Hollywood Nobody (Hollywood Nobody Series, Book 1)

I got this one as a freebie on Kindle and read it in one sitting this weekend while doing laundry. A totally breezy, mindless, read that was just perfect for me at the time.

It's from a Christian publisher and while I'm not bothered by the message, per se, in this particular book it seemed completely out of left field and thrown into the book just because it HAD to be there to qualify for publication or something. It would have been better without those small sections but they didn't detract much from the overall story.

Our main charcater Scotty is a fun teenager and I look forward to her future adventures. They set up lots of intrigue in this book that I'm sure will play out in future stories.

That said, I'm glad it was free. I think I'd show more be a little bugged by how fluffy it is had I paid good money for this title. show less

Hollywood Nobody was a great and fairly fast read and I cannot wait to read the next few in the series. The story of Scotty is told through many different ways with using just plain first person narrative, her diary, and her blog entries. Scotty is a diverse 15 year old that only wants what anyone at any age wants, to not be lonely. [author: Lisa Samson] did a great job of really sharing Scotty's life through this book. I can relate to Scotty and see where she gets her emotions and her strengths from. Not only do you get to read about a little Hollywood, but you also get a little romance, some family love, some suspense and extreme plot twists, but there is also this little mention of Christ's love. It is just enough that I do not think show more this book would scare anyone away, but perhaps interest them in just the slightest to be curious for a little more information. Which in my experience tends to be the best way to be an evangelical. For me this book also slightly depressed me, but that's because I'm a lonely person and seeing how lonely Scotty was at times made me think of my own lonely-ness. Also, as ridiculous as it might be, it also made my slightly jealous of her. I write a blog too, but I cannot say that my rants and ravings give anything near the amount of people and comments as she. Sometimes, well most times, I feel like I write and nobody is listening nor cares. But either way, that just shows one of my weaknesses that I shall work on in the future of my own lonely attitude. show less

Hollywood Nobody was a great and fairly fast read and I cannot wait to read the next few in the series. The story of Scotty is told through many different ways with using just plain first person narrative, her diary, and her blog entries. Scotty is a diverse 15 year old that only wants what anyone at any age wants, to not be lonely. [author: Lisa Samson] did a great job of really sharing Scotty's life through this book. I can relate to Scotty and see where she gets her emotions and her strengths from. Not only do you get to read about a little Hollywood, but you also get a little romance, some family love, some suspense and extreme plot twists, but there is also this little mention of Christ's love. It is just enough that I do not think show more this book would scare anyone away, but perhaps interest them in just the slightest to be curious for a little more information. Which in my experience tends to be the best way to be an evangelical. For me this book also slightly depressed me, but that's because I'm a lonely person and seeing how lonely Scotty was at times made me think of my own lonely-ness. Also, as ridiculous as it might be, it also made my slightly jealous of her. I write a blog too, but I cannot say that my rants and ravings give anything near the amount of people and comments as she. Sometimes, well most times, I feel like I write and nobody is listening nor cares. But either way, that just shows one of my weaknesses that I shall work on in the future of my own lonely attitude. show less

Scotty Dawn lives an unusual life: instead of going to school like most 15 year olds, she travels from place to place according to her mother's job in the RV that she has dubbed the Y. This nomadic life has prepared Scotty to be independent and to push herself to achieve greater heights. Her mother, a hippy free spirit, does not encourage her to study or work hard. But Scotty pushes herself to study geometry, English and Art. She sets assignments for herself and finishes them. Being the daughter of a movie set cook, she has had an inside view of the Hollywood life. Pulling on this "inside knowledge" available to her she starts a Hollywood blog where the latest news and stories of celebrities are posted.

Even though, Scotty has a life show more that most kids her age would envy, she longs for a normal home and life with friends and more family. But throughout this book she is learning to be content with the lifestyle she has. But as she grows, dark secrets are coming to the surface. Her life seems to be in danger and she knows her mother is hiding something. Her actor friend, Seth Haas seems to be heading in the wrong direction and into a wrong relationship. Will the secrets be revealed? Can she bear the truth or will they pull her down?

When I saw the book cover, I was disappointed to see a young adult fiction. Since I have past that age, I have not read a book in this age group. But I decided to give it a try anyways and boy was I surprised! I could not put the book down and finished it in one sitting. Scotty's quirky character and personality catches the reader's attention almost instantly. Even though the novel uses blogs and journal entries to share Scotty's thoughts, it is not drawn out or boring. The book moves fairly quickly and the reader is drawn into a lifestyle that some people can only dream about.

This was my first book my Lisa Samson and I am definitely going to find her other novels and read them. Even though this is a young adult book, I would strongly encourage parents and older folks to read it as well. It is a good novel to gain insight into the thoughts and actions of a teenager. I am excited about the second installment of this series and more fun with Scotty Dawn! show less

Hollywood Nobody is a young adult fiction and though the book states that this is a Christian YA fiction – the religious message is not overbearing. The story was light and humorous but also had some suspense in the form of Charlie’s secrets. The main characters were well-developed but the rest of them were just there and made little or no impact to the story. However the protagonist does manage to connect with all of them real well and there were little or no loose ends.

Scotty was just a little too mature for a fifteen year old teen. It must be from the experience that she has had travelling around but even then her character was too strong for me to digest. But again; it has been a while since I have been around teens so maybe I show more am just being oversensitive. Apart from that I liked her. Her creativity and spirit was infectious. The things she did for Charlie and her other few friends was both sensitive and sweet. When it came to Charlie; I did not like her as I felt she was being an irresponsible parent. However as the story proceeded I began to understand the situation from her perspective and even started liking her.

