Dead Ex Book

Dead Ex is a novel that takes place in the world of daytime soap operas. The author Harley Jane Kozak is a soap opera alumni turned author. She appeared on Texas, Santa Barbara (as Sister Mary who was famously killed by the letter C check it out on Youtube) and Guiding Light (as Annabelle Simms a few of her episodes are on the GL collection) in the 1980s.

This novel from 2007 is the third of four books about the main character of Wollie Shelley named after Mary Shelley the author. Usually when I read any series, I start from the first, but due to the soap opera tie-in I broke that rule. For that reason I apologize for any inaccurate statements due to missing pieces of the puzzle in earlier books.

Years earlier Wollie dated a man named David Zetrakis who started in theatre, got into soap operas and worked his way up for performer, to director to executive producer. He had terminal cancer, but ended up being murdered instead. David was also the ex of her best friend Joey. Joey and David had a long relationship full of tumult, though they eventually became friends again. Joey worked as an actress for David, and when their romance hit the skids, she lost her job at the soap called "At the End of the Day". Joey had moved on and was married to another man, who had cheated on her too. Since she had the past that she did, Joey became a target for the paparazzi.

Wollie's other close friend Fredreeq was also along for the fun. Wollie is a colorful character who surrounded herself with others who were equally unique. Her Uncle Theo for example couldn't drive, but was like a "human GPS" who could direct her around traffic snarls. A lot of this book seemed to take place in a car actually. Theo took in a student named Apollo along with the rest of his family and they may have been illegally there (from Greece). Wollie's other family was a brother who lived in an institution, who loved comic books and happened to watch "At the End of the Day". Wollie's boyfriend was Simon who was involved in the spy game, but made her tell people he was in textiles if asked about his job. Wollie's life was a bit of a mess as she didn't have a place of her own, and made her living on odd jobs to supplement her income as an independent greeting card designer.

In one of the other novels, Wollie was on a dating reality show. Due to that, she ended up becoming the dating correspondent for a soap opera talk show named SoapDirt. She was paid to go out with actors and they'd show the part of their dates on television. Due to that, we got to learn more about some of the actors who were part of At the End of the Day. Some of these dates were ridiculous, and the idea of how fake "reality" is done was appreciated.

One of the funniest moments for me reading this book was when Wollie had to listen to soap opera jargon. One performer's daytime credits were listed including show abbreviations. Wollie had no idea what on earth was being spoken about, and as someone who has had to deal with stares of people who were completely lost I let out a chuckle.

By the end of the novel, Wollie figured out the murderer and the person who did the crime was caught before anyone else was seriously injured. Since I read a lot of books in this genre, if I get a chance I'll catch up on the earlier ones.