HOW TO SLEEP WITH A MOVIE STAR

Fashion magazine girl interviews hot actor guy, then the whole world thinks they slept together.

Harmel’s debut can occasionally be less than irritating, quite an achievement given the exhausted field of books featuring love-starved employees of New York–based women’s magazines. Claire Reilly is a good Southern girl who works as a celebrity reporter at Mod, a sort of Marie Claire clone in a circulation death struggle with Cosmopolitan. Living with a boyfriend who does little but work on a seemingly endless novel, Claire is already sexually frustrated when she finds out she’s going to interview Cole Brannon. Yes, the Cole Brannon, the charmingly naïf superstar Hollywood hunk who, after hanging out with Claire, comes off as some combination of Jesus Christ and Brad Pitt. Claire’s heart goes pitter-pat, even though she knows nothing will ever happen: he the big movie star, she the mere mortal. In a scenario lifted practically whole from the movie Sliding Doors, Claire’s own relationship collapses, sending her despondently drunk into the night. A bar initially provides succor, only said bar also contains a still charming and down-to-earth Cole, whom the plastered Claire promptly vomits on. After coming to in his bed—nothing happens, he’s a gentleman—Claire must confront confused feelings about Cole, whom gossip rags tell her is a raging sex fiend, and also navigate the tense waters back at the magazine, where über-bitch editor Sidra is out for Claire’s head; maybe a fabricated tabloid scandal about an unethical reporter sleeping with her interviewee will do the trick?

Stale office politics, predictable crises and strangely priggish attitudes; if this book were a person, it would be nervously tucking hair behind its ear, wondering if the reader thinks it’s showing too much skin.