liralen's review against another edition
2.0
You had me in the beginning. A young writer moves to Hollywood and ends up in porn. The main character isn't exactly sympathetic, but for the most part, it works. It's a classic fish-out-of-water story...but we're in the third act now, and it's starting to get depressing. (178)
Quite funny at times, but gosh, I would have liked it a lot better had he not been so defensive about the whole thing. Spitznagel and his wife moved to L.A. in an attempt to make it as screenwriters—not quite as eye-roll-inducing as that could have been, as they had the résumés for it. But when nothing seemed to be going anywhere and they had bills to pay, Spitznagel turned to an unexpected source of income...porn.
Writing porn, that is, and then only for a brief period of time. Spitznagel would not, as is abundantly clear from the book, want the reader to get the impression that he was ever more than an outsider on the scene. Mind, I know approximately nothing about the industry (honestly, it had never occurred to me that people got paid to write porn scripts—though, if what Spitznagel says is anything to go by, it's not clear why they're being paid), but I'm not so sure Spitznagel does either, or wants to. Lots of clichés and caricatures and a tremendous amount of angst and judgement.
Points for the writing and occasional self-awareness (see quotation above); points taken off for a rabid 'BUT I'M NOT LIKE THEM!' sense that doesn't seem entirely limited to the past.
Quite funny at times, but gosh, I would have liked it a lot better had he not been so defensive about the whole thing. Spitznagel and his wife moved to L.A. in an attempt to make it as screenwriters—not quite as eye-roll-inducing as that could have been, as they had the résumés for it. But when nothing seemed to be going anywhere and they had bills to pay, Spitznagel turned to an unexpected source of income...porn.
Writing porn, that is, and then only for a brief period of time. Spitznagel would not, as is abundantly clear from the book, want the reader to get the impression that he was ever more than an outsider on the scene. Mind, I know approximately nothing about the industry (honestly, it had never occurred to me that people got paid to write porn scripts—though, if what Spitznagel says is anything to go by, it's not clear why they're being paid), but I'm not so sure Spitznagel does either, or wants to. Lots of clichés and caricatures and a tremendous amount of angst and judgement.
Points for the writing and occasional self-awareness (see quotation above); points taken off for a rabid 'BUT I'M NOT LIKE THEM!' sense that doesn't seem entirely limited to the past.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
1.0
Great idea, ho-hum execution. The beginning was good but the plot gets worse and worse until your just basically waiting for it to end. Someone needed to tell Spitznagel that its okay to be part of the joke that is the porn industry. It doesn't really benefit to caricaturize a caricature.
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