(59) The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

Thursday, July 9, 2009

The Accidental Bestseller is a book about friendship, loyalty, survival, and what happens when a friend who is down and out needs to be rescued.

Kendall, Mallory, Faye, & Tanya met ten years ago at a writers conference as struggling writers. Here it is ten years later and they are meeting at the same conference with the hope of seeing Kendall win an award. But Kendall doesn't win the award & that is the start of her world crashing down around her.


Her editor just told her they are dropping her after her next book. She goes home early to lick her wounds to discover that her husband has been cheating on her and he now wants a divorce.

With her final book deadline looming on the horizon, what does Kendall do? She heads to the family's mountain cabin & buries her head in the sand. Until her friends come to the rescue and force her to face reality. What the girls agree to could be considered unethical though, they agree to each write a portion of the book that will have Kendall's name on the cover. As each woman pours their heart into their portion, the line between fiction and non-fiction starts to become dangerously blurred. Each woman realizing that discovery of their assistance could be disastrous for each of them, but for different reasons.

Imagine their surprise when their book becomes a bestselling hit and a very popular talk show host wants to use the book for her national book club. Can the ladies get through the hour show without their secrets being revealed?

Wendy Wax has written an interesting insider look to the publishing world. While it is not as earth shattering as The Devil Wears Prada, it is interesting for those of us with a curiosity about what goes on in a Publishing House. While I did read the whole book, I found it lacking in a couple of different areas.

First of all, trying to keep the four friends and their fictional alters straight was a bit challenging. The thing that bothered me the most was that I think too much space was given to the history of the four women and their part in writing the Accidental Bestseller and not near enough time to what happens after the book has been released. Only the last seventy-five pages or so actually dealt with the ACTUAL Accidental Bestseller. And it felt forced and rushed. Very disappointing.

I really wanted to like this book and I even finished it, but it really was not a "bestseller".

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