✨book review ✨

CHARITY TRICKETT IS NOT SO GLAMOROUS
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Release Date: June 10, 2025

🎬 A behind-the-scene tale of a young woman's adventures trying to make it in the movie industry in the 1990's Hollywood.

🎥 Thank you so much to @netgalley for providing me with this fun ARC! This book was so nostalgic with growing up in the 1990’s and had some great laugh out loud moments. If you loved Bridget Jones, you will love Charity Trickett. 🩷

𝙃𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙮𝙬𝙤𝙤𝙙, 1997. 𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙏𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙩𝙩 𝙢𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙇𝘼 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙘𝙠𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙡𝙢 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧, 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙡𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙃𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙮𝙬𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙞𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙥𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙍𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙤 𝘿𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙚. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙙𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙨𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙣𝙬𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙜𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙮𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙪𝙩𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙡𝙚𝙙. 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙗𝙚𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚, 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙥 𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙨 𝙖𝙩 𝘾𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙮 𝙎𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙤𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙘𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙢𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙗𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙤𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙫𝙖𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩, 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜, 𝙖 𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙙𝙞𝙤 𝙝𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙙𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙣 𝙁𝘽𝙄 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙞𝙡. 𝙎𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙮 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙪𝙣𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙚𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙣𝙚, 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮’𝙨 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙙𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨. 𝙄𝙛 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙮 𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚, 𝙢𝙖𝙮𝙗𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙.

#newrelease #netgalley #1990snostalgia #hollywoodready #comedybooks

This was a fun read. I really liked the characters and was engaged with them. It was a good story and did have a few twists in the storyline. A really good beach or vacation read.

This was a fun book. I loved the narrator’s voice and it was a great read for summer. I feel like we can all relate to Charity Trickett on some level which made this a great read. Grateful for the ARC!

Thank you NetGalley and Sparkpress for this eARC. My opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book, I loved all of the 90s references. Charity is so sweet, sometimes a pushover. There were times I would get annoyed with her not standing up for herself. This book reminded me of The Devil Wears Prada, Charity’s coworker being the devil. It was fun getting a glimpse of Hollywood back before cell phones and social media.

Charity Trickett Is Not So Glamorous is Christine Stringer’s latest Women’s Fiction title. It’s a fictionalized account of a young woman’s experiences in the movie industry in the late 1990s.
In 1997 Charity Trickett is working on a movie set in Vancouver, Canada as an assistant, a position she has held for three years. She fetches coffee, plays cards with movie stars, and performs many menial tasks related to getting movies made. Her goal is to become a screenwriter, and she has been writing in her very limited spare time. When she catches her surfer boyfriend of two years in bed with another woman, her heart is broken. Soon after, the film director offers her a job working directly for him in Hollywood.
When Charity moves to LA, she quickly realizes that Hollywood isn’t all red carpets and Rodeo Drive. She is determined to become a screenwriter and producer, so she works even harder, impressing Canopy Studios management. She faces many challenges, including backstabbing coworkers, money issues, bad relationships, a million-dollar mistake, and an FBI investigation. Charity tries to stay grounded even though she’s surrounded by beautiful famous people and excessive wealth.

Charity Trickett Is Not So Glamorous will make readers laugh and root for Charity to succeed as she battles for success in Hollywood. Her naivete engages the reader. The pop culture references on every page remind the reader of the time period and add authenticity to the story. This is definitely a fun beach read.
I received an Advance Review Copy (ARC) from NetGalley and SparkPress for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I dove into this one without reading any other reviews or hearing other opinions and I'm glad I did. It has major Bridgett Jones vibes and took me right back to the 90's. The author does a great job of setting the scenes to feel like you are right there with her during all the exciting moments. I read this one in two days and couldn't put it down. There were even times I found myself laughing out loud at some of the relatable work scenes. This was a good one and I can't wait to read more books from Stringer!

