Once Is Not Enough

by
Jacqueline Susann

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Once Is Not Enough

by Jacqueline Susann

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 · rating details · 2,625 ratings · 102 reviews

ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH displays one woman's search for love in the glittering playgrounds and jetset life-style of people with enough money and power to believe ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH. The heroine, January Wayne, grew up without a mother, sharing Dom Perignon champagne and caviar with her famous father, big-time producer Mike Wayne, and meeting the right people: the fabulously wea...more

Mass Market Paperback, 500 pages

Published 1981 by Bantam Books (first published March 1st 1973)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Dec 22, 2008 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: girls with massive electra complexes who usually only read magazines

Shelves: crazy-ladies, chicklits, here-is-new-york, love-and-other-indoor-sports

Yeah, but it should have been....

Despite its incredibly brilliant title, this book was no Valley of the Dolls. Actually, that's incorrect, it was Valley of the Dolls, and that book only needed to be written once. Or at least, reading that book once was enough for me.

Oh, maybe I just wasn't in the mood this time, I don't know.... It wasn't bad or anything -- I mean, obviously it was bad, but you get what I'm saying. I just wasn't gripped, and if you can't get into this on a flight to Las Vegas, t...more

5 likes · like · see review

May 19, 2012 Benjamin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I once asked a writer friend whether he'd ever contemplated setting aside his literary integrity, writing a Jackie Susann novel, and making millions of dollars. He replied, "Don't you think I'd write like Jackie Susann if I could?" The point being: You can't fake this sort of thing. And I think: You can't. Whatever it was that might have occurred during the editorial process, and whatever labors Michael Korda (or whoever) labored to labor, there is an integrity to this novel that sucks you in an...more

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 18, 2012 Nena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: womens-reads

Soft cover in my closet:

Another one of my favorites, this one I read over and over again every summer.

This is the story of a wealthy academy award winning actor, Mike Wayne, who lives the glamour and high life in Hollywood and his only daughter, January. January has spent her entire life being spoiled by her father to the point where she knows no want. She idolizes her father and they have a strong father/daughter bond.

After tragedy strikes the relationship between father and daughter is teste...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 17, 2011 Dfordoom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: trash-fiction

I’ve always loved trash cinema but in the past year I’ve discovered that trash fiction holds just as many delights. And fiction doesn’t get much trashier than Jacqueline Susann. Once is not Enough, published in 1973, was the third of her blockbuster bestsellers.

While it didn’t quite equal the success of Valley of the Dolls (which has sold around 30 million copies and has been claimed to be the biggest selling novel of all time) it did reach Number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Susann...more I’ve always loved trash cinema but in the past year I’ve discovered that trash fiction holds just as many delights. And fiction doesn’t get much trashier than Jacqueline Susann. Once is not Enough, published in 1973, was the third of her blockbuster bestsellers.

While it didn’t quite equal the success of Valley of the Dolls (which has sold around 30 million copies and has been claimed to be the biggest selling novel of all time) it did reach Number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Susann didn’t quite invent the literary blockbuster, but she did take the blockbuster formula to new heights. Her critics would have said she took it to new depths, but when you can sell 30 million copies of one novel you can afford not to worry too much about the critics.

Once is not Enough includes the basic ingredients that had made Valley of the Dolls so successful - a show business background, glamour, celebrities, sex, drugs, tragedy and self-destructiveness. And it adds a very large helping of kinkiness.

The heroine this time is January Wayne, the daughter of a big-time Broadway producer who had tried to repeat his success in Hollywood and come badly unstuck. January is fond of her father. Very fond of him. Very very fond of him. And not in the way 20-year-old women are supposed to be fond of their dads. He’s the only man she really wants, but she tries desperately to find someone else as similar to him as possible. And ends up with a 58-year-old alcoholic author who has grown tired of writing books that are admired by the critics but don’t sell and has decided to try his hand at writing bestsellers.

January’s stepmother (the incredibly wealthy Dee Milford) has been trying to line her up with a suitable young man, but unfortunately the suitable young man is having an affair with a middle-aged movie star. And this same middle-aged movie star is having a lesbian affair with Dee Milford! January also develops a rather worrying drug habit.

