Sizzle Reel | Greenwald, Carlyn

Lange Beschreibung
An unputdownable queer coming-of-age rom-com about life and love in Hollywood. 'Both an irresistible love story and a riveting exploration of Hollywood dynamics. Rachel Lynn Solomon, New York Times bestselling author of The Ex Talk

For aspiring cinematographer Luna Roth, coming out as bisexual at twenty-four is proving more difficult than she anticipated. Sure, her best friend and fellow queer Romy is thrilled for her but she has no interest in coming out to her backwards parents, she wouldn't know how to flirt with a girl if one fell at her feet, and she has no sexual history to build off. Not to mention she really needs to focus her energy on escaping her emotionally-abusive-but-that s-Hollywood talent manager boss and actually get working under a real director of photography anyway.

When she meets twenty-eight-year-old A-list actress Valeria Sullivan around the office, Luna thinks she s found her solution. She'll use Valeria's interest in her cinematography to get a PA job on the set of Valeria's directorial debut and if Valeria is as gay as Luna suspects, and she happens to be Luna's route to losing her virginity, too . . . well, that's just an added bonus. Enlisting Romy s help, Luna starts the juggling act of her life impress Valeria s DP to get another job after this one, get as close to Valeria as possible, and help Romy with her own career moves.

But when Valeria begins to reciprocate romantic interest in Luna, the act begins to crumble straining her relationship with Romy and leaving her job prospects precarious. Now Luna has to figure out if she can she fulfill her dreams as a filmmaker, keep her best friend, and get the girl. . . or if she s destined to end up on the cutting room floor.

Rezensierung
Sizzle Reel by Carlyn Greenwald is a hilarious and tender romance featuring the most relatable journey through figuring out what love, sex, and friendship can mean. After I finished reading all I wanted to do was explore LA with a camera, curate a playlist of my favorite angsty crush songs, and put this book in the hands of every friend I can think of who really, really needs this story.  
Alicia Thompson, bestselling author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers

A charming, sharply observed, and wholly immersive debut. Sometimes you read a book and know from the very beginning that it s going to leave a mark on you, and I felt that so deeply with Sizzle Reel. This vibrant, sun-drenched romantic comedy is both an irresistible love story and a riveting exploration of Hollywood dynamics, with a voice that shimmers on every page. Carlyn Greenwald has a permanent place on my favorites shelf.  
Rachel Lynn Solomon, New York Times bestselling author of The Ex Talk
 
Fresh, sexy, and addicting, Sizzle Reel is the sapphic story of my dreams. Greenwald writes with such remarkable authenticity and care, this book is easy to fall in love with. Readers are sure to see themselves and feel seen.
Annette Christie, author of The Rehearsals

Sizzle Reel is Romance in technicolor; every scene, emotion, and beat fully captivates the senses leaving readers breathless. Carlyn Greenwald s writing is fresh, raw, and brilliant, whipping across each page in vivid, stunning strokes. The themes of sex positivity, deep self-care, and exploration of identity are beautiful, validating gifts to the queer community.'
  Courtney Kae, author of In the Event of Love
 
Greenwald s coming of age romance is as charming and witty as it is tender, relatable, and poignant. LA and the high-stress world of the entertainment industry sizzles on the page. Greenwald affirms, with gentleness and care, the experience of grappling with sexuality and coming out later in life. This book is sexy, sweet, and full of love; for ourselves, for queerness, for found family, and for the one person your heart belongs to.
Ruby Barrett, author of The Romance Recipe
 
A fresh, funny, and wonderfully tender rom com about identity, friendship, and the beautiful power of first love.
Ashley Herring Blake, author of Delilah Green Doesn t Care

Fun. . . . Luna s got a snappy voice, and the abundant pop culture references keep the tale firmly anchored in its Hollywood setting. . . . Greenwald shows real promise.
Publishers Weekly


Buchausschnitt
chapter one

As I make my hour-­long commute to work, I convince myself that the reason it was mildly difficult to come out to my therapist is because she looks like Rachel Brosnahan. Which, yeah, doesn t make much sense without context, and who s to say my brain s working at seven in the fucking morning as I inch along the slog of Vermont Avenue, longing for the respite of the equally-­as-­red stretch on Wilshire Boulevard? In fact, I can confirm it is not. I m not even really listening to the Jenny Nicholson podcast I clicked on an hour ago.

Facts: Beverly Hills is seven miles from my apartment. My therapist looks exactly like Rachel Brosnahan. I ve been officially identifying as bisexual for four days.

Four days, and I m already a bisexual disaster. Or, rather, I became a bisexual disaster the moment I came out to Julia. Imagine for a moment the bright lighting of a therapist s office a block from the beach, with sun spilling in from the east because some clown didn t put the windows in the office facing the beach. We re doing a P.O.V. shot; Julia s perfectly centered horizontally but shifted up a little vertically to suggest her slight authority over me, a slight authority we don t talk about.

I m bisexual, I say. Camera tight on me, Julia off camera.

That s great! she replies. When did you figure it out?

I reply with: While watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

We quick cut to Julia s face and ­

Even running the story through my head, my cheeks still go hot with the memory. I knock my air-­conditioning up a notch. Everything s fine. Coming out has been fine. The Julia ­Rachel Brosnahan story is the kind of shit my best friends, Romy and Wyatt, will lap up like, well, like stressed-­out Hollywood assistants lap up hard liquor after work. And yes, I can tell them this specific story because they re the next people I m going to come out to.

Just as I reach perfect homeostasis from the air-­conditioning against the sizzling heat of Los Angeles in June, I m tapping my employee card against the reader in the parking garage and locking away my freedom and sanity, along with an emergency change of clothing. I take my daily last longing look at my parked car, wishing I could crawl back to bed. But alas, I m twenty-­four, nearly two years out of college, and a Working Professional. A true old Gen Z with a let death take me aesthetic.

Slater Management is what Hollywood calls boutique, which really just means we don t have enough clients to take up a whole building. We take up three levels: lobby/café/copy room, literary managers, talent managers. We re successful enough to have perks like a café but small enough that I know the name of every­one I pass as I walk through the floors.

I drop into my chair at eight fifty a.m., ten minutes before my boss, Alice, will be in. Or expects to be in. She s never on time. So, at the very least, I m given a few minutes to reassess the scene. Slater has provided us with quickly declining Macs, headsets, and ancient office phones that don t even have caller I.D. ­the Let s Push My Blood Pressure Up to 181/121 Trio. I start my deep breathing and do my standard morning routine: open up the digital Rolodex, click open Alice s call log, open email, headset on. Alice has a client coming in today. His name s John, and he s a director of midbudget films that people know of without knowing his actual name.

Jesus, Luna, you gotta stop doing coke every Sunday, Wyatt Rosenthal, one of the two people I m going to come out to next, says as he plops into hi