MixedThe Wall Street JournalA vivid picture of a woman who teetered at the top of Broadway and Hollywood for decades ... Miss May Does Not Exist is repetitious, and the second half lacks some of the wit and energy of the first. Ms. Courogen writes in a breezy style, often calling her subject by her first name and intruding personally with casual \"dear reader\" comments... but her admiration for Elaine May, a woman who endured on her own terms in a man’s world, is always present.
William J. Mann
RaveThe Wall Street JournalHe puts the famous couple under an informed scrutiny, giving the full background of both stars before they met and questioning everything they did after. He pins down every rumor or error connected to their histories ... Mr. Mann’s dissection of the marriage—and how its perception was shaped for the public—is the book’s most interesting section ... Mr. Mann locates who Bogart and Bacall were inside their manufactured images. Having kicked the tires on all sides, he officially declares their legend secure.
Hilary A Hallett
RaveThe Wall Street Journal... highly readable and deeply researched ... Writing with the right touch of occasional humor, Ms. Hallett gracefully restores Glyn’s dignity, defines her intelligence and tells the full story of her remarkable life. She makes Elinor Glyn matter ... In Glyn, Ms. Hallett uncovers an important story. Calling her \'woman ahead of her times,\' the author traces a tale of self-liberation and provides ample historical and social context.
Karina Longworth
RaveThe Wall Street Journal\"In her book Seduction Karina Longworth finds her own unique purpose for Hughes’s adventures ... Thus the freshest—and most interesting—parts of Seduction are those where Ms. Longworth refutes the idea that there were no women working in key jobs in early Hollywood ... The author is a dedicated film historian, and in Seduction her basic love for Hollywood and its motley crew of shysters and stars is on full display. She uses Hughes’s entire life—not just his relations with women—as a platform from which to jump off into areas of historical interest ... [The author] is at her best writing about specific movie stars and specific films, such as the bizarro noir delight \'His Kind of Woman\' (1951) ... Seduction carefully traces the ups and downs of Hughes’s career over decades that culminated in his personal decline ... Ms. Longworth sheds as much light on Hughes as probably can be shed.\
Erin Carlson
MixedThe Wall Street JournalAs a writer, Ms. Carlson is a hunter-gatherer. The book was originally a 2015 Vanity Fair oral-history project, and she has amassed quotes from diligent, wide-ranging research and from her own personal interviews...Since Ephron surrounded herself with large groups of loyal and devoted friends, collecting comments from those who knew her is an appropriate way to find out about her and her work. The deepest insights in the book come from these sources, but Ms. Carlson tells a full, gossipy 'behind the scenes' tale of Ephron’s stylish and witty world of film ... I’ll Have What She’s Having has one major problem: As a film historian, Ms. Carlson is just plain wrong ... Ephron deserves respect, but her movies are variations of the rom-com, not revolutions. She wasn’t a director with a personal visual style; she was a writer with ideas, a sense of her own era and the ability to organize a movie shoot the way she would a successful dinner party: brilliant casting, attention to detail, great catering (she was a famous cook), perfect background music and the orchestration of terrific conversation. Anyone who thinks that demeans her should try doing it.
