Funny girl

When Barbara Parker wins a beauty contest and is named Miss Blackpool 1964, it motivates her to move to London and become a comic actor like her idol, Lucille Ball. She takes the stage name Sophie Straw, and a lucky audition with BBC television lands her a spot on the most popular new sitcom of the day. The show's team-womanizing costar Clive, closeted writers Tony and Bill, and producer Dennis, who carries a torch for Sophie-become her surrogate family as they weather challenges to their success from within the TV industry and their own complicated lives. It's a charming, well-told story, and the characters are sympathetic and easy to root for. Perhaps because the stakes are so low-the characters never seem in any real danger of failing, and the status quo always feels secure-it rarely seems to rise above what one character would call "light entertainment," but the novel is fun and engrossing to the end. Narrator Emma Fielding keeps the characters distinctive and individual. VERDICT Recommended for readers in search of fiction that's fun, often funny, and upbeat; fans of 1960s London as a setting; and those who enjoy classic British comedy TV. ["Hornby's usual spark is missing; this book is readable but melancholy, and definitely not funny," counters the review of the Riverhead hc, LJ 1/15.]-Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.