Last Friday, I posted the first of ongoing excerpts that will be released in the weeks preceding HDU's release. Below is a little about the book as well as the first few pages of HDU. Stay tuned for another post with excerpt 2!
~
Amanda Nathan just lost everything – her first real boyfriend to her lifelong best friend, her half of their shared apartment in St. Louis and her first post-grad job as a receptionist. Forced back under her parents’ roof in Merit, Missouri, the gossipy town she’d spent her life trying to escape, Amanda has but one saving grace – being an anonymous moderator on HDU, the Internet’s largest celebrity gossip community. Unemployed and alone, Amanda relishes in the one thing she has control over – Hollywood gossip. Now, her idea of fun is getting lost in the glamorous lives of others and posting nasty rumors about her former bestie’s favorite actor, Liam Brody, a playboy notorious for dumping his model girlfriends on a monthly basis.So who would’ve thought that Liam Brody would be Amanda’s answer to escaping Merit? When the controversial womanizer needs an image boost to land a new role, he turns to none other than HDU for some good press. As it turns out, Liam is as eager to shed his playboy image as Amanda is desperate to move out of Merit. The solution to both problems? Fake a romance in which Hollywood’s biggest playboy falls for an unknown, sweet and shockingly plain Jane.
With the help of Ian, a fellow HDU moderator and self-developed expert on stardom, Amanda packs her bags for her new life in New York, where the overnight fame and glamour of being a celebrity girlfriend awaits. But Amanda soon discovers that their little ploy is a lot more emotionally complicated than she imagined. And while she finds that life works a thousand times better in her Hollywood circle, so does manipulation
~
H.D.U.
The Rules
1. This is a celebrity news site. All comments must be about
celebrities, unless your life is inexplicably interesting. So basically,
keep it celeb-related.
2. Commenting “First!” will get you banned. Consider it a favor
from us, for you’ve embarrassed yourself.
3. Trolling is for try-hards, so don’t do it. On that note, don’t
spam irrelevant images either (unless they’re nudes of Dylan Hardy – those are
always welcome, if/when they happen)
4. Don’t fight each other. It entertains the shit out of us, but
we figure this should be a rule so we look like responsible authority figures.
5. Refrain from bitching at moderators about the content of the posts
we approve. We can’t help that your faves are tanking at the box office –
it’s not slander, it’s the news.
6. Lastly, have fun and don’t take shit too seriously!
- PK & FF
SURPRISE! LIAM BRODY BEING A DOUCHE (AGAIN)
December
31 11:01PM
Posted by
FilmFreak
HDU via
Celeb-o-Matic
It looks like Liam Brody is welcoming the New Year by moving on from
yet another relationship – and once again, in cold-blooded style! Brody has
given the boot to Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Alana Mara for yet another
scantily clad stunner – her younger sister, April. Ouch!
Brody, 25, was spotted stepping out with the 23-year-old Victoria’s
Secret model in SoHo yesterday. Said an onlooker, “The PDA was
pretty shameless, and April looked really happy.”
Hopefully she holds on tight to that feeling! Perhaps the young
beauty is somehow unaware of her new beau’s womanizing
history. Since cheating on actress fiancé Angelica Moss nearly three
years ago, Brody has been known to ruthlessly date and dump starlets for
younger, newer models (literal models
at that).
As expected, Brody has not commented on his jump from Alana to
April. All we can hope is that the hunky actor discovers his morals
and holds onto this flavor for more than a week. If not, we can only
chalk it up to the usual – just Liam being Liam!
(This post is dedicated to my
co-moderator, PrettyKitty29, who introduced us all to the misogynistic evil
that is Liam Brody. This douchelord makes hating easy! And
borderline fun. Okay, just plain fun. – FF)
TOP COMMENTS:
mrstylerchase
if there was medication to help me find him NOT hot i’d pay up the
ass for it. he needs to DIAF already!!!!
PrettyKitty29 (Moderator)
How does this guy still get
so much love?! Meanwhile, I’m counting down alone with Svedka and Princess
while making love to a bag of Cheetos. Happy New Year’s Eve, HDUers!
Ringing
in the New Year with over three hundred angry comments about a vile celebrity
breakup had to be some sort of bad karma. But that
was just the nature of HDU. News was fast, harsh, unpredictable and
commenters were allowed – practically encouraged – to wish
that Liam Brody “die in a fire already.” It was the Internet after
all. You could say anything.
Times
like these were when HDU served as Amanda’s saving grace rather than an
occasionally stressful, mostly payless job. As tiresome as it was to
moderate the site’s posts and comments, it was the one place
where she could anonymously admit to staying home on holidays that called for
excessive drinking and socializing. Or rather, drinking while socializing. She
was drinking after all, just alone. It was a better option than
joining her parents in the living room – aside from the reminder that she was
living back home again, their Minute Maid and seltzer “mimosas” were beyond
depressing.
