Reading Level: Young AdultHardcover: 389 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition (October 12th 2010)
Language: EnglishISBN-10: 006196266X
ISBN-13: 9780061962660
Source: Purchased from Power Books
First Sentence: "It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer."
Favorite Line from the Book: "It is often advantagous to forget. Forget your wincing humiliations, forget life's blows, and get on. For blocks in every direction, down every street in the city, people not yet old enough to have lines on their foreheads were laughing away memory, warmly ensconced in shrines of forgetfulness. Those who followed the word of God and those who preferred what the priests called "hoodoo" alike. People everywhere forgetting with drink or forgetting with religion or forgetting with the numbing quality of their many heaps of things. They looked forward and imagined rosy tomorrows, and gave up whatever horrors heckled their dreams, and listened to the pretty stories of whoever ruled their pulpit."
Book Summary:
The year is 1929. New York is ruled by the Bright Young Things: flappers and socialites seeking thrills and chasing dreams in the anything-goes era of the Roaring Twenties.
Letty Larkspur and Cordelia Grey escaped their small Midwestern town for New York's glittering metropolis. All Letty wants is to see her name in lights, but she quickly discovers Manhattan is filled with pretty girls who will do anything to be a star…
Cordelia is searching for the father she's never known, a man as infamous for his wild parties as he is for his shadowy schemes. Overnight, she enters a world more thrilling and glamorous than she ever could have imagined—and more dangerous. It's a life anyone would kill for . . . and someone will.
The only person Cordelia can trust is Astrid Donal, a flapper who seems to have it all: money, looks, and the love of Cordelia's brother, Charlie. But Astrid's perfect veneer hides a score of family secrets.
Across the vast lawns of Long Island, in the illicit speakeasies of Manhattan, and on the blindingly lit stages of Broadway, the three girls' fortunes will rise and fall—together and apart. From the New York Timesbestselling author of The Luxe comes an epic new series set in the dizzying last summer of the Jazz Age.
I haven’t read any of the books in The Luxe series also by Anna Godbersen, so I didn’t know anything about her writing style. Although I have read wonderful things about her books, I knew I have to try it myself. And I wasn’t disappointed.
This is a story of three different girls who have different personalities, goals, dreams, and complexities. The author was able to give these characters individuality. Cordelia, who has been dreaming and longing to find her long lost father, asked her best friend Letty to runaway to New York without giving the latter any idea about her true intentions. Letty, who has been always wishing to become a successful actress, experienced how it is to survive in the city. Astrid, the girlfriend of Cordelia’s brother, Charlie, has it all - glamour, money, and beauty. The author was able to weave different stories and subplots through these three characters and yet was able to still unite them into just one beautiful story. The book was presented in three different perspectives, but the shifting was so smooth, one would not even feel a drastic change in storytelling.
Although this book doesn’t contain action-packed events and might even be considered a little bit on the slow threading pace, I still appreciated it. With the pace that the author did, she was able to really build each character and was able to create a very nice foundation for the upcoming books in the series.
There are so many things that were left hanging that you will definitely crave for the second book in order to get answers to your questions. There were also characters which were left as is, with nothing much of a glimpse into how they will play a part in the next book which even created more longing for its sequel, Beautiful Days.
All in all, this book is a very wonderful first book which gives the impression that this will be a fantastic series.
Rating
3 comments:
Hello... found you as a fellow member of New Books for New Bloggers! I have been seeing so many people read this book I need to pick it up!
Angie
http://angelasanxiouslife.blogspot.com/
~New Follower~
thanks for following me! i think you will enjoy reading this. :)
Hi Yas! I haven't read any books in this series either! I've heard some good things about this book, though! It does sound good even if it is a bit slow. :)
Thanks for stopping by my blog! I'm a new follower, too! :)
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Thanks for stopping by! I really appreciate your comments! Happy reading!