So 5 Minutes Ago

by Hilary De Vries

Book Overview

Being a celebrity publicist at a Los Angeles PR firm isn't the glamour job Alex Davidson thought it would be. Her love life is zilch, her newest client-an actor fresh out of rehab-keeps hitting on... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400061385
• ISBN13: 9781400061389
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Villard Books
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

The funniest book I ever read.

Maybe the book was especially amusing to me because I live in Hollywood. Those who live here want it to seem "fabulous", whereas it's just another place. DeVries nails it in her inimitable snowball-in-hell style, analyzing the scene down to a pile of detritus. Her main character, Alex, struggles to maintain her integrity, a characteristic unheard of her adoptive community. Easier to read than Fran Leibowitz, but equally insightful and ironic in dealing with the glamour for which we're supposed to yearn.

Hollywood Down and Dirty

If you are a follower of the entertainment business and are looking for a fun light read, look no further than So 5 Minutes Ago by Hilary De Vries. This book will have you laughing out loud and on the edge of your seat as you follow the trials and tribulations of Alex Davidson's life. Alex is a Hollywood publicist who's agency doesn't represent the cream of the crop, rather the ones whose careers have seen better days. Alex's job is to look after their every need, get them to photo shoots on time, spin control and arranging red carpet events. While she thinks she's little more than a babysitter, she knows she shouldn't complain because everyone thinks her job is so fantastic. Things get down and dirty when her company is bought out. All of a sudden, Alex isn't sure how long she'll have a job. As her old boss is getting pushed out of the company, Alex has a first hand view of the backstabbing that goes on. So 5 Minutes Ago takes you into the secret world of Hollywood celebrity. I'm not sure if we're getting a true insider's view, but Hilary De Vries sure makes it feel that way!

So Right Now

As a closet celebrity addict who reads everything from Vanity Fair to In Touch, watches E! and Access Hollywood, and coughs up portions of her paycheck to see both 'Troy' AND 'Saved!', I'm pretty tough on subjects dealing w/the world of the rich and famous. As junkies like us know, most of it is absolute dreck--bad movies, worse TV shows, wretched tabloid stories, hideous stars--but we live for the few things that aren't; for the movie that turns out to be great, the magazine article that we enjoy so much we make xeroxes and pass it out to our friends, and for the book that happily pulls us into a different world for a few hours. "So Five Minutes Ago" is one of those books. Unlike most characters in a movie or book, the leading lady here, a young Hollywood publicist named Alex Davidson, is actually someone you WANT to want to spend time with, someone you wish would move in to the apartment next door. (Instead of that sulky misplaced suburbanite and his persnickety fiance who live there now. Oh, that's real life. Never mind.) Alex is smart, funny, cynical and makes you keep turning the pages. A highlight is guessing the identities of the real-life celebrities who 'inspired' some of the characters (like the hot, straight-outta-rehab actor, and the needy lesbian showbiz couple). And unlike, excuse me, crap like "Bergdorf Blondes" and "The Devil Wears Prada," this is actually written well, so read it if you're literate. AND: Internet gossip says "So Five Minutes Ago" is being turned into a TV series, ala "Sex & The City" and everyone from Amanda Peet (LOVE her!) to Christina Applegate (LOVE her, too!) is being mentioned to play Alex. So read it before HBO get their hands on it...

So 5 Minutes Ago

This book is hilarious!! I am a personal publicist in the entertainment industry, and like it or not Hilary DeVries captures the character perfectly. Unlike a novel like "The Devil Wears Prada," where the protagonist does nothing but whine and complain about her job and what she feels are duties that are "beneath" her, DeVries is pretty accurate in her depiction of what the job of a Hollywood publicist entails. Nobody is going to argue that trying to get an actor to show up at a photo shoot on time is totally rediculous. However, the fact remains that just as it's a personal assistants job to attend to whatever their boss (in any business) might ask of them, it's a publicists job to make sure their clients are portrayed in the best possible way. This by the way is PR 101...in any industry. Bottom line...maybe Hollywood isn't as glamourous as people want to belive it is and the vast majority of young twenty-somethings that chase their dreams of stardom to California might want to stay home. If you do end up working in the biz, you too will find this book very funny. One last thing, for those who said this book wasn't well written...Hilary DeVries happens to be a very respected journalist for the New York Times...then again maybe not all of you actually read the newspaper.

Breakout book!

Hilary DeVries did what many of her celeb journalist peers would love to do -- see the truth that surrounds them day-to-day clearly enough to rise above it and write an hilarious and smart novel about what it's like to be a Hollywood striver swimming with sharks. So Five Minutes Ago couldn't be better even if DeVries had written about herself, but aside from some characters who bear a striking resemblence to real show biz denizens, this isn't a roman a clef or DeVries's diary made public. This is real writing.The characters are fully-formed and by turns funny and touching. The prose literally zips and zings. There's a laugh on every page -- and even better an insight about human nature that resonates long after the book in finished. In Hollywood-speak one might call DeVries a new Nora Ephron meets Carrie Fisher meets Helen Fielding, but I think this book is really the beginning of an original career.