The Life Of A Showgirl Reading List

For the past week, I (along with a few million other people) have been listening to Taylor Swift’s new album on repeat. I created a reading list for her previous album release, and found myself itching to do the same thing again. So, I guess it’s a tradition now? Here’s my The Life Of A Showgirl reading list, full of pretty and witty reads.

The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

All my white diamonds and lovers are forever / In the papers, on the screen, and in their minds

The timeline of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo stretches from the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1950s through to the present(ish) day. A former It Girl, now 79 years old, is giving her final interview, telling her whole life story from start to finish – including the dirty details of each of her seven (count ’em!) marriages. You don’t get prizes for guessing that it was inspired by the real-life story of Elizabeth Taylor (married eight times, to seven different men), who coincidentally is name-checked in the second track of The Life Of A Showgirl. Read my full review of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo here.

Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

I showed you all the tricks of the trade / All I asked for is your loyalty, my dear protégé

Trust Exercise is an incredibly complex novel, and Choi is very withholding as an author. The reader has to fill in so many blanks, it’s near impossible to tell whether you’re reading it ‘right’. The only thing we can really know for certain is that it’s a story about predatory older men and the younger women they exploit. Even though none of the victims can tell us a wholly objective or ‘true’ version of events, in harmony their stories paint a picture of a devastating cycle of abuse. Read my full review of Trust Exercise here.

Becky by Sarah May

Did you girlboss too close to the sun? / Did they catch you having far too much fun?

Becky is like if a British Ottessa Moshfegh told the story of the News Of The World phone-hacking scandal, using Vanity Fair as a template. Ambitious and determined, Becky Sharp is going to scheme her way into high society. May touches on everything – gender inequality, colonialism, celebrity culture, corruption in politics, the wealth gap – without overegging the pudding. She offers incredible moments of blazing insight, and a rollicking story to boot. Read my full review of Becky here.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet / To know a hard rock is on the way

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is too easily written off as a funny little story about a silly gold-digger; scratch the surface and you’ll find a compelling and hilarious account of gender roles, politics, and power in 1920s America. It’s fun, and sometimes silly, but also insightful and powerful. Actually, charming is probably the best word for it. Forget about Gatsby – it’s the definitive Jazz Age novel. Read my full review of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes here.

Exes and O’s by Amy Lea

I thought I had it right, once, twice, but I did not

Amy Lea kindly dedicates Exes And O’s to all of the “crazy” ex-girlfriends (it’s me, hi) and pulls an epigraph from Taylor Swift’s Blank Space. The story follows romance reader Tara Chen, who has had her heart broken ten times over. Sick of searching in vain for a new meet cute, she decides to revisit each of her exes, to see if she can make her own second-chance romance happen. Her new roommate, Trevor, is on hand to help her stay the course. He just happens to be a sexy fireman… what could possibly go wrong? Read my full review of Exes and O’s here.

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

And when anyone called me “lovely” / They were finding ways not to praise me / But you say it like you’re in awe of me

Blonde is not a glamorous Hollywood read – Norma Jeane’s life is actually rather horrifying, as depicted by JCO. She is exploited and demeaned at every turn, but never quite loses her wide-eyed innocence and hope for the life she’d dreamed. As a die-hard Swiftie, I shuddered to see some of the parallels between Norma Jeane’s courtship with DiMaggio and that we’ve seen play out between our girl Taylor and Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce. Here’s hoping their story has a much happier ending – or, at least, a far less tragic one. Read my full review of Blonde here.

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

I thought my house was haunted / I used to live with ghosts

A blocked ghost writer falls in love with her dead, sexy, no-longer-corporeal editor – The Dead Romantics is a delightful read, a refreshing and fun take on both the rom-com and the ghost story. When her editor’s ghost shows up on her doorstep, Florence realises that his death isn’t going to get her off the hook of delivering her manuscript. She needs to help his ghost move on, and to do that, she needs to rediscover her passion for romance and write the happily-ever-after her characters deserve. Read my full review of The Dead Romantics here.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

I thought that I’d never find that beautiful, beautiful life that / Shimmers that innocent light back / Like when we were young

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a Mobius strip romance, with some science fiction and fantasy mixed in. Henry is a librarian with an unsettling genetic disorder that causes him to travel through time at random. The titular wife, Clare, is an artist who lives through time in a linear way, like the rest of us. Henry meets Clare at the beginning of the novel, and he has never seen her before – but she’s seen him many times. In fact, she’s already in love with him. Read my full review of The Time Traveler’s Wife here.

