This just was not for me. I was uinterested and bored.
I really wanted to like it, but hard pass.
Oh well, it happends.

Ceferino Carrión is desperate to leave Spain, he’s been conscripted into the army, received his call up papers, and he wants to go to America. After seven failed attempts to leave the country, he's finally successful, Ceferino's aboard a ship called Liberte as a stowaway, and he arrives in New York. He has an old suitcase, five dollars, and the name, and the address of his uncle Ramon.

Over the years, he uses several names, by the time Ceferino arrives in Hollywood, he goes by the name Jean Leon. He works driving yellow taxis, he meets some very famous people, and he marries Donna Morgan, and opens a restaurant called La Scala.

His restaurant is successful, he meets six people and all of them make a huge impact on his life. James Dean, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and Ronald Regan. But, as time goes on, he thinks of his family that he left behind in Barcelona, he contacts them, and he and his brother open a winery.

Stars in His Eyes is a story about a man taking a chance, following his dreams, being successful in America, a migrant who couldn't speak any English and meeting some of the most important people in the golden age of Hollywood. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, a quick read and four stars from me.

I love the glamour of old time Hollywood, and this book was wonderfully read. The characters were great and the story was well done.

Gironell's novel definitely struggles under the weight of its subject and the time span it attempts to cover; it not only jumps sometimes years in a span of a paragraph but also the details it goes into are only aesthetic, they don't scratch at any deeper meanings, it's all flash and no substance.
If you expect an immigrant story and not a view of Hollywood from a European perspective, if you expect the life experiences of a late '40s refugee from Spain and not the view of '50s U.S. culture, then this book isn't for you.