Every element that could possibly have outraged mainstream literary critics and self-appointed moral guardians of society makes an appearance at some stage in the outlandish soap-opera plot. Susann’s great strength as a writer is that she had absolutely no shame and was completely untroubled by irrelevant concerns such as good taste. She believed in excess, and that excess works best if you have a very large amount of it. Truckloads of it.

Part of the success of Valley of the Dolls was due to the fact that Susann knew the world depicted in the novel extremely well, having been an actress on Broadway in the 50s. With Once is not Enough she moves into a 1970s setting, and she was not quite as familiar with the world of early 70s youth culture. But it doesn’t really matter since her occasional misunderstandings of this world just add to the book’s already enormous camp appeal.

The novel is of course complete trash, but it celebrates its own trashiness. Susann’s great insight into the literary world was that if you’re going to write trash, do it with style and energy and don’t apologise for it. Revel in it. She pushes trashiness so far that it becomes an art form. And like so much trash art, it ends up reflecting more of the truth about the society that produced it than the tedious tomes churned out by Serious Writers who write Literature.

Susann’s novels are also, as Camille Paglia has so rightly pointed out, absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to understand American popular culture today. Susann was one of the people who created modern popular culture. And her books are fun.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Aug 10, 2012 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have to give this book only 2 stars because of all the really well written books I've given only three stars to. I know these stars are supposed to be about "liking" a book, regardless of talent, skill or execution from the writer, but that's how my mind works.

OK, so, a little bit of trashy summer reading. It was fun and awful - all tell, no show, shallow characters, ridiculous scenarios (which I fully believe could happen, and perhaps have lived myself), seconals, speed, eating disorders and...more

like · see review

Feb 08, 2008 Bryan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favs

WHEN I WAS HOME ON VACATION FOR A WEEK AND LIVED WITH AN ALCOHOLIC LESBIAN NAMED BLANKET I FOUND THIS BOOK AND IT SAVED MY LIFE. I READ THE STORY OF JANUARY WAYNE IN 1 SITTING - FOR AWHILE AFTER I HAD PEOPLE REFER TO ME AS JANUARY;BECAUSE OF OUR TRAGIC SIMILARITES
IF THERE IS A BOOK THAT SPEAKS OF ME THIS IS IT
I CRIED AND CRIED AND LAUGHED
THEN LEARNED HOW TO LOVE

6 likes · like · see review

Apr 03, 2010 Susanne rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ah, the days when alcohol was officially one of the major food groups.

Normally I love these soap-opera sagas. And I would have enjoyed this ride through Doll-land NYC, but continually controlling my gag reflex over the whole father-daughter lust thing got to be a strain.

At least the incest theme in The Love Machine was only hinted at and the character got help. Even the other characters are aware of the incest theme in Once Is Not Enough and yet no one ever points out how sick the father-adult...more

3 likes · like · see review

Sep 15, 2012 Kristy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like The Valley of the Dolls, this is trashy, fun, a product of its time, and really better written than it needs to be in spots. January is the daughter of Mike Wayne, a handsome, powerful, rich movie producer who puts her in an expensive boarding school after her mother's death. She lives for her weekend visits with him in NYC and develops the electra complex of all electra complexes. After graduation she goes with him to Italy, but ends up getting in an accident that disables her for three ye...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 24, 2012 Thain Gar rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was a horrible mistake to choose this book while I was going through a down time myself. I have never read anything more gloomy, dramatic or queer. May be I'm just too used to reading fluffy, "up-ending" books. After every chapter, I was like, whoa, this is too much for me. While I wanted to know the ending very badly, sometimes, I just wanted to skip everything in between. The ending was just, wow. Wow, not as in, this is amazing, but more as in, this is mind-blowing. Cliffhangers were proba...more

like · see review

Aug 29, 2009 Marcella rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

January Wayne is a young and beautiful and possibly the last innocent woman in New York City during the early 70's. The story follows her and those who influence her during her first year back from Europe. As much as January tries to hold on to her moral integrity, those around her have other plans. It's hard to go into details without giving away part of the book. It's a fast read. I found myself not wanting to put it down.

