Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe — Jenny Hollowell

Birdie Baker has always dreamed of becoming someone else. At twenty-two, she leaves behind her small-town, small-time life -- walking out on her pastor husband and deeply evangelical parents -- and boards a bus to Los Angeles.

Seven years later, Birdie's life in Hollywood is far from golden. Stalled at the margins of fame, haunted by guilt about her abandoned marriage, she is on the verge of collapse when she meets Lewis, a beautiful young actor whose self-destructive impulses run dangerously parallel to her own. When Birdie's big break finally comes, both she and Lewis find that the Technicolor land of make-believe -- and their place in it -- is nothing like they had imagined.