Valley of the Dolls 50th Anniversary Edition

On the back of the book, there is a quote by a reviewer who spouts that most tired of cliches "I literally couldn't put it down" or something liked that. For once, I'd have to agree wholeheartedly - 450 pages and never a dull moment. The prose is lively, sensitive and articulate. The story itself - the trials and tribulations of three women in the entertainment industry over a 20 year period - captivating and engaging. Also dug the way Susann rejects explicit sex scenes and places sexual/personal politics in its place. Makes the whole thing far more believable and realistic (plus her ability to write 'romantic' scenes is more cheesy than sexual as the few ill-advised attempts here seem to confirm). Actually, Valley Of The Dolls (the book, not the film) reminded me of Goodfellas in a way which may sound like a bizarre comparison but it has that same quasi-documentary feel, a whirlwind tour of 20 years in the lives of a small microcosm of people. Like the Scorsese masterpiece, significant events occur, are pondered briefly and then swiftly forgotten in a heady rush to get to the end of the gals' glamorous/sordid lives. If there are drawbacks, it's to do with inconsistent characterisations. People's personas suddenly change totally at various points in the book and at times you feel as though you're dealing with a totally different person. Also, Susann doesn't seem to like her characters equally, or she starts with a concept about them (Jennifer) and gets bored midway through and ceases to bother developing them after a while. Of the three main characters, it's clearly Neely who seems to interest Susann most and she gets quite deeply into her. But I think it's at the expense of the other characters and does weaken the novel if we were to look at it from a technical standpoint (which I don't). On the plus side, super-tuff ending! Why don't we ever get stuff like this in the movies!?! Very dark and downbeat, again giving it a more realistic tinge. Finally, don't dismiss this as chick lit or proto-feminism etc or whatever crass marketing terms are currently in vogue to describe writing by women. This is a great novel in its own right and just cos its written by a girl doesn't necessarily mean its FOR girls. Women may be the central characters in this tale of the ups and downs of the post-war showbiz world, but ultimately, it's a book about people. So read it, everyone!

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS was old news by the time I got around to it in the late 1970s. Even though I was then in my late teens my ultra-respectable mother disapproved of me reading it--but one day, when I left the book open on the coffee table, I came in to find my mother engrossed in it and she wouldn't give it back until she had read it cover to cover. From time to time I asked what she thought about it. "VULGAR TRASH!" she would say. She read every word. You couldn't have beaten her off that book with a stick! Now, some reviewers try to attach high-flown interpretations to this novel, and some of those intrepretations may even have a little validity. But the real reason any one reads VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is because it really IS vulgar trash--and even now, more than thirty years later and although there are much more explicit novels available, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS remains the BEST vulgar-trash-novel going. Jacqueline Susann wasn't much of a writer but she was a born storyteller, and her heavy-handed style suits this story of three lovely young women who hit post-WWII New York with innocent dreams and ambitions--only to become victims of a meat-grinder entertainment industry, too much sleeping around with the wrong men, and pill-popping hell. In the process, Susann unexpectedly creates a surprisingly effective social document of the late 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s--a period in which women's roles underwent a profound change. Susann, who knew the New York entertainment scene inside out, based many of her characters on real people (does any one out there NOT know that Neely O'Hara is based on Judy Garland and Helen Lawson based on Ethel Merman?), and that makes the novel even more fun to read. But you don't have to play guessing games to enjoy the book: VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is loud, brash, common, brazen, vulgar trash that you simply cannot put down. Over the passing years I've read it at least three times. And my mother read it twice!