The last 10 pages of this book don't seem to fit with the rest of the s...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 13, 2012 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Lovers of trashy, scandalous, but nonetheless very entertaining novels

Shelves: chick-lit, trashy-fiction

Ok, so a friend of mine at work lent this book to me because she has a friend who actually changed her name to January because of Jacqueline Susann's heroine, January Wayne, who is found in this horribly trashy and scandalous book. Did I like the book? Yes. Did I love the book? No. Did I get anything fascinating or enlightening out of the book? No. This book, to put it simply, entertained me. I'm actually glad that my friend loaned it to me, because I don't think I would have ever had the inclin...more Ok, so a friend of mine at work lent this book to me because she has a friend who actually changed her name to January because of Jacqueline Susann's heroine, January Wayne, who is found in this horribly trashy and scandalous book. Did I like the book? Yes. Did I love the book? No. Did I get anything fascinating or enlightening out of the book? No. This book, to put it simply, entertained me. I'm actually glad that my friend loaned it to me, because I don't think I would have ever had the inclination to read it otherwise. The book, despite its almost 500 pages, took me about a week to read, and without having a plot to absolutely glue my eyes to the book, my working full time, and having somewhat of a life, I can say that a week for me to finish a 500 page book is actually the speed of light.

The book centers on January Wayne, a beautiful but lost and somewhat vacuous socialite, and her middle-aged, washed-up, ex-producer father, with whom she is in love. I say that she is in love, not because the book is filled top to bottom with Electra infused sexual fantasies, but because she cannot possibly conceive that she could love anyone more than she loves her father. At times, she sees him as a sexy and attractive male, rather than her sperm donor, but it isn't, in my opinion, a sexually charged incestual love. January spends three years in a rehabilitation center in Switzerland after a motorcycle accident leaves her incredibly disabled, and she finds herself completely disconnected from the outside world, returning to find that her father, after losing all his fame and money when "his luck ran out," has married an incredibly wealthy woman to give both of them some financial security.

The book from here on out follows January in her quest to please her father, finding love along the way with a man who is the perfect paternal replacement, and discovering the free-love, drug addled, and star-struck New York from the sixties and seventies. She falls in love, she wins, she loses, she finds a job, she comes into money, and even finds herself addicted to speed, in the form of vitamin shots. Every character in Once Is Not Enough is very shallow, except for the mysterious and beautiful Karla, an ex ballerina and actress who seems to bewitch absolutely everyone into falling in love with her (this was a little hard to believe, as I feel there can only be so much perfection that a person can realistically have). Karla does have some depth to her character, as is shown when Susann divulges information about Karla's past during the war. Even January, so naive, becomes a caricature of the innocent girl turned bad. It's like Sandy from Grease, though on a much harder-core scale. There were times that were real, and I could even find myself getting slightly emotional when Tom Colt leaves her right after her father's death. I believe that that is the most real passage in the whole book. Their relationship doesn't reflect on reality, but their breakup does. Maybe that says something in and of itself.

It is a novel which requires basically no intelligent thinking or higher brain power, and does it's job quite well, which is to entertain. Those who are looking for a purely entertainment value read, will certainly like this book, though if you are used to reading Fitzgerald, Orwell, Hemingway, or Salinger, you might want to skip this book. I love a good literary read, but hey, I can get just as wrapped up in Flowers in the Attic too. I think that above all, Once Is Not Enough is a novel about love. Love is fleeting, love changes, love fades. I think the only constant love in this whole book is Mike Wayne's love for January. Even January chooses Tom Colt over her father, but everything Mike does is for his daughter. She is, and always was the one and only person he ever loved in his life. Maybe, that's a lesson to be learned in Once Is Not Enough. The only love that is 100% assured is a parent's love for their child. (less)

like · see review

Sep 23, 2012 Michael Dipietro rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

**spoiler alert**

Huh. This book didn't really start until about page 400. Up until that point was a whole bunch of meandering backstory, intertwined relationships and character development leading up to a whole bunch of nothing.. It had that classic Susann character that everyone desperately wants and no one can touch - they'll let you in only so far but won't be possessed and blah blah blah. That was pretty enjoyable to read as usual.

This book has all the trademark elements of smut. I mean, it...more **spoiler alert**

Huh. This book didn't really start until about page 400. Up until that point was a whole bunch of meandering backstory, intertwined relationships and character development leading up to a whole bunch of nothing.. It had that classic Susann character that everyone desperately wants and no one can touch - they'll let you in only so far but won't be possessed and blah blah blah. That was pretty enjoyable to read as usual.