3.5 stars. This was a fun behind the scenes story of the life of a movie production assistant (and wannabe screenwriter) trying to find her way in Hollywood. The characters were fun but there were parts of the plot that felt thin (the instant “love” with production assistant Kai, the weird dynamics with coworker Saffron where the favoritism was clear but didn’t really serve the plot…) and the big drama of the piracy plot had a fairly anticlimactic resolution (oh, we found the guy? Sorry. Everyone knew it wasn’t you). Sweet and quite fun..

Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read and review.

If you love the following tropes/ideas, you will adore this book:
1. 90s pop culture
2. Female writer/PA
3. Film industry dynamics
4. Found family
5. FBI
6. Y2K vibes

When I read the book, I devoured the entire book in less than 24 hours. Every second of my day I kept going back to this book to read it. Not only is this novel well done in its storyline and the development of the plot from beginning to end but also in its creation of each and every character.

As I read the novel, I felt as if I knew each character’s story, personality, and interactions with the lead character as if they were old friends to myself as the reader. Not only did I find the character development to be a strength in this novel but also I saw so many stories begin and resolve throughout the novel with ease and without rushing any plot line.

We met the lovely and talented Charity who is trying to become a professional screenwriter in the film industry. From working on a film set in Canada to being afford an opportunity to move to Hollywood, Charity sees stars. Following the motions of her job, Charity becomes tangled with love, new friends, scandals, and even the FBI!

I could not recommend this novel enough. I adore this author’s writing, the characters in this novel, and hope to see more in the future.

A special thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and Christine Stringer for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I just finished Charity Trickett is not that Glamorous by Christine Stringer and here are my thoughts.

It’s 1997 and Charity has gotten the job of a lifetime… Assistant to the director of the biggest movie of the year… The trouble is that life isn’t what she was expecting. The backstabbing and disaster love life is just the tip of the iceburg.. When a mistake costs the studio hundreds of millions of dollars and there is now an FBI investigation that could land her in jail… Charity knows she needs to keep her head down and change her fate.

You know this one started off strong. I was really drawn in, loved Charity and I was ready to be blown away and then fizzle…. It just started to drag. It was monotonal and the story didn’t seem to be going anywhere and I almost DNF’d it and then…BOOM it was like it came back online. I likened it to dialing… it was like waiting and waiting for the good stuff haha.

I loved the plot. Hollywood… The hustle and bustle.. The glitz.. Glamour and the darkness. It’s always great when you dive into a book where you don’t know much about how the setting works. I love movie set books. They always teach me something.

The writing was great when it was great and repetitive in the middle. It felt like someone else wrote the middle.. It was a weird feeling.

All in all I did like the characters and the story was interesting enough that I did enjoy it by the end.

3.75 stars

Thank you to @netgalley and @sparkpress for my gifted copy.

I enjoyed this read so much!!! Charity Trickett is a delightful and relatable character, and I found myself rooting for her right from the start! She is striving to be a writer in the late 1990s film industry, and finds herself in several aggravating and absurd situations. The writing in this book is witty and vulnerable, and I found myself laughing out loud through it.

I definitely recommend this read for those who love a good women’s fiction and for those who have experienced troubles in the workplace! I found so many situations relational to my own life experiences, which made me feel connected to Charity.

This was such a fun read, and I will definitely be purchasing a physical copy for my bookshelf!

Set in the 1997 in Hollywood, I knew I’d like this book and I really did!

Charity Trickett is an assistant to a film director on a massive Hollywood blockbuster in a sexist, male dominated industry. She dreams of becoming a screenwriter or working her way up to producer and it looks like things are going well for her. With glamorous parties and socialising with the stars, her life looks pretty perfect but after struggling with the co worker from hell and making a mistake that changes everything, her dreams start crashing around her. Will Charity be able to work her way through the ruins of her career or will this be the end of her Hollywood dream?

Charity is such a likeable character. At first, I wasn’t sure if she’d be portrayed and the clumsy girl next door who would annoy me a bit but she really wasn’t. She was strong willed and worked for what she wanted. Even when everything goes wrong and others would just go into hiding, she carried on and faced some pretty horrible people. Although I wish she had stood up more to Saffron (what an epic cow) and said no more when it came to doing tasks outside of her job role, I understand that in some careers it’s best to not speak up.