The thing that frustrates me about this book is also what I love - The allegory and the emotional blindness of the characters. Warning, spoilers! Anne is living a real "three strikes and you're out" psychological baseball game. She seeks excitement and love. She blows it with Allen, who's loaded and crazy about her, who offers all kinds of fun, whatever she could want. Yet she blows it because it's too easy. When Lyon finally wants to marry her and be with her, since he wants to live in her simple home town, it isn't good enough. She blows it. Then, when she has Kevin, who agrees to marry her and wants to take her around the world, it's not good enough because he's offering it too easily, and Lyon stumbles back in the picture. Yet, she never really does anything on her own; she just piggybacks off the success of others and never grows out of being a spoiled, cossetted teenager. Neely is just as emotionally crippled. She finds a man to love her, like she wants, but Neely's vision of love from the start means being with a man that's more successful. As her fame grows, her love wanes for her men. Yet she demands constant attention. She's a true diva, and she can never hold onto anything. Neely does not know how to love, only how to be addicted. From the start, we see she's selfish and incapable of being considerate of others. She never learns, and even though the novel doesn't exactly indicate how Neely's future will look, we can guess, and it's not pretty. Jennifer perhaps was the only really good, likable character in the novel. However, she's ultimately betrayed by her own body that she's relied on. Perhaps, if she'd learned to make emotional connections, we would have seen a happier ending. I wonder how the novel would have turned out if Anne would have tried to get to know Allen as a person, if Neely would have let her first man be a man and stayed in NYC, and Jennifer would have told her mother to stuff it and gone to live the life SHE wanted. Would have been less interesting, but I can't help wishing one girl would have gone straight and come to her senses. It's a fun novel and a great read. This book does not discourage success, but it does discourage riding on other people's backs to get there, and is a great lesson about using people and stepping on people, that it still hurts you even if you have good intentions. It's a tale about what happens when you forget about the humanity of the people you're using, that in that, you lose your own humanity. It's a beautiful, sad, timeless story, and I can't wait to read more Susann!

Absolutely incredible book

I expected this to be a book that just focused on the pills, like so many cautionary tales I read in my tweens. But I was surprised with how well I identified with the characters from 70 years ago. Sure there was differences, nowadays it's rare for most families to push families so young, but at the heart all three young women want to be loved but find it difficult. This doesn't mean it's a romance at all however, don't be fooled. I also was pleased with the characters being fleshed out. While I adore the movies aesthetics I found the three girls to be almost caricatures. With the book I found myself feeling for everyone (though eventually disliking one who I had been rooting for, something rare for authors to make me feel), yet also disagreeing with them all at one point, just like real people. The best thing about the book was it takes place over twenty years. I always found too fast paced (in the characters lives) books to be unrealistic, but we watch the three young women go from 17-20, all the way to near 40. I also enjoyed the characters all have point of view chapters, or at least the main three. Seeing the way their paths diverged as well was fascinating. If you're looking for a quick and easy to read but still with substantial content, I would read it. It's been wrongly labeled chick lit but it's truly not. I am saddened the author passed away so shortly after her author debut, to think of the wonderful books she could have written about the 80's and maybe even late 90's pop star scene of Britney Christina Jessica and Mandy is tragic.

