This is a wonderful story about a family in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. I really enjoyed the characters and the whole story.

Thank you Net Galley for the advance copy ( )

This was a hard one for me to rate. I really enjoy the worlds that Alcott builds around famous figures from the past. A Touch of Stardust is one of my favorite novels, although the ending is a bit rough. I have to say the ending to The Hollywood Daughter is so much better. I enjoyed growing up with Jesse and seeing where her life was going to go. Between her mother's religion and her father's career, poor Jesse was torn between the world she loved and what she thought was right. Jesse grew as a character throughout the book and so did the surrounding characters.

The story is charming and moving. I think it really touched on the issues of growing up, finding yourself and blindly believing. I also loved that Alcott didn't go easy on the Red Scare and what it did to Hollywood. Alcott also wasn't afraid to make characters more than they seemed.

All in all, I highly recommend, especially if you love historical fiction or classic film. There is something for everyone. ( )

I was almost going to return this to the library unread, but once I had a moment to start it, I was hooked. Jesse Malloy is a young girl growing up in post war Hollywood. Her father makes it big at the studio he is a publicist for and the family moves to a new house on the edge of Beverly HIlls. She attends a good Catholic school, finds a new friend there named Kathleen and continues to worship star Ingrid Bergman. Jesse's mother, a devout Catholic, continues to extol the virtues of the church to her in what becomes a coming of age tale for Jesse. We watch her mature into a young woman while the morals of Hollywood are coming more and more into question by the censors and the downfall of her favorite star sets the stage for some powerful scenes. ( )

The celebrity of Ingrid Bergman looms large in this novel about the daughter of Ingrid's imagined studio publicist. Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s, Jesse looked up to Ingrid Bergman as her hero - an image which was shattered when Ingrid had a child out of wedlock in 1950, a scandal Jesse had difficulty coming to terms with, especially considering the strict Catholic faith she was raised in. A fun read with plenty of Hollywood glamour and references to classic movies, even if the shadow of McCathyism and religious conflict hangs over much of the book. ( )

The Hollywood Daughter by Kate Alcott is a 2017 Doubleday publication.

Alcott captures the glamour and awe of Hollywood amid the tensions and fears of McCarthyism and the scandal that sent shockwaves throughout the industry, but is also an intimate look at family, the cracks in the veneer, the loyalty, the secrets, and the importance of learning priorities, relinquishing false illusions, and learning to forgive, not only others, but yourself.

This story may have gotten off to a slow start, but by the half way mark, I was completely immersed in the drama surrounding the paranoia of McCarthyism and Ingrid Bergman’s shocking affair that made her a cast out for nine long years, but equally compelled by Jessica’s family dynamic and personal experiences at her Catholic school, and her relationship with her parents, especially with her mother.

Jessica’s father is Ingrid’s publicist, and Jessica is absolutely devoted to Ingrid. Her reverence for Ingrid is so deeply rooted she remains devoutly loyal to her through the scandal and her exile, which came at a very high personal cost to Jessica and her family.

The author did an incredible job of bringing Ingrid Bergman to life, of creating the anxiety and toll the Hollywood witch hunt took on the industry, how it hurt people, and the fall out of Bergman’s
adulterous affair, as seen through the eyes of young Jessica during her teenage years.

The story delves into Jessica’s personal life, as she struggles through the angst of growing up, dealing with her mother’s periods of depression and her parent’s marital woes. Her personal journey is tied in with Bergman’s life in so many ways, as it is with her father’s career, which causes her to make, then regret, personal and very controversial decisions, that will follow her into adulthood, haunting her to the point where she finally reaches an emotional precipice of adulthood.

I have always loved novels centered around the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood, because let’s be honest, that level of glamour, writing, and acting has never quite reached that pinnacle in any era since then. I was not familiar with the big Bergman scandal until, while watching ‘Casablanca’ with my parents, they related the story of how she became a pariah in the United States, with her scandalous affair, reaching all the way to the Senate floor, where she was lambasted as ‘powerful influence of evil’.

But, the story is much more than a coming of age tale, and touches on more than a young girl’s fantasy surrounding her favorite actress. It was also about judgmental hypocrisy, the drive to censor the arts, the conflicts Jessica faces about her church and religion, especially after the harsh and swift retribution passed in Hollywood, on Bergman, and her own family.

But, I think it also speaks to the incredible and unrealistic pressure we place on celebrities, by placing them on a pedestal to be worshiped, insisting they live up to our idealized image of them, when the truth is, they are people, just like you and me. When they fall, make a blunder, like an ill -advised tweet, for example, we will crucify them today, just as Bergman was judged and shamed back in 1949/50.

But, in the end, Jessica's struggle to understand her mother, fighting her own personal inability to forgive herself,unable to move forward without relinquishing her idealist hero worship of Ingrid Bergman, is at the heart of the story.

In the end, Jessica will mature enough to see which realtionships are the most important, will find understanding, and move on into adulthood, stronger and more at ease with herself.

I enjoyed Jessica’s journey, her voice was real, honest, and heartfelt, and realistic and really struck a chord with me.

I would like to say we’ve moved forward, upwards and onwards from those days, but we still fall into those same traps, and are ever in danger of seeing history repeat itself, but one thing we will probably never experience again in the same way, is the Golden Years of Hollywood. ( )