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Indlæser... Social Creatureaf Tara Isabella Burton
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Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. Hmmm - this suspense novel got better as it went along, but I'm still stuck between a 3.5 and a 4 rating. It's a familiar tale - like the movie Single White Female, a woman of few resources tries to become her wealthier and prettier rival - but updated for this era, because cell phones and texts have an outsized influence on the plot. Louise, from a working class New Hampshire family, is struggling to stay on top of her expenses and is working three jobs when she is hired by the very wealthy Lavinia and sucked into her adventurous Manhattan orbit. Lavinia habitually uses and discards young female sycophants, and all Louise wants it to stay in her good graces and at her gorgeous townhouse. Both women have been neglected by their families and are the children of hypo-critical mothers, and they're both thin, blonde, and good-looking, so the bonding seems to work well for both, until it doesn't. It turns out that neither has a conscience and both are pathological liars - so much for reliable narrators. The conclusion is surprisingly unpredictable, and that is the novel's strength. This book has gotten a ton of press and advance raves. I don't know how, because I was singularly unimpressed. First, if you trumpet all over the jacket that it's an updated Ripley, thanks, you spoiled the plot. Next, the characters. I enjoy unlikeable characters. Burton has committed a bigger sin: hers are boring and tiresome. I could not muster a shit to give. For a book of under 300 pages, the plotting feels slow. You work out pretty quickly that Louise lacks self esteem as well as money, and that Lavinia is drawn entirely from a cross of Rich Party Girl with a tired stereotype of a woman with borderline personality disorder. There's not much more to them. Their grand toxic friendship is mainly a spiral of parties and money that really doesn't need over a hundred pages to describe. The writing consists of stream of consciousness run on sentences, which while they accurately replicate the speech of this type of vapidity, become tiresome to read. I could give it an extra half a star because I did finish it, but I regret purchasing it. Patricia Highsmith did it first, she did it better, and I remain unconvinced that this book needs to exist. ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
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"A sharp, biting, and irresistible debut about parties and ambition in New York City--introducing a talented Mr. Ripley for the digital age, with all the glitz and grit of Bright Lights, Big City. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Louise Wilson is an expert at just barely making it. She's mastered the tricks and shortcuts that a penniless small-town girl needs to survive in New York City. When she meets the beautiful, wealthy, eccentric, and aimless Lavinia Williams, she thinks her dreams of a cosmopolitan existence may be coming true. Lavinia introduces her to a rarified life of beauty and indulgence: private opera boxes, secret bookstores in brownstones, Shakespearean masked balls, underground cabarets, closets full of hundreds of dresses, and the finest champagne money can buy. The more Louise tastes, the more she wants. Could she ever truly be a part of this world? She can speak with the right affectation, wