A novel that takes place in old Hollywood when gossip columnists reigned large and spread a shadow of fear over the stars - women like Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper who also had ambition to act but ended up reporting on former co-workers - stars and directors. There are loads of interweaving scandals and cover-ups here including allegations of rape, sexual harassment and gay stars having to hide in the closet. The dialogue at times is quick and witty like in a screwball comedy. There are wonderful detailed descriptions of the gowns and the Academy Awards ceremony at the Roosevelt Hotel - I felt like I was there. Famous stars are mentioned in passing (such as Cary Grant and Myrna Loy) but the main characters resemble famous stars (such as Errol Flynn). Overall, this was a good read. Sometimes, it felt the threads got tangled and the book became bogged down (this is Lynch's debut novel) but still an enjoyable read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Doubleday Books for an ARC and I left this review voluntarily.

I feel like this book could be an easy 4 or 5 star read for a different audience. I loved the setting and the Hollywood glamor era, love that it makes you see the dark side of films as well as the glitz of it all. I did not connect with the characters, not even the star and I appreciated her take control attotude but I feel like it was pulled away from the plot of the book and formed a new story in ways rather than flowing easily.

This is a DNF for me. I was just not interested in these characters and found myself growing tired of the endless gossip. The author was going for wit, and rapid fire dialogue to evoke a period and develop characters and was only moderately successful.

One of my friends reviewed this as “I like the idea of it more than I like the execution”, and unfortunately, that’s exactly how I feel after slogging through it. In the 1940s, Edie O’Dare is a Hollywood actress who’s finishing up the final year of her contract with renowned studio FWM. Although she knows everyone, she wasn’t terribly successful, so she’s not sure what to do next – until she gets the opportunity to write a gossip column exposing the scandals of all her former coworkers, including an assault (and Me Too) situation at a party she attends. While that outline sounds fascinating, the plot meandered all over the place, and the characters weren’t rich enough to even help me tell them apart. It was somewhat interesting to see behind the scenes of Hollywood’s Golden Age, but the plot was so bogged down in flashbacks and forgettable asides that it just made it a slow read that I wanted to give up on many times. (I stuck with it because reviews said it got better, but… it really didn’t.) I’m disappointed this wasn’t more enjoyable!

The book started off the familiar 1930's rhythm of speech (fast and clipped) so I expected to enjoy the book and breeze through it. somewhere in the middle of the book after waiting for the pace to pick up I lost interest. I wanted to like this book but No it became a tedious predictable read.

Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (3.75)

Thank you @doubledaybooks for the @netgalley of this debut novel that came out last month! Swipe for goodreads synopsis.

I really enjoyed the Old Hollywood setting of this! It takes places in the 30s and 40s in Los Angeles. Grace was my favorite character and I liked how the acknowledgment section mentioned who the characters were inspired by.

What I didn’t like about this was the pacing. I didn’t like how the chapters were divided and felt like the different sections and parts were a bit jumpy and random. I was also confused on some of Edie’s motivations. It felt a lot longer than it was.

⚠️: rape, sexual assault, infidelity

I just couldn’t connect with the writing or story.

Edie, our main character, isn’t at all likable.

We have a large cast of characters that feel interchangeable. None, including Edie, are well developed.

The content feels choppy and disconnected, and the plot ill-defined.

Nothing was working for me, so I gave up.

DNF

*Thank you to Doubleday and NetGalley for the eARC.*

The synopsis of the book seemed like it would be a great read. Set in the glamour of old Hollywood, great descriptions of the fashion and setting. However, there were way too many characters introduced in a very brief amount of time at the beginning of the book. It made it too difficult to keep up with who was who and I felt I needed a scorecard just to remember who everyone was. Not to mention how they were connected. Due to that reason, I was unable to connect with the characters or follow the storyline well, so was unable to finish reading this item. My library system has already purchased it for our collection and there is a small wait list already, so hopefully others will feel differently about this item than I do.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch!

I have a confession to make. I am an Old Hollywood aficionado. I have spent so much of my life curled up in dark rooms, watching old movies. I’ve read many books on the subject and my grandmother lived it so I’ve had many conversations with her about her life in Hollywood and on film sets.

And this book felt like coming home <3

It’s an incredible look at one of my favorite eras in history. This is fictional but it felt like it could be real.

I love the way it casually name dropped my favorite stars of the era (looking at you, Bette Davis & Jimmy Stewart); the way it held true to the good, the bad and the ugly of the industry (contracts, fake marriages as film promotion, etc).

It’s a world that I just find so fascinating. And I loved the characters presented in these pages. If Nell Parker were real, she would’ve been my favorite Old Hollywood actress!

And WWII played a pretty minor role in this story but it was one of the most fascinating takes I’ve ever seen. We don’t talk a lot about what happened back home or how the world continued churning and I really enjoyed seeing it through the eyes of this world.

So. I loved this. Especially the ending (which had me sobbing in public).

I don’t love how so many stars were treated in these days (and what some of them got away with) but I love that this was so incredibly researched and gave such an accurate look at this era. Today’s Hollywood isn’t perfect but it’s come a very, very long way.

I also buddy read this with Kara and WHAT A TREAT!! She is forever my favorite person to chat through books with! <3

Anyway, could not recommend this more highly! If you also love Old Hollywood, please pick it up! And thank you to NetGalley & Doubleday for allowing me to read it early!

This book is set in Hollywood in the late 1930s, and it follows Edie, a young woman who dreams of becoming a star. She doesn't have what it takes to make it as an actress, but she does have a knack for gossip.

She lands a job as a gossip columnist for a major studio, and she uses her position to sway public opinion about the stars. She's not a very likable person, but she's definitely interesting. I didn't like her at first, but I grew to appreciate her complexity as the book went on.

The setting and atmosphere of the book are really well-done, and they transport you back to Hollywood in the Golden Age. I highly recommend this book if you're a fan of historical fiction or gossipy Hollywood tales. It wasn't a quick read for me but I really liked the story.

Yes please, sign me up for a story about old Hollywood and its secrets. I did think that it was a bit slow overall and took me a minute to get into, but overall it was a nice homage to 40s Hollywood and how useful the gossip columns could be, as well as the harm they could (and still) do for a price. Secrets were revealed of how stars were made, how pregnancies were hidden, and how the studio heads manipulated most everything back then (and I don’t think things have changed much honestly). The audio for this was well done and I enjoyed listening to it this way.

Thank you to PRH Audio, DoubleDay Books, and NetGalley for the copies to review.

2.5 round up. I was disappointed that Do Tell was a miss for me. I've enjoyed Hollywood gossip books in the past but for some reason it didn't work here for me. I was often losing track of what was going on and kept hesitating to pick the book up again. I love Lindsay Lynch and Ann Patchett and Parnassus Books and was hoping to be a fan girl for this one. If Hollywood trials are your thing, you may enjoy it more than me. Thank you to Netgalley and Doubleday for an advance e-copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Do Tell is now available.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

Edie O'Dare spent years as "the most feared woman in Hollywood", writing a gossip column for one of the big LA newspapers. Now that she has retired, the paper has compiled some of her best columns into a book and wants her to write the forward. Instead, she writes this book, detailing her years in Hollywood and her single seven year contract as an actress.

When her best part, and her one shot at becoming a star, is deemed not to meet the standards of the newly adopted Hays Code, Edie's best work ends up on the cutting room floor and she knows she will never be that star she came to Hollywood to be. But now her contract is expiring and she, and everyone else at the studio, knows that it will not be renewed. Her friendship with the "fixer" at FWM, the studio where she works, has kept her up to date on what is going on behind the scenes in the glamorous lives of the Stars. She has used that information to supplement her small income by selling the inside information to Poppy St John, who was then the reigning gossip column queen.

But after her contract expires, and with the help of Augustan, the "fixer", Edie gets a chance to try writing her own column. With a few lucky breaks, she gets the fans behind her and gets her own column. But she finds that she doesn't always want to tell everything she knows, and she learns that there are things more important than fame.

Such an amazing debut! I know we'll be reading more from Lindsay Lynch!

Do Tell is set in the golden age of Hollywood. We have an actress that is near the end of her studio contract (as they did back in those days). She also happens to moonlight as the top Hollywood Gossip writer! She receives information at a party from an up-and-coming ingenuine about a very important actor and his not-so-nice ways with other actors. (Think #MeToo).

This novel had me thinking about what you do when you want to save yourself, but you know in your heart you need to do the right thing. This is a deep, thought-provoking novel, and I loved every word of it.

I absolutely LOVED this book! Lindsay Lynch did such an incredible job of bringing the golden age of Hollywood to life through Edie O’Dare, and I was instantly swept up in this delicious story! Lynch also does a masterful job of shining light on the cultural issues of the day while weaving them into a story you won’t want to put down!

When Ann Patchett enthusiastically recommends a book, of course you rush to read it! Do Tell is Lindsay Lynch's debut novel and I enjoyed it. It's an old Hollywood tale with lots of glitz, glamour, and gossip. Relationships and power come in to play - my biggest criticism would be that there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but the story was a page turner.

Thank you to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for this ARC.

What a great story! The writing is so good that I had to recheck a couple of times to see if it was a biography rather than fiction.

This books takes you through the glamour of old Hollywood as if you were there at the time. It is wonderful and fantastic while being tragic, unjust and wrong. The author takes the reader into what is probably very similar to the factual occurrences in the 1930s and 1940s world of movies. The title character, Edie, is ingrained in that world while still being just enough outside it that she can see the truth in what is happening around her. She reports about the people and situations in a gossip column that can be manipulated based upon who who are and whether you are in the writer’s good graces. It will make the reader reminiscent about Kitty Kelly. I loved it and wanted to read more when I closed the final pages.


I received an ARC from Doubleday Books through NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book. I am voluntarily submitting this review and am under no obligation to do so.

I grew up reading my mom's Photoplay and Silver Screen magazines, watching old movies with her so this book just hit me in the right spot. It harkens back to the days when movie studios "owned" their actors. They were all under contract to work for only one studio, cranking out movie after movie for them. In this novel, they are working for FWM studios and as Edie O'Dare comes to the end of her contract, she becomes a gossip columnist. It isn't odd because she was giving stories to a gossip columnist all along. She considers them all friends but that won't stop a story. (or might stop one)

The book is filled with love and hate, friendship and secrets. We forget how different things were back then and yet all the same. I laughed and cried, a lot like watching a movie from the 40s.

Lindsay did a wonderful job on her debut and I look forward to so much more.

Thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for a copy for review.

1 🌟

Unfortunately, this book could not hold my interest. The writing style seemed a bit all over the place with the story seeming to come to a holding pattern.

I had high hopes for this read as the description reminded me of the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but it didn’t hold a candle to that book.

I will have to say I would not recommend this read.