Christie has taken a tried-and-true story – major movie star meets a mere mortal – and made it seem fresh and new. Christie doesn’t need tired cliches to describe the attraction between the two women to let her readers know what’s going on. She uses exotic settings, Hawaii and the hills of Los Angeles (let’s face it, most of us will never live on the same street with the stars hence its exoticness) to move her story along. Even the minor characters like Laya, Eleanor’s friends Sasha and Luis, and Tessa’s best friend Will are well drawn and interesting.

 

The author maintains the pacing throughout the book – it starts out strong and stays that way to the end. You’ll laugh out loud, you may even cry, but you won’t want to put this book down and undoubtedly will be annoyed when your everyday life insists that you set the book aside.

 

Leaving L.A. could very well end up as one of the ten best books of 2011.