I didn’t expect to be writing this entry, but I went to the bookstore today. Victoria Rowell’s novel “Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva” was on sale. The book, which came out in May 2010, was marked down from $16.00 to $3.99, but when I looked at my receipt it was only a $1. This wasn’t at some discount book chain, but Borders, so I was extremely surprised. What follows are my thoughts on the book.
The novel is about an African-American soap star named Calysta Jeffries, her life on set, and how she copes with losing/quitting her job as Ruby Stargazer on The Rich and the Ruthless. It parodies the soap opera industry as a whole, rehabs and actors. The opening took place at the Sudsy awards and how Calysta’s behavior at the show influenced her soap to downgrade her part. Another cast member won again and instead of being gracious Calysta told her true feelings about the situation. This made the network and the show unhappy, obviously as for some reason, and in real life this is sadly the case, the shows seemingly don’t want the viewers to know that everyone who works together aren’t best friends and love one another.
The people at the show were for the most part crazy and immoral. The casting couch was alive and well, the writers and producers were out of touch and things weren’t looking good at the program. The creator of the show was an ally to Calysta, but he was in ill health. Augustus and his family that didn’t work at the show were a few people, we met who wasn’t jaded, messed up or unfaithful to their spouse. Some things were taken from reality as Victoria Rowell has mentioned the lack of African-Americans as hairstylists and writers. She also dealt with a spitting situation on set. Fans were mentioned and made fun of or at least their lack of knowledge and confusion of real life character versus actor. As a viewer, I’d say yes there are some fans, which are like that, but there are others who know the difference. I appreciated that Calysta’s grandma Jones (the woman who raised her) loved her stories and was treated with respect.
By the end of the book Calysta was still out of work, but finally seemed at peace with her life. She was able to go back to her hometown and deal with Beulah, the person she was before leaving Mississippi. The funniest part of the novel, which was totally over the top, was what happened on the day Calysta’s grandmother went to the set of her former soap opera. Calysta’s friend Shannen, who was an ally at the show, did the honors and boy if that wasn’t eventful.
When reading this book, I could understand why some people were up in arms. Since many of the characters seemed to be based on templates of real life daytime performers and/or executives, if someone was a fan of a performer that came off badly in the novel, they could be upset. There is backbiting and backstabbing in all businesses, so why not daytime.
I was amused and entertained by this novel. If I took it seriously and believed that the characters presented in the novel were 100% the people who work at the Young and the Restless, my opinion would have been very different. Of course, if this was a true tell-all and things were that juicy and whacked up I would be disappointed that there wasn’t a camera going for all of us to see the crazy things that were even better than what comes from the writing staff’s collective imaginations. For more on the book visit here.
No comments:
Post a Comment