This is a novelization of a screenplay loosely based on Charles Dickens's 19th-century coming-of-age drama. It's set in modern times, and it's less closely related to the old book than to the big-screen drama of the same name featuring bookish Hollywood heartthrob Ethan Hawke--star of Dead Poets Society and author of the novel The Hottest State--and Gwyneth Paltrow. Though the actors are not literally described, you can feel their star power lurking behind the workaday prose. The hero is a penniless modern artist named Bell who rises from Florida to the New York art world, where he courts a cool beauty named Estella (Paltrow).

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