Format: e-ARC, 384 pages
Publisher: St Martin’s Press
Published: August 18, 2015
ISBN: 9781250077172
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Back cover blurb: An instant New York Times bestseller!
Chosen as one of Summer’s Best Books by People Magazine
Featured in Time Magazine’s Summer Reading
Entertainment Weekly‘s Summer Must List
Good Housekeeping Beach Reads Feature
“A witty tale about a high-society wannabe…Little is more delicious than watching an ambitious but tragically flawed protagonist brought down – especially in a designer cocktail dress.” -The Washington Post
Everyone yearns to belong, to be part of the “in crowd,” but how far are you willing to go to be accepted? In the case of bright, funny and socially ambitious Evelyn Beegan, the answer is much too far…
At 26, Evelyn is determined to carve her own path in life and free herself from the influence of her social-climbing mother, who propelled her through prep school and onto New York’s glamorous Upper East Side. Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she gets a job at a social network aimed at the elite, she’s forced to embrace them.
Recruiting new members for the site, Evelyn steps into a promised land of Adirondack camps, Newport cottages and Southampton clubs thick with socialites and Wall Streeters. Despite herself, Evelyn finds the lure of belonging intoxicating, and starts trying to pass as old money herself. When her father, a crusading class-action lawyer, is indicted for bribery, Evelyn must contend with her own family’s downfall as she keeps up appearances in her new life, grasping with increasing desperation as the ground underneath her begins to give way.
My review: Got off to a very slow start and I almost gave up, but once Evelyn had ingratiated herself into high society I couldn’t put it down just waiting for the train wreck to happen. At times this read like a period piece because it’s hard to imagine people living like Jay Gatsby these days. Evelyn is not a very sympathetic character, but very few in this book are. Her mother is an exceptional piece of work even to the end, and Camilla and her cronies could be straight out of the TV show Revenge. The scene where Evelyn takes part in a rowing race is almost laugh-out-loud funny, and I can just picture it in the forthcoming movie.
***Disclaimer: This e-ARC was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Huge thanks to them. ***
My rating: 4/5
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