The Favourites by Layne Fargo

Good thing I like my friends cancelled / I like ’em cloaked in Gucci and in scandal

The Favourites has big I, Tonya vibes, right from the first page. Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha have nothing going for them but steely determination, and their bid to make the Winter Olympics team (on not much more than a shoestring and a dream) is plagued by scandal. Fargo transplants Emily Brontë’s story of passionate, ill-fated love to the high-stakes competitive world of ice dancing, and tells it in chapters that alternate between transcripts of a schlocky documentary narrated by onlookers and the true story told through the eyes of the heroine. Read my full review of The Favourites here.

The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur

Boss up, settle down, got a wish list / I just want you

The Fiancee Farce is a Sapphic marriage-of-convenience romance, between a bookstore owner and a book cover model-slash-publishing heiress. They fake affection in mixed company, only to find before long the sparks are flying for real. The only real impediment to making their marriage legit is the duplicitous scheming of Gemma’s family. It’s all very Succession-esque, with alliances and double-agents and reconnaissance and blackmail. It’s a bit ridiculous – all the best romance novels are – but it’s great fun, and honestly, the genuine chemistry and compatibility between the leads makes up for the absurd plot. Read my full review of The Fiancee Farce here.

Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

But love was a cold bed full of scorpions / The venom stole her sanity

At first glance, Fleishman Is In Trouble looks like your stock-standard New York divorce novel. A privileged couple – he’s a doctor, she’s a talent agent/manager – sniping at each other and using their kids like battering rams in the dissolution of their marriage. But by the end of the first chapter, you’ll realise that this is something different, something special, and no Fleishman is going to come out of this unscathed. Read my full review of Fleishman Is In Trouble here.

Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes

At least you know exactly who your friends are / They’re the ones with matching scars

Dear Dickhead is an epistolary novel translated from the original French by Frank Wynne. An ageing actress and a cancelled author enter into “a spiral of mutual antipathy”, sparked by an unkind Instagram post, as Paris enters COVID-19 lockdowns and they both try to quit drugs. The story unfolds through their missives back and forth, and they discover that despite their differences, they have a surprising amount in common. Read my full review of Dear Dickhead here.

Search History by Amy Taylor

How many times has your boyfriend said / “Why are we always talking ’bout her?”

The main character, Ana, moves from Perth to Melbourne shortly before Search History begins. She’s fresh off the back of a bad break-up when she bumps into a good-looking stranger at after-work drinks. Of course, she makes the terminal mistake of Googling him, and discovering his ex-girlfriend, Emily, died in a tragic accident – but her digital footprint remains. Ana becomes obsessed with examining every inch of Emily’s social media accounts, looking for clues as to what her life with the man they both love(d) was like. Read my full review of Search History here.

The Swans Of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

Oftentimes it doesn’t feel so glamorous to be me

The Swans Of Fifth Avenue is exactly what you’d hope of a novel about 1950s New York high society: heavy on the sparkle and scandal, the gossip and glitz. This is back when literature was still glamorous and everyone knew everyone (worth knowing). Along comes Truman Capote, an impish gay (i.e., non-threatening) writer on the come up, to infiltrate the circles of the ladies who lunch. Lacking any other muses, he writes a very, very thinly veiled short story about his high-society friends, one that leads to a tragic (and well-deserved) fall from grace. Read my full review of The Swans Of Fifth Avenue here.

The Studio Girls by Lisa Ireland

Pain hidden by the lipstick and lace / Sequins are forever / And now I know the life of a showgirl

The Studio Girls re-tells a tale as old as time: four ambitious young women head for Hollywood, in the hopes of making it big on the silver screen, only to discover upon their arrival that there’s darkness beneath Tinsel Town’s sparkle. The story is set in the latter half of the 1950s, when screen stars were made by powerful men in big offices who smoked cigars and smacked their secretaries on the bum whenever they walked past. It plays out as the four women reconvene for a reunion in 1999, and reckon with the fallout of the scandal that separated them decades ago. Read my full review of The Studio Girls here.

The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham

But I whispered at the grave / “Should’ve kissed you anyway”

The Dressmaker is set in a (fictional) 1950s Australian town, where everyone has names like “Gertrude” and “Muriel”. The protagonist returns to take care of her ailing mother, and is shunned by the locals for an incident in her childhood. She thinks she will find solace in the arms of a poor man who sees past the scandal, only for him to die in the most sudden and unexpected way – even with that “spoiler”, you won’t see it coming. Read my full review of The Dressmaker here.