A Crawford Award-Winning Author
An Amazon Best Book of May 2022
An Indie Next Pick
A LibraryReads Top Ten Pick
A Best of May Pick by Amazon, Apple Books, B&N Booksellers, LibraryReads, TIME Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Publishers Weekly, Buzzfeed, Chicago Review of Books, LitHub, BookRiot, Paste Magazine, Bookish, and The Mary Sue
A Most Anticipated in 2022 Pick for The Washington Post, Polygon, PopSugar, Bustle, Ms Magazine, and Autostraddle
Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill. But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes - even if that means becoming the monster herself.