Probably my fault for thinking this would be more of an in-depth analysis of tabloid culture from the Golden Age of Hollywood when it was never really described that way. I'd recommend this book to anyone who didn't really know anything about Old Hollywood and was interested in learning more about the lives and relationships of some of the more well-known stars of that time. This was more or less a list of different scandals that some of the most popular film stars were entangled in during their careers—and when there isn't any one specific scandal, simply a chapter-long biography of whatever celebrity that section was dedicated to).

My own years-long hyperfixation on Old Hollywood has left me familiar with every story in this book except for Pickford and Fairbanks, Arbuckle, Reid, and Valentino. Coincidentally, those are the first four chapters of the book so you could imagine how my interest dwindled as I read condensed biographies of stars I'd been reading about for almost ten years. Maybe if there was some deeper look into this period of history, instead of simply telling how the scandal came about and what was done to cover it up (or not, depending on who you were), I'd feel differently. The closest I got to feeling what I wanted to feel was while reading the chapter on Montgomery Clift, one of the more earnest and tenderly written sections of the book.

Overall, though, some stories were not given the time they deserved and it felt more like one long overwritten gossip column in itself. Not that it really promised to be anything but, but it just isn't the book about Old Hollywood for me.