Written in 1966, this book came out at the high season of wild love and sexual awakening in the US. It's all about three young women who go to New York starting just after World War II and who use their beautiful bodies to skyrocket to fame and fortune. They realize that the high life isn't all it's cracked up to be, as they use drugs, booze, sex to maintain their perfect worlds. Disaster results. Valley of the Dolls is said by many to be the top selling fiction book of all time. Compared to many of the other over-sex-filled books that made this list, Valley of the Dolls is actually relatively tame. When the story begins in 1946, the main characters are all young and at different stages of innocence. You have Anne, a sweet 20 yr old Massachusetts girl who dreams of passionate love and family, after she has a career for herself. She's happy being a secretary. You have Neely, a sweet 17 year old vaudeville dancer / singer who works with her family and wants to be a showbiz girl while she finds a guy to marry and have kids with. And finally you have Jenny, who is 25 and whose mom pushes her to marry rich. She's the only non-virgin - she married a European noble in hopes of cash, but divorced him quickly when she found out he was actually poor. So for the first 100 pages or so (out of 442), you just get setup. Anne is incredibly innocent, with parents who want her to simply marry a local boy and settle down. Neely is a young sparker, who leaps to every new challenge with energy and enthusiasm. Jenny is resolute in her aim to make money, keeping her body well oiled and cared for to reach her goals. The three become roommates as they each persue their goals. All three want to marry well, that is their end goal. Ironically of course, when they draw close to their goals they find they want more. Neely does in fact marry the guy she chases after - but when she drags him out to Hollywood with her, she bores of him quickly and wants a divorce. Jenny marries a rich singer despite the objections of the singer's sister - but divorces him when he sleeps around and she realizes he has a genetic mental problem that would affect their kids. Anne turns down a millionare to stay with a writer she loves passionately - but he abandons her to focus on his writing efforts. She keeps pining after him even while she moves on to other affairs. And so it goes. Anne becomes a cosmetics girl cover-girl, and of the three is the sanest. She sleeps with the boss and plans on marrying him in a while. She's not hooked on drugs. But Jenny and Neely are both addicted to uppers and downers by now. Neely has destroyed her career several times over by being a prima-donna. Her second husband divorces her and she never spends any time with her kids. Jenny finally finds a rich senator to love - and dreams of marrying him and having kids. But breast cancer and uterine issues hit, and she doesn't trust the senator to stay with her with these problems. Life unravels. On one hand, the characters tend to be on the cardboardy side. There is the super-naive Anne, who believes at face value that the millionaire is poor, that the Ethel Merman-style Broadway Star is really sweet and kind, and so on. She clings to her belief in true, soulmate passionate love and lets go her hopes for family and home as a result. There's the fresh-faced Neely who claims she only wants a family and kids, and would quit her career to focus on the family - but as soon as she gets fame, she adores it. But she loses her fame because of her nose-up attitude and pill-taking. Jenny just keeps searching for a sugar daddy that can also give her kids, but just when she thinks things are set, his fascination with her body and her illness make it seem like a lost cause. The guys are not much better. You have the rich my-way-or-the-highway millionaire. You have the playboy writer who runs off to be on his own. You have the sex-only-simpleton who does what he's told by his sister. You have countless guys who only want a mistress or a one-night-stand. And then you have a few father figures. You have very few real "partners" in life. On the other hand, when you look at the other top sellers like the Carpetbaggers or God's Little Acre, this book has remarkably little sex. The virgins stay virgins for a long while, until they hook up with true loves. Yes, Jenny had a lesbian affair in Europe for the typical tittilation factor. Yes, you hear about Neely's second husband having homosexual lovers, but there is very little real sex talk. You know that Jenny trades sex for fur coats, but it's more about the fur coats than the sex. What is more the focus of the book is the way the womens' goals keep changing - and how they sabotage their own lives. Neely especially blames everyone else around her for her unhappiness, when it's pretty clear that it is her own warped focus that does it. I can definitely see why this appealed to a 60s audience of women. They were all rebelling against the get-married-have-kids mantra, they wanted glamour and excitement. But they also knew that the choice was a risky one. The book clearly showed women who avoided the family-kids route and reached that glamour, and who were not really happy as a result. So on one hand, women got to fantasize about the cool prestigious New York restaurants, the Broadway hits, the rich boyfriends. But on the other hand, women saw the misery and pain involved in that high-profile life, and felt better about their own more quiet worlds. For a more modern audience, it's a little more tough. This isn't the Carrie-Samantha New York smart single girls situation. All three girls long for a guy to solve their problems. Jenny wants a rich guy, and kids. Anne wants a loving guy, and kids. Neely just wants a family guy. The Sex-in-the-City girls get together, they support each other to become better, balanced individuals. It seems like the Valley threesome help each other to get pills, and rarely speak out against bad relationships. They only step in for an intervention when things are completely screwed up. They make completely bad decisions for themselves, with maybe only Anne being at least mostly-sane. This is more a warning about "the perils of high living" than a real story about the troubles of balancing family and career. Sure, we can see traces of our own desires in the various women. We want romantic love, like Anne. We want financial stability, like Jenny. We want general family contentment, like Neely. But the women are very one-sided and simply not very bright. It's a real shame to say these are what women are like, or how women handle success. And of course, the fact that all are incredibly gorgeous and solely use their bodies to achieve their aims is not stirring. They're constantly praised by men for being sexy. That seems to be all that guys care about. The women spend their time oiling their breasts and putting on make-up and dressing fancy, to be the proper Arm Candy. If they get money, they turn it over to men to do the investing. Wouldn't want to worry their silly little heads about money. So in general, I appreciate this was very liberating and educational for 60s women - but it is more cardboard and simplistic for modern times. I really do find a great comparison between this and the Sex-in-the-City crew. Both have sexy women in New York City. But in this book, the sexy women rely on sexy bodies to catch them a husband of their desired shape, and use pills and drinking and plastic surgery to get their aims. It is shown to be literally impossible to balance a family and a career. That may have been a lesson that Sixties women sadly accepted - but it's one we know it not true in modern times. And hopefully we know better than to focus on a hot body as the main way to find a long-lasting partner in life!