This book has all the trademark elements of smut. I mean, it is smut, right? But it's a '70s bestseller' version of smut. It has all the sensationalism that makes Jackie Susann great, with actual, graphic sex scenes in this one (these are just glossed / summarized in the other books if I remember right?). Even that aforementioned character that everybody kills themselves over was straight out of the pages of the few gay porn novels I've read. I guess that shouldn't surprise me.. except that the tragic 'downward spiral' ending of this one was more unexpected than devastating (which it is in Valley of the Dolls). It was more annoying and troubling - And, completed the smut-novel feel by killing off the innocent, lost main character after she wanders through so many new experiences with sex and drugs, giving it almost moralistic overtones.

This one was right in between Valley and The Love Machine, not as good as the former and not as hopelessly meandering as the latter. I guess the issue is that Jackie Susann seems like a lazy writer. Her books remind me so much of Thomas Hardy in their soap-opera-esque scope with many storylines, but in Hardy you know that all the characters will be inexplicably linked by a tragic ending. With Susann her big plot devices seemed grabbed out of thin air in a last ditch effort to actually do something with her characters. The pointless plot windings weren't crazy enough to find funny, and then I didn't care enough to really feel anything about the tragic parts.

I dunno, maybe I just started taking her too seriously.(less)

like · see review

May 05, 2010 Gloria added it · review of another edition

I read this when I was about 17 I am going to say, ask any 17 year old how she feels and I am pretty sure it's going to be pretty old to be so young. I wanted to know more, I was developing into a female, not just a girl. I wanted to know about life, and yes the politics, don't pretend we don't know what we are talking about, we know at that age quite well what just might happen, what is likely to happen, and just when and with whom might be added to the equation. Intoxicating, yes, hurtful defi...more

like · see review

Sep 01, 2012 Lesley Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read so many books in my life that it can be difficult to remember them all. I met a friend for lunch recently and we were talking about the reading we did in our youth and I remembered this.

I am giving this book the rating my 15 year old self would have done as I found it racy and exciting and I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time.

The question to my much older self is whether I should read it again? I would hate to spoil the memory of a teenage read so will have to ponder.

like · see review

May 05, 2012 Beth Feeback marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I KNOW I've read this but I can't remember it, so I put it on my to-read list. One summer I was determined to read the entirety of the Jacqueline Susann oeuvre and I was so bummed when I ran out of books that I read the book about her life. It's all just camp, fun fiction and gives us a look back to where kitsch came from. I wonder if I can't remember it because it traumatized me because I have an electra complex? I'm sure I don't have one, but now I'm going to wonder. Hmmmm.

like · see review

Jul 24, 2011 Francine rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: chick-lit, modern-lit

I'm almost ashamed to admit I read this when I was 14 - snuck it out of my mom's bookshelf and read it under the covers late at night. Can't say I understood a lot of it, and the ending was so out there (for me), so I don't think I got much from the experience. First trashy book I ever read (ummm, stole, really)...and I haven't really read much from this genre since.

like · see review

Nov 18, 2010 WendyMcP rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: top-shelf, women-fiction, fiction-modern, trashy-novels

I thought this book was amazing when I read it at age 15 because it taught me the mechanics of straight sex. I also loved the protagonist, January, who had a high-powered job in a New York City publishing house and screwed around without guilt. She became my hero. God knows what I'd think of the book if I read it now, but I refuse to re-read it. I won't give up my adolescent model modern woman.

like · see review

Mar 12, 2009 Adele Goetz rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

1 like · like · see review

Dec 17, 2011 Danna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: beach-reads, chick-lit, speed-read, trashy, tragic, light-and-fun-reading

I thought I would never read another Jacqueline Susann novel after I finished the last one, but a couple of months later, and here I am. This is my third Susann novel and definitely my favorite thus far. Once is Not Enough goes a little off the deep end with January's Elektra complex, but it is entertaining and a page turner. There are many hysterical moments, such as when January's friend Lydia explains that she thinks semen makes a fantastic face mask. This book is what I would categorize as "...more

like · see review

Aug 16, 2011 Marisa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am giving this novel two stars based on the actual text. Susann's final work is disjointed and she fails to garner sympathy for her beautiful, wealthy, and drug-riddled protagonist. This novel simply lacks the heart that can be found in Valley of the Dolls. Despite that, I had a damn good time reading it.

