My Review
In 1957, a young, recently orphaned girl named Aria Jones finds herself at the Chateau Marmont, moving in with her aunt, a former actress that she doesn't really know. She makes friends with two young starlets living at the hotel and is shocked on a regular basis by how different life in 1950's Hollywood is from the quiet life she was used to in New York. The book flashes between Aria as a young girl and later as a young woman in the 1960's. It is loosely inspired by Jane Eyre.
I wanted to read The Chateau on Sunset because I love novels with a Mid-Century setting. I'm interested in old time Hollywood, and Jane Eyre is one of my favorite books.
This novel has so many interesting things going on at once -- it is a coming of age novel, a love story, a mystery. It deals with some darker aspects of life for young women in Hollywood long before the Me Too movement.
The historical details are vividly captured, and the writing is beautiful, verging on poetic, with passages like:
"But it’s raining as heavily as one of those Manhattan summer storms that would pour down from a sky that had been bright blue a moment before, magicking up puddles and umbrella hawkers where there’d once been dull concrete and souvenir stands" (eBook location 2482).
At the heart of the story there is Aria, who feels invisible as an ordinary girl in this star touched world. There is also the story of Aria and Theo, a rock star living at the Marmont with his young daughter.
I read this book late at night, staying up to read just another chapter, waiting for the next twist or surprise that was sure to come (and it did, it always did).
I recommend The Chateau on Sunset for readers who enjoy historical fiction, and especially old time Hollywood. The Jane Eyre references (and divergences) are sure to interest fans of that classic book as well.
Thanks to Ballantine Books and Netgalley for an advanced reading copy of this book.