Amanda
found solace in the nearly two-dozen comment replies that echoed her New Year’s
Eve plans. It was nice to know that she wasn’t the only person
counting down with her laptop and a housecat. Last year, she had
promised herself that she wouldn’t have yet another dull and solitary New Year,
but here she was again, alone and wearing her pajamas before
midnight. It was supposed to be her year too. Between the
months of February and October, she had been a new, exciting
Amanda. But that had all been quickly erased.
Despite
her shame, she maintained that her night was actually an ideal
arrangement. Such company put little pressure on having to conjure
up a New Year’s resolution or any sort of life-altering game
plan. They were silly and pointless, anyway – just romantic ambition
fueled by the sense of holiday and celebration. No one ever actually
lost weight or picked up a new hobby or changed their lives in any
way. At least Amanda didn’t. By now, her standards had
lowered significantly. She would be content to merely survive the
year after her debacle in St. Louis.
“Mandy!
Are you watching?” her mother called excitedly from the living
room. “See who’s on the show? It’s the guy!”
Her
mother was constantly vague with descriptions, but this time, Amanda knew
exactly whom she was talking about without even looking. Her jaw
tightened.
“I see
him, Mom.”
Counting
down on TV with Ryan Seacrest was none other than Liam Brody. Amanda
hated Liam Brody. He humiliated women on a monthly basis by dumping
them via tabloid. He was immoral, misogynistic and
sleazy. He wasn’t even that great of an actor.
Also,
Megan loved him.
“You
should text Megs and tell her to watch!”
Amanda
winced. Only she had been allowed to call Megan
that – since elementary school. The nickname once gave her a sense a
pride, a confirmation of her role as a cherished best friend. Now it
made her sick. “Yeah, no thanks, Mom,” she called down, trying to
mask her irritation. She wished that everyone would stop talking to
her about Megan, but they didn’t know not
to.
It was
her own fault for not telling them about what had happened in St.
Louis. But they would only side with Megan anyway, because she was
adored by the town like a celebrity was. She was beautiful, special
– Merit’s hope of producing a Hollywood star. Amanda, on the other
hand, was supposed to be ordinary like everyone else. She hadn’t
even won any high school superlatives and yet she had the audacity to move out
to St. Louis with Megan, as if she too were meant for big
things. “But what on earth will you do out there?”
her neighbors had asked before she left.
By moving
back, she’d already delighted everyone with her failure to
survive. She was sure of it. It had been three months
since she’d come home and the speculation about her return was still going
strong. Had she been fired from her reception job? Had she grown too
tired of Megan’s shadow? If the residents of her small town ever discovered the
details of why she’d been forced home, they would explode with gossipy
relish. For her own sanity, Amanda had to keep the incident under
wraps.
It wasn’t
as if she wanted to be back in lifeless Merit, Missouri, out
of a job and out of a boyfriend. Megan had simply taken
everything away from her. She had stolen her life in St. Louis, and
annoyingly, lived it better. The only thing Megan had given Amanda
was a passionate hatred for the St. Louis Rams. And what felt like
the beginnings of a mild depression.
Hooonk! “Happy New Year!”
Her
mother, father and Ryan Seacrest shouted the words in her ear. Or at
least it felt that way. It was like they were rubbing it in her
face. They were lively, passionate and happy. She was
bored, single and lonely.
“Same,”
Amanda called down halfheartedly, turning back to HDU for
comfort. She refreshed her inbox and managed somewhat of a smile to
see a message from a friend. A virtual one was better than none at
all, right? And since she’d been indulging in reclusiveness since moving home,
that kind of friendship was about the easiest one to keep.
Message from FilmFreak
(Moderator) to PrettyKitty29 (Moderator):
Happy New year, Pretty! Hope
yours is starting out better than mine… started drinking at noon and got kicked
out of every bar in the Lower East Side already... that’s probably a
record, right?? Now watching my asshole friends trash my
apartment. Awesome. Sooo just gonna hang out on HDU for
the rest of the night and refresh my inbox for comment replies (holy shit that
sounds even sadder when I type it).
Anyway, here’s to the
glamorous lives of HDU moderators! Hope this year is easier on us than the
last.
<3, FF
Amanda
gave a sad laugh as she replied to her friend. It was odd to think
that with Megan banished from her life, someone she knew only as FilmFreak was
her longest-running friendship at a little over three years. They
were the two most veteran moderators on HDU and though they had never met in
person, they’d confided in each other throughout the years. He knew
all about her debacle in St. Louis and she knew all about the dissatisfaction
he had with his post-graduate life. Her reply to him was brief but
heartfelt.
