Tangled Up in Daydreams

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY NOV 17, 2003

Clich d and clunky, this second novel by Bloom (Girl Anatomy) chronicles the romantic troubles of an L.A. party girl. Molly Stern, a salesgirl and wannabe painter who hasn't outgrown glitter as an artistic medium, loves Liam McGuire, a gorgeous rocker she meets in a club ("Nothing could interrupt the twirl between them"). At first, everything is perfect, but then Liam starts screwing up: not only does he ruin a series of parties (including her 27th birthday bowl-a-thon), he's also got a weakness for drugs and female attention. Sometimes Molly and Liam have a "balls-out good time," and their sex is all about "incredible intimacy and kicking orgasms," but Liam always has to "have one more drink than everyone else, one more hit, one more line." Fed up with his substance abuse and general obliviousness as a boyfriend, Molly gets in her Rover and returns to Sun Valley to sort out her feelings, where her sweet, open-minded parents welcome her with freshly made lattes and food from their restaurant. Much of the novel takes place in flashback, with Molly and her intrepid gal-pal Jaycee letting their Marc Jacobs jackets lead them through the L.A. party circuit, amid the "babes, booze, and big shots." While the setting and characters could be frothily funny, Bloom's wooden dialogue, bad prose and juvenile sensibility disappoint. "It's like I'm caught in the midst of every bad Lifetime tearjerker," Molly cries, but readers even tender teens and 20-somethings will find her plight singularly unmoving, and the happy ending improbable.