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11/15/2006 Archived Entry: "Book Review: Going Down In La-La Land"
Going Down in La-La Land
By Andy Zeffer
Published by Southern Tier Editions
Review by Logan
Although I'm reviewing this "novel," I have to come clean. I didn't finish it. But therein lies the review: it wasn't worth reading to the end.
The title alone, "Going Down in La-La Land," suggests that this is going to be a seductive tale of sex, lies, and porn in LA. Unfortunately, the title is the most seductive and titillating experience in the book. I thought writing about sex was a slam dunk. Apparently, even a sex novel can be boring.
The first thing I found dodgy was that the author's name is Andy Zeffer and the character's name is... Adam Zeller. Either the author is writing a complete piece of fiction but couldn't come up with a unique character name, or this is an autobiographical novel and Andy didn't want to use his own name. Either way, I had my eyebrow raised from the beginning.
I realized only two chapters in, that this was just the author's chronicle of his move from New York City to the porn capital of the world, Los Angeles. It read very much like a journal or diary: "first I did this, then I said this, then she did this, then she said this." As I kept reading, I realized I wasn't going to get any glimpse into character motivations, and there definitely wasn't going to be any character development.
The highlight of the 120 pages that I *did* read was the sex scenes. Andy/Adam gets into porn, and tells the tale of his exploits. Unfortunately, I didn't even find these "highlights" very intriguing or erotic. "First he sucked my dick, then I sucked his dick, then I ended up with cum all over my face and chest." If tawdry sex scenes are your motivation for reading this book, then I highly recommend going out to buy any gay porn mag with a few stories in it. They'll be far better written, and have a far higher likelihood of turning you on and getting you off.
This reminded me a lot of of "My Undoing" the autobiography of gay porn star Aiden Shaw. Both were poorly written accounts of what it's like to be a gay porn star. Maybe I'm just unimpressed because I've dated one before. And, in all honesty, just because someone has sex on film does *not* make them an interesting person OR a good writer.
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