Message from
PrettyKitty29 (Moderator) to FilmFreak (Moderator):
Yes,
definitely. We both deserve some change in our
lives. Tomorrow will bring us a new day and New
Year. Let’s hope that somehow, it starts off with a bang.
Despite being so cynical, Amanda had actually ended her night
praying for a miracle. Anything would do – perhaps she’d awake with
an epiphany, or a business idea, or at the very least a flatter stomach.
Instead, she woke up with just a headache, mostly from drinking
three vodka sodas the night before. She had never been a big
drinker. She’d only been inspired to booze alone because of her
utterly depressing circumstances. Newly single, newly friendless,
and forever alone, she thought to herself. She had tried but
failed to get out of her small town, and that was that. Hope for
change was over.
As had become routine in the past few months back home, Amanda sat
up in bed only to reach for her laptop, which she kept on the
nightstand. She could spend the next hour in the same spot without
moving as she checked her mail, messages and usual websites, including
HDU. If there was a particularly good, juicy post, she could delay
brushing her teeth for another hour, too engrossed in contributing to and
reading the hundreds of comments to move.
“I hope you’re awake in there, Amanda Bree, because it’s past twelve
o’clock!”
Her mother’s shouting always came at a quarter to noon, and she
always pretended that it was later than it was to shame Amanda for sleeping
in.
“Your father’s been at work for five hours already
and you’re still sleeping? Good God, time to move out again because
sleeping past noon does not happen in this house.”
On this particular morning, there were no new emails or
messages. She approved the celebrity diet articles and blind items
submitted by the users, but none of them were interesting enough for her to
comment on. The gossip world was having a slow morning and thus, so
was Amanda. Without Internet activity, she was left without
plans. The thought of having to get dressed and actually find
something to do around town was tormenting. Neighbors and small talk
had become her biggest fears in the past few months. They were desperate
to expose her, to confirm that she’d been in over her head.
“Wake up, Amanda, now!”
“One more minute,” Amanda murmured to herself, deciding to check her
messages one more time before surrendering to her morning routine.
Inbox (1)
Yay. She was grateful for the lone email, the one hope she
had to stay in her virtual world for a little bit longer.
With more hope
than ever, she read it.
Jan. 1 (12:02PM)
Dear PrettyKitty29,
Hi, my name is Liam
Brody. From the looks of your charming website, you’ve heard of
me. Believe it or not, I’ve heard of you too. I was
recently tipped off about your little gossip community. I probably
shouldn’t call it little. You are one of the busiest gossip
communities on the Internet. Congratulations. I’m always
impressed with people who manage to stay indoors so much. You must
have an extremely sufficient amount of Vitamin D.
I noticed that you seem to
have an odd and probably unwarranted agenda against me. Almost every
bitter post about me is put up by lovely you. I also noticed that
your hatred has spread pretty successfully among your
users. Wow. What an influence you have on gossip hungry
teens and housewives. Again, congratulations.
I apologize for dating
models, PrettyKitty29. It’s just that I think they’re more
attractive than other people. Some people steal, some people do
drugs, some people sell them. I date models. It could
probably be worse. I could be someone who makes bribes.
Speaking of those, I was
emailing you to let you know that despite the sarcasm throughout this email, I
find your strangely influential website interesting and am willing to make a
substantial payment to you in exchange for a few positive
articles. I don’t know what a gossip community moderator gets paid,
but I’m sure that regardless, you could use a few extra bucks. It
would pay for food delivery, movies On Demand, and other indoor pleasures that
I’m sure you partake in. Please let me know.
Best,
Liam Brody
Amanda
blinked, completely caught off guard.
Wait… what?
She
had received prank emails from HDU users before, but this was something else
entirely. It got to her. It shamed
her for ordering so much Papa John’s and streaming Netflix in her room pretty
much twenty-four seven.
Before
she knew it, her fingers began typing a response. Most of what she wrote ended up deleted though, because it
was entirely too angry and defensive, and the last thing she wanted was to give
a troll the satisfaction of her irritation. She settled on the shortest reply possible.
Dear “Liam
Brody”,
Hi. How interesting that you would
personally email from LiamBrody85@gmail.com rather than have your publicist
officially contact me. You’ve
truly convinced me that you’re actually Liam Brody with that shady email
address. Good work.
I’ll humor
you though. I don’t accept bribes
from companies or celebrities because if I did, I’d lose my job. Simple enough. Good thing you’re just some Internet
creep and not an actual celeb, right? Phew.
Best,
PK
P.S. Congrats on mastering the art of
condescension. Your time must be
well spent.
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