Hollywood Nobody is not one of my typical reads but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It is a fast book and I always like that. The aspect of blogging made me feel at home and I will be reading many more YA books after this one. show less

I picked up Hollywood Nobody about a month ago and ended up setting it down to finish a few other books that needed to be reviewed. Yesterday I picked it back up again and finished the somewhat small book this morning. I found the way it was written - a personal journal - very funny and insightful, as I could tell exactly what Scotty was thinking, and I also loved the add-in of an occasional post for her blog - Hollywood Nobody. I normally don't enjoy first-person accounts as much as third person, as I like to know what the other characters are thinking, I thought that Hollywood Nobody was excellent in first person and not once while reading it did I wish it was from a different perspective. I thought that Scotty's view on Hollywood was show more a cool one to look through and I thought Samson did a good job with that!

Scotty was a very humorous, blunt character that I enjoyed learning about. We had a common ground - we love our cheese and meats. Of course, Scotty's mother, whom she calls Charley, never permitted her to eat meat or cheese so that may be why she enjoyed it so much...but I still agreed with her 100% when she got all excited about having cheese! lol
While there were a few qualities of her that I didn't enjoy, such as her deceitfulness(explained further in content advisory), when all is done, I found Scotty a sweet and funny character that I wouldn't mind knowing in person.

Seth was a nice add-in. I found his personality charming and very friendly. His and Scotty's relationship was close and I thought they were very funny together. He was a great older-bro type, even though Scotty had a crush on him all throughout the book. ;)

Charley made me chuckle on more than one occasion! She was such an interesting, unique character. Ha! She was, to put it mildly, just plain weird! :P I loved her character though, and though she made some bad choices, she loved Scotty more than anything.

As for the content, I could write a mile long paragraph for this if I was to point out everything. So I shall point out the major things and a brief heads up on the minor things. The whole nature of the book should make it at least somewhat obvious to what type of content is in it. After all, it does take place in "Hollywood".

First off, there are several instances where Scotty mentions and casts down thong underwear and bathing suits. In one instance she is referring to how ridiculous Tom Cruise has become, another saying how she even though she isn't a Christian(only because she knows very little of God, yet is curious), she knows God disapproves of them(and low rise jeans), and another she is talking about how stupid the bathing suits are and that they should put more fabric on them. There is also an instance where Scotty is blogging and she says she has a new favorite actress because the woman loves cheese, and Scotty says she likes to "show off her girls" a bit, but forgives her because she likes cheese. One of the comments on the blog post said that she didn't mind that the actress shows off "her girls" because "you should flaunt them if you've got them". There is a mentioning of a woman being called "slutty". There is also a part where Seth mentions how his past relationships haven't gone well and Scotty writes "Translation - had sex and regretted it." and later after he mentions he didn't want her to make the same mistakes he did, she writes how she was wondering if Seth was trying to drop a hint at her being better off without sex cause a guy wouldn't want to "touch her with a 10ft pole anyway". There is also the mentioning of a girl wearing bikini and looking ridiculous because it was like 65 degrees outside. Another thing is that a girl is caught doing drugs in her room along with two drunk thirteen year olds.
Scotty has a crush on a guy and calls him "Hot" often in her journal.
Scotty is also deceiving and disobeys her mother, going behind her back when she's asleep. She never gets in trouble for such behavior, even after her mother found out.
Wow - I still manage to write a mile long content paragraph! :P It is all what you would expect in a teen novel. I did have some respect for a few of Scotty's disapprovals, but some of the things she still said I found uncalled for. Other than that, just a bit of crush talk and such.

Honestly, I had hoped for a cleaner book. After all, it was written for teenagers and is labeled "Christian fiction", but I wouldn't give this book to anyone younger than myself(16) and wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, really. As much as I would like to read the next one and see what happens(this one's a bit of a cliffhanger), I think I am going to pass. I really wished it hadn't had as much stuff in it.
One thing I did really like though was that Scotty attended a Christian tent meeting and when she had a desire to learn more about God and realized that it was all just a show. She thought the woman prophet was ridiculous and that everything - all of it - was just a show put on. I loved that! She ended up by the end just reading the Bible and for that I was happy. :)

So, all being said, it was an interesting book but I can't really recommend it highly to anyone. Of course, this is totally just my opinion and you may see it quite differently. If you like a typical teen book and want to see Hollywood through the eyes of a girl who's seen it all, this would be an excellent book for you! show less

Susan says: This book originally caught my attention in the Teen Book Club email I get every day. I thought the story of a girl who lives with her mother in a trailer while she does food styling for movies was really interesting. So I checked it out of the Phoenix PL, and only after I was about halfway through did I realize that it was Christian fiction (well, sort of). Scotty and her mother Charley live very much paycheck to paycheck, and there is definitely a secret that Charley is keeping from Scotty. They go to Toledo Island (off Ocracoke) for a movie, where Scotty gets a crush on an actor and they keep running into a mysterious biker. It is on Toledo Island where Scotty begins researching tent revivals, which is where God comes in. show more It's fairly low-key in this one, but I'm sure it will become more prominent in other books. It's a shame, because I do like the character of Scotty and am interested in the secret which Charley reveals to her at the end of the novel. show less