I loved the relationships in this book - both friendships and romantic. I liked the dynamics between Charity and Daniel (I kind of wanted them to end up together) and the slow burn relationship with Kai.

Overall, this book was so enjoyable to read, I was invested in the characters and enjoyed hating on the bad guys. I’d recommend this and seek out more books from this author!

The moment I saw “for Bridget Jones fans,” I was in and this book did not disappoint. It was such a fun, chaotic, heartfelt ride, and I had the best time reading it.

Set in 1997 Hollywood, it perfectly captures that behind-the-scenes madness of the film industry, with all the glamour, mess, and emotional meltdowns you could hope for. Charity is an absolute delight, charming, determined, constantly on the edge of disaster but always holding on to her dream. I laughed, I cringed (in the best way), and I was 100% rooting for her through every wild twist.

It’s full of heart and hilarity, with just the right amount of real emotion underneath all the madness. Huge thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC! This was such a joyful, escapist read and exactly what I needed.

3.75⭐️ rounded up
I found myself liking the supporting characters more than Charity in some spots, but overall thought this was a good story about a writer paying her dues as an assistant and trying to make it in Hollywood. The resilience of her character comes through, as well as a dose of comedy sprinkled throughout.
Things I didn’t love: some of the transitions / changes in scene are sudden or not as clear as they could be to create a more cohesive storyline for the reader.
Thank you NetGalley for the advance electronic copy. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed reading Charity Trickett is Not So Glamorous by Christine Stringer. You will fall in love with all the characters. I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely. Happy Reading!

Charity might not be glamorous, but she’s pretty good @ what she does. She thinks landing a great job in LA will be a stepping stone to her dream career as a script writer, but reality definitely rears its ugly head.
This is a fun read. It was impossible not to root for Charity as she learns the ropes. Lots of interesting side characters, friends & foes. One of my college roommates worked 20+ years in Hollywood production. She’s told me some interesting stories. I actually wondered why the story was set in the late 90s, but it made sense when I read the author’s bio. I do remember the days of doing business w/pagers, less security cameras, & DVDs.
Thanks to the author & publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy via NetGalley. Would definitely read the author’s work again.

📖 Book Review 📖 Nothing in life is as glamorous as it seems from the outside looking in. Charity Trickett has the opportunity of a lifetime to work in Hollywood as an assistant in the film industry but it does not take her long to realize the seedy underbelly of this famed city. Charity might have bad luck following her; but her dreams are big, and her ambition and drive are even bigger. Christine Stringer brings us back to the shiny silver era of the 1990’s, where all the cool peeps had pagers (I did not) and Beanie Babies were going to be our retirement savings. I’d trade an original Tamagotchi to be back in the 90’s right now amidst the chaos of the world but for right now, I’ll happily settle for this escape from reality in Charity Trickett Is So Not Glamorous.

I was hooked from the beginning!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.

Thank you NetGalley and SparkPress for this ARC!

This was one of my first dives into women’s fiction and it did not disappoint. It was a bit slow to get into it, but the MC made me want to keep rooting for her. The 90s references and chapter titles gave me so much nostalgia and love for the background setting of this book. This was a fun debut and I’m looking forward to keep branching outside of my regular genres and read more of this now.

Charity Trickett Is Not So Glamorous is an entertaining book that shows the ups and downs of a woman who, when she is on her way to achieving her goal of becoming a publicist in the entertainment field finds out it may not be quite as glamorous as expected. The novel is entertaining with a fun cast of characters, some of whom it seems may not be as trustworthy as they appear. The book would make a great beach read.

“Charity Trickett Is Not so Glamorous” by Christine Stringer was such a cute book! I feel in love with Charity’s character and enjoyed the dialogue of the characters. I loved the office drama too! I was thrilled to find out two other books are coming out in this series and I can’t wait to read those!