted. It’s
almost like the book was a first draft, and the author needed to go back and
flesh out the people. Not unreadable but only 3 out of 5 stars. I did really
enjoy the parts about the filming of GWTW.
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