The Only Woman in the Room

This was a book club pick, otherwise I wouldn't have finished it. I'm still a little mad that I did finish it. I could have been reading other, better books in that time. Not that this was really bad. But it was incredibly frustrating. At least some of that was probably my expectations.

I went into this expecting a biography of Hedy Lamarr, or at least something closer to a biography than this ended up being. It bills itself as a fictionalized version of her life. So that's on me for expecting more from it. But the author took so many liberties with Lamarr's life that I had a hard time trusting her. It was like she'd built up a version of Hedy Lamarr that she wanted and changed to facts to fit that woman. Which does the real woman a huge disservice.

On top of that, the second half of the book felt phoned in. It read more like an outline than a novel. There wasn't nearly enough focus on the relationships Lamarr built up or on what must have been a difficult and complicated life. She was given a single one-note motivation and the entire novel jumped from plot point to plot point powered by that. I wanted to read about a brilliant, beautiful, complex woman who accomplished more than most and I felt like I was reading a book about a half-formed doll.

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