like · see review

Mar 19, 2012 Sarah A rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I absolutley love this book! I love all of her books but this one especially. I read it about 10 years ago when I was working at a printing press and we were allowed to do sodoku puzzles( I always read of course)while our machines ran. There's a part where she is stoned in a taxi and it is hillarious and everyone around me is looking at me like I'm nuts because I am laughing so hard. It's fast paced with sometimes slap stick dialogue. Better than Valley of the Dolls if I may be so brave.

like · see review

Aug 17, 2011 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

As outdated as her books may feel, something about Jacqueline's take on relationships resonates with me. The story is about a young woman in her early twenties, January, and her relationship with her father. As I said before, the topics that are tackled like drugs and homosexuality are presented in an old-fashioned way, like once they would have been shocking, but now you can see all that on cable TV, but her cynical and frustrating, yet somehow rewarding, view on relationships strikes a univers...more

like · see review

Oct 23, 2012 BeautifulNerd rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Daddy issues" doesn't cover it.

Filled with sparkling dialogue and sweeping character flashbacks as well as personality insights that perhaps hint at the author's interest in psychology, this book is trademark Susann. All the sparkle makes up for an Electra complex plot that somewhat unravels and the feeling that, whereas she describes a world she knows when writing about the 50s, with the 70s youth culture depicted in this novel, Susann describes a world she's heard about. January is the charac...more

like · see review

Jun 29, 2011 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the same author as "Valley of the Dolls" (which I always wanted to read) and a co-worker friend recommended I read this. This seems like the type of book that would be turned into a movie. The "hollywood" plot definitely captured my attention. Def a good read

like · see review

Feb 07, 2012 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jackie's take on the Freudian electra complex, told through the filter of late sixties New York against a backdrop of all the social change (which did not impress Ms. Susann). Four stars instead of five because it's not her best-edited feature.

like · see review

Dec 29, 2011 Stacy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I agree with you jessica in the pink:)... Ive had this sitting on my bedside table for 4 years and still havent finished it! I should finish it just because but yes im just not as "into it" as i wish i were! Ill start it tonite again and get back back to u... Wish me luck:)

like · see review

Nov 19, 2012 Therese rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Doesn't top Valley of the Dolls, but definitely another good read of Jacquelines. I like the way she writes about each character, giving time to each one and how she recircles back to them to keep the plot thickening!

like · see review

Jul 21, 2010 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Despite being a trashy, poorly written, and extremely dated book, I still enjoyed reading the story of January Wayne. I read this book 28 years ago while pregnant and we ended up naming our daughter January.
How fitting to reread the book when she got married this month!

like · see review

Jan 18, 2010 Lilli rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book was easy to read, but the overall story was not very interesting. That Karla character was a bit of a disgusting beast and everybody seemed so lost and pathetic. Actually the story was pretty depressing.

like · see review

Feb 15, 2010 Sandy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Loose morals, rotten ending, nothing redeeming about this book. Looking for anything positive to say: the Karla character was interesting. Would not recommend wasting your time to read this book.

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (18)

More editions...

Genres

Romance

12 users

Womens Fiction > Chick Lit

12 users

Classics

3 users

Womens Fiction

3 users

Adult Fiction

3 users

Romance > Contemporary Romance

3 users

Novels

3 users

Drama

2 users

Modern

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Jacqueline Susann's Shadow Of The Dolls
by Rae Lawrence
Scruples
by Judith Krantz
Queenie
by Michael Korda
Hollywood Wives
by Jackie Collins
Lace
by Shirley Conran

About Jacqueline Susann

Jacqueline Susann was one of the most successful writers in the history of American publishing. Her first novel, Valley of the Dolls, published in 1966, is one of the best-selling books of all time. When The Love Machine was published in 1969, it too became an immediate #1 bestseller and held that position for five months. When Once is Not Enough was published in 1973, it also moved to the top of...more

More about Jacqueline Susann...

Books by Jacqueline Susann

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Once Is Not Enough

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: Once Is Not Enough
avg rating	preview: Once Is Not Enough Goodreads rating: 3.63 (2625 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12399703-once-is-not-enough?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]/assets/nocover/111x148.png[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12399703-once-is-not-enough?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Once Is Not Enough by Jacqueline Susann[/url]

Once Is Not Enough

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website