The hot pink cover of Based on a True Story by Elizabeth Renzetti (House of Anansi) threw me off, but I picked it up anyways, and moments like the washed-up soap star Augusta Price (not her real name) parting crowds “like a vindictive and half-dressed Moses” kept me reading. On a trip from Britain to California to stop Augusta’s ex-lover from writing a tell-all memoir, Augusta and Frances Bleeker, a meek and unsuccessful tabloid journalist, try to scrape their lives back together while battling unemployment, public embarrassment and substance abuse. What at first read like a made-for-TV movie—simple and funny, but kind of trite—developed into a hilarious and bizarrely fascinating look at functioning drug addiction. I couldn’t put it down.
