'Maneater:' A Tasty Treat

Gigi Levangie Grazer has a new novel out called "Maneater" which critics says is every bit as delicious as the title promises.

Author of the screenplay "Stepmom" starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon, and wife of Hollywood super-producer Brian Grazer("A Beautiful Mind"), Grazer visited The Early Show to talk to co-anchor Hannah Storm about it.

The heroine Clarissa Alpert is a fabulous Hollywood It-Girl without actually being in showbiz. Her life revolves around simply being fabulous and looking for a very rich guy so she can settle down without actually wanting for anything.

"Maneater" follows Clarissa through her scheming plan to marry Aaron Mason, despite the fact that he never actually proposes. In the end, it turns out he was using her just as much - or more than - she was using him. Aaron turns out not to be at all who Clarissa thought he was.

The story is based on a friend of the author. "I exaggerated a great deal," she says. "The jumping off point is based on a friend of mine who wanted to get married to this man and she sort of ignored the fact that he wasn't really in the mood to get married.

"She would bring up the floral arrangements. He would say, 'but I don't want to get married.' [she would reply,] 'Yeah, yeah, but what do you think of pink and green for our colors?'" So they got married without him ever proposing, Levangie Grazer explains.

The books takes a funny look at L.A., the author says where everybody is blond and in fit shape. For the women in her book, their full-time job is their own physical upkeep and the pursuit of men.

Levangie Grazer says, "I think it's a lot of work myself. I'm sort of an honorary member of the maneater's club, but not full fledged. You can't spend all day every day getting your hair done and going to lunch and everything, going to the dermatologist and the plastic surgeons. It's just - makes me tired thinking about it."

Though funny, "Maneater" is also a cautionary tale in which the heroine discovers who she actually is.

Levangie Grazer says during this journey, Clarissa meets a beautiful female doctor "and realizes that she's put as much time into her external as this doctor did into her brain and her internal. She could have been a doctor if she had studied rather than going out and taking care of what she looked like," she says.

With a daughter and a baby on the way, Levangie Grazer's message is to be careful about how we raise our daughters.

She says, "I come from a family of four girls. We were raised like boys. I can arm wrestle and I can throw a punch. But we were raised to be self-sufficient and take care of ourselves and not to depend on anyone else. I think that's the message here. In the end, she is going to be able to do that, if she so chooses."