Valley of the Dolls Paperback – Bargain Price, September 22, 1997

The original and still the best, there is no other pop fiction that lives up to this. This is such an enjoyable book that I must read it once a year, and every time I get as engrossed in it as if it were the first time. The perfect beach or vacation read, this classically cheesy fiction is as good as pop lit gets. Stories of trying to make it in Hollywood never grow old...not all of Susann's fiction lives up to this gold standard, but if you read only one 60s trashy novel, make it this one!

Nothing like the movie but good so far

I struggled through the first few chapters, but when it picked up it was fantastic! The story of young girls in New York City for different but same reasons and their eventual downfall was interesting and well written. I really cared about the characters and felt like I knew them. Awesome read!

I first read this book in high school, when it was oh, so controversial. Now it has become a guilty pleasure for me--I have read it 5 or 6 times since. The characters are fleshed out so well that they pull you into the story lines. I must admit that I would have liked to shake some sense into Anne's head, though! Good grief, woman, the grass is not always greener on the other side! I liked the way the stories were played out over about 20 years, like a window into the entertainment industry and how it was forever changed by television. The sexual content is tame by today's standards, but the message is universal: "Celebrity and money are nothing without real relationships and real love."

I have of course heard about this book for years but never picked it up. Not because I was worried that it would be "trashy" or something I would not be interested in just because I simply never got around to it.The Kindle version of this book is so horrible and made it very hard to read so if you pick this up do not read it on your kindle! The letters are all over the page , the type set is hard to read and the some words are just missing it looks like they just faded out of the page. To charge $10 for this crap is insane so that is why the 3 stars the actual book would have been 4 or 5.For the time I can understand why this book so considered trash and the story was interesting and I never got bored however today you can find much trashier novels if that is what you are looking for.Neely annoyed me the entire book but I guess at least towards the end that she was meant to be annoying. I love Anne but was very disappointed with the ending I kept rooting for her but nothing ever worked out. The ending did fit very well with the book tho so I guess I can't complain to much about that.Overall worth your time, a good read and I see why it is still loved today.

It was my first time purchasing a used book so I was a bit nervous, however upon arrival it was exactly as described. Basic wear and tear but a comfortably "worn" out book. No markings inside the book, the binding is in great condition, no loose or ripped pages. Great product, not to mention the delivery. I was quoted a 2 week delivery window that was already a week from the purchase date and it arrived within days.

The book is beautiful in all of its glory! It’s amazing how this book smells so advanced in age, yet the book is in almost perfect condition considering its age. I looked up the date this book was printed and it turns out it was printed and published in 1966! By far the oldest book I own but the most respected.

When this book first came out I was only 9 so I didn't read it. Since I never read it I sometimes get in the mood to read older books so I chose this one. I loved the time period and to learn about the movie and television industry. The sex was kept at a low key basis so there was some things left up to your imagination so I could tolerate that also. I just finished the sequel and that was ok to put closure on the characters but it is going to get a bad review due to the language and the sex. You didn't have it imagine anything.

Perfect condition!

All good

A+

I really enjoyed Valley of the Dolls. Yes, it was a little dated but it really evoked the period. I thought it would be real chick lit but it was so much better. The characters were well drawn and were well developed over the course of the book. Give it a go!

When VALLEY OF THE DOLLS by Jacqueline Susann was published, I was fifteen and by the unwritten laws of exploring the limits of decency in literature in a boarding school I should have been squatting in the locker rooms reading it; but I wasn’t and didn’t, until now in the comfort of my own home, fifty-eight years later. Had I then, and had I been encountered by a master, the book would have been immediately confiscated. But the school I had the good fortune to attend was liberal and what is often referred to as progressive, so I can only imagine that the reason it would have been considered a ‘contra’ was less to do with its salacious content and more because of its unaccomplished literary style. The novel charts in conventional chronology the professional careers and personal lives of three young American women; ANNE, an unrealistically calm twenty-year-old from a well-to-do New England family fleeing to New York to escape the dull framework of her hometown, JENNIFER, a self-possessed twenty-six-year-old who’s just beginning to worry about her age, and NEELY – who when the reader first meets her is a seventeen-year-old, enthusiastic but unconfident vaudeville artist who hopes she has talent. Jennifer stars in musicals, but doesn’t sing. Anne is a secretary to HENRY who is CEO of the New York agency where they all meet. There’s no plot, just numerous inciting incidents and the passing of the years between 1945 and 1965. Smut, unaccomplished literary style or not, since 1966 the novel has sold forty million copies, and even by the time Susann died in 1974 it had sold seventeen million, a record duly entered in the Guinness Book of Records. Why on earth? Here are four possible reasons:i) Smut first – as I’ve already mentioned the topic. By 2024 standards its completely un graphic, in fact rather coy considering the number of ‘robes falling open and dropping to the floor,’ and the excrutiatae of such phrases as ‘but will you respect me in the morning?’ What did surprise me is the number of offensive references to male homosexuals. There’s a lesbian relationship, various sexual practices are discussed, and some particularly ripe vulgar vernacular coming from the mouths of Helen Lawson - an ageing star on her way out - Jennifer, and Neely as she undergoes transformation from endearing starlet to manipulating monster. Anne never loses her cool – even as the pressure mounts on her.ii) Authenticity. As the reader reads, inevitably they question inspiration which might have come from real life people. It’s a window onto the stars. Is Neely really meant to be Judy Garland? There’s a feeling of eavesdropping on real life news events and as such, parts of the book read like journalism.iii) Information. The novel is packed with it, particularly technical aspects of tv and film making. There are extensive exchanges between mothers and daughters about breast sizes, periods and many aspects of health and beauty. Miscarriages, abortions and face lifts chat gives it almost the feel of a woman’s magazine at times.iv) Accessibility. It’s what might be called ‘easy reading’. The characters - on the whole - lack depth and are explored from the outside in rather than inside out. I lost count of the number of times ‘his/or her eyes narrowed,’ and some of the dialogue is so cliched as to give it the feel of a strip cartoon. I found myself guffawing – perhaps rather shamefully - quite a lot! There’s a feeding on a belief that some readers need to gawp, with a grotesque account of what today might in a sexist way be referred to as a ‘cat fight’ in the ‘Ladies powder room’ in the Persian Room at the Plaza Hotel. In my opinion there is one wonderfully written chapter in this novel – others may disagree. It’s the penultimate chapter, ‘Neely 1961’ (chapters don’t have numbers – just names of the character whos’ point of view we are in and the year) and though it does contain dialogue it is predominantly written as a stream-of-consciousness monologue which incidentally Tolstoy when writing Anna Karenina might well have been proud to achieve. It concerns Neely’s rehabilitation in a sanatorium for chronic addiction. The reader is right inside the character and I for one read this piece of only thirty-six pages wobbling between needing to giggle and wanting to burst into tears. A word of warning to readers who might have experience of mental illness insofaras the chapter contains many decidedly non pc references to mental health which I doubt Amazon would permit me to quote here!