Glittery—and surprisingly gritty—fun.
What drama lurks behind the smooth social facade of wealthy young Jewish women in the New York Tri-State area? Actress/screenwriter/first-novelist Rose tells all.
Ali Cohen doesn’t have good memories of Camp Willow Lake, an exclusive summer spot for the toniest of Jewish society. Ali was a social outcast, and something particularly ugly happened one night in the woods when she was there. But now she’s all grown up and has even been nominated for an Academy Award for her documentary work. That’s why she’s been invited back to shoot a video about Willow Lake's 100th anniversary. It’s the perfect excuse to dig into the lives of all the popular girls who made her life hell. They haven’t all turned out so wonderfully. Arden has become a drug addict after the success of her first performance art piece. Dafna is such a princess that even her father couldn’t stand to employ her; she’s out of a job and can’t land a man to support her. Beth, who’s never done much thinking, suddenly realizes she doesn’t want to marry her fiancé and runs off with the wedding photographer. Jessica, who’d always dreamed of Broadway, is doing regional theater in Florida. Successful Hollywood agent Laura doesn’t have the time or inclination to help Jessica or anyone else. And queen bitch Wendy lives in terror that her secret life will be revealed. The plentiful stereotypes here are embellished with such convincing specifics that they’re easily forgiven. It’s chick-lit for sure, but Rose gives it some extra oomph, and following the roller-coaster plot provides quite a rush. (Unexpected pregnancy! Lesbian affair!) Through it all, the author manages to make readers care about her numerous characters. They may be shallow, mean, self-centered, ruthless and resentful, but each has her redeeming qualities. Not to mention lovingly detailed wardrobes and beauty regimes.
Glittery—and surprisingly gritty—fun.Pub Date: May 17, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-51286-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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