Rating: 3.50

My Review (SPOILERS):

The first half of this book did a great job on reeling me in to Moscatel's life story and was paced well. The prose seemed to be going in a well laid out direction and I was enjoying the humorous way that the writer was conveying the "characters" in his family.

I have to say that I was seduced into reading this book based on the writer's close connection to the Landon family and learning more about his adoption story as is teased in the blurb. He does a good job at giving you the the goods about various famous people in Hollywood through his personal experiences. However, by the last quarter of the book, they happen so often and in weird situations, like running into someone on a trolley cart in San Francisco or Jerry Brown running in the park at the exact moment that he is bonding with his future wife for the first time that it reads like bad fiction instead of reality. I found the ending of the book very unlikeable as he describes the emotional affair he has with a co-worker while his wife is pregnant for the second time. It then abruptly ends when he "breaks up" with his tearful, almost mistress over lunch. The author's note kind of gives you a blanket -this is who I was then so don't hate me statement. It all kind of ruined what had started out as an interesting reading experience.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Blurb:

This evocative and emotionally charged story—praised by Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews—follows an illegitimate child placed with a powerful and eccentric Hollywood family after a scandalous affair.

When a notorious lawyer, at the behest of a famed composer, meticulously conceals the child's origins, his adoptive mother spares no effort to bury the truth. Pulling strings and enlisting influential allies—including a television icon—she constructs an elaborate facade to ensure he never uncovers his past. Yet, as he ages, cracks appear, leaving him haunted by an unshakable sense that something crucial is being hidden.

Set against Tinseltown's deceptive allure and shadowy intrigues, this memoir delves into the profound depths of childhood trauma, family secrets, and the universal search for belonging. Through a poignant journey of self-discovery and healing, the author reflects on the fragile bonds that define family, weaving an intensely personal narrative that lingers in the heart and mind long after the final page.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm adopted, so I enjoy reading books about the journeys of other adopted people. This was a good read, almost seemed like a mystery at first! I kept wondering who his biological parents were. Honest story, well told. I just wondered why he called his parents ( the people that raised him) by their first names. To me, my biological parents are birth mom and dad, the folks that adopted me are mom and dad. And I lost both of them by the time I was 14, so my 'mom' now is the one I've had the longest!

Worth reading, even if you aren't adopted. After all, we all have our own stories!

Well written and kept my interest even though I'm not usually interested in comments about celebrities. A strange view into Hollywood culture. Things happen there that you don't often hear about. Recommended.

I was attracted to this book by the cover and the premise. As I was reading, I found the story to be disjointed, and the narrator to be rather unlikeable. This book read like a summary of events, without a lot of descriptive details, and it jumped around so that the timeline was difficult to follow. The author's note at the end provided a bit of clarity about his choice for writing his memoir as he did, but I feel that that should have been at the beginning of the book.