by Stephanie Clifford
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Release date: June 14, 2016 (paperback)
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: Women's Fiction
Paperback: 400 pages
Rating: 5
First sentence(s):
"Your pearl earrings are rather worn down. They're starting to look like molars," Barbara Beegan said to her daughter, poking with a cocktail knife at pâté that was so warmed by the sun that it was nearly the consistency of butter. "Don't you ever take them off?"
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.
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My two-bits:
This is one of those books that has that effect of being fascinated by watching a slow train wreck. The protagonist continues to get deeper and deeper and still deeper into the mire yet cannot help but go onward to an eventual downfall.
Loved watching that progression and what comes next.
The author ends the novel well and good which had me closing the book with a satisfied feeling.
About the author:
* review copy courtesy of BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge 2016 (details) @booksparks #SRC2016 #BestSummerEver
