My Lucky Star (novel) - Reviews

Reviews

My Lucky Star was not widely reviewed in the mainstream press at the time of its release. Some major newspapers did critique the book, however.

Keenan has often been called a "gay P. G. Wodehouse." In that vein, Publishers Weekly called My Lucky Star "a comic masterpiece that...rivals the best of Wodehouse." The review said the book should appeal to all audiences, and claimed it was a "tour de force." In the United Kingdom, the respected The Times observed, "This is sophisticated, deliciously camp entertainment."

The New York Daily News pointed out that readers might be overwhelmed by the elaborate and numerous plot twists and the broadly-drawn caricatures that are the novel's characters. "But that's nitpicking, really," reviewer Joe Dziemianowicz wrote. "In the end, Keenan's twinkly prose keeps you firmly tethered to his 'Lucky Star.'"

The Washington Post was more equivocal, however. Reviewer Debra Weinstein applauded Keenan for capturing the way Hollywood insiders speak, subtly attack one another, and fixate on failure, and for documenting the inner lives of older gay men. But the Post found the humor to be shtick not literature, far too misogynist, and too stereotypical.

The New York Times was even less kind. Although reviewer Mark Kamine noted that "Keenan gets off some decent one-liners" and that references to Los Angeles landmarks were "made sparingly and used to good effect", he felt the book engaged in "incessant name-dropping," that many of the jokes were too topical, and that Keenan's humor was too blunt. "here's no need for canned laughter either. We get enough of that elsewhere."