I, too, read this book when it was considered controversial and "trashy." I didn't consider it "trashy." I enjoyed Jacqueline Susann's writing and the plot of the book covers almost two decades beginning in the mid-1940s in the careers of Anne, Jennifer, and Neely. Mark Robson directed the film version; being no film critic, I believe the film could have been better - based on Robson's other classic films which include "Peyton Place." The book really constructs the three main female characters as well as the people important in their lives. It gets you inside the film and entertainment industry when you earned the stardom thru hard work, sweat, and determination. I believe you form an attachment for each one. It depicts realistically what it must be like to work for the career you love, not realizing the price success in that career can cost. The drugs or dolls and the alcohol began as a way of handling not so much the success as the requirement to always remain as good as your last picture, song, or gossip column; to remain pert and to "sparkle"; to remain on top, always aware that fame is as fickle as your fans. These ladies were not weak; they were talented women competing in the man's world of film and music. There's pathos in this novel; it reflects how celebrity is sometimes worshipped. Read the book and meet three extraordinary characters you'll not soon forget.

Valley of the Dolls was more than I ever expected it to be. Go into it with an open mind and an open schedule, because you are not going to want to put this one down. The Valley is the soul-sucking land of showbiz. The Dolls are the little pills that keep the girls in the Valley up, down, and thin. Susann pulls you into a world of glamour and then sucks every last bit of that glamour away. She pulls back the curtain and lets you see the dirt and muck that's left behind when the show is over. If you thought this book would be a pleasant bit of light reading, you were so wrong. You follow the lives of three girls who make it big. A model, a movie star, and a singer. You see their rise to the top and cheer them on as they find their fame. But once you get to the top, there's only one place left to go... Down. And these girls fall farther than you could ever imagine. The drugs that kept them on top suck them down. And soon, they are all shells of the women they used to be. This book makes you feel lucky to be one of the dreamers rather than someone who is living the dream. Valley of the Dolls is one of my favorite books of all times, yet one of the most depressing books I've ever read. It's incredible. Everyone should read it.

great bookActually, Valley Of The Dolls (the book, not the film) reminded me of Goodfellas in a way which may sound like a bizarre comparison but it has that same quasi-documentary feel

Un livre incroyable; à lire absolument. C’est piquant je l’ai dévoré !

Il libro è arrivato in ottime condizioni, e la confezione non rovinata nonostante fosse un giorno di pioggia. Il libro in sé è stato davvero una chicca inaspettata. L’ho letto dopo aver per caso visto la copertina - del quale non avevo capito il significato - e devo dire che mi ha estremamente sorpresa l’onestà e la schiettezza di alcuni termini (a partire dal titolo), soprattutto considerando gli anni in cui è stato scritto. Io ho preferito leggerlo in lingua originale, e a parte alcuni termini usati negli anni 60’ che non sono così conosciuti per noi, è di facile lettura. Se siete fan del mondo dello spettacolo, sopratutto Broadway e Hollywood, avete trovato il vostro libro.

There must be a 100 films out there which touches on these stories / plot lines. Whilst the tales are very serious in many ways it is still so enjoyable to read. I was hooked from the beginning - the story is so wonderfully fluent yet changing in an instant - gripping stuff. Neely in the mental hospital is just superb writing . It just feels like there's something on every page that gets you. This is a 10/10 read - I don't think I've enjoyed a book so much and it's so easy to read. - it flows. Some would that this is all old hat now but it's still a powerful read.

Snabb leverans! Mycket nöjd! Min dotter tycker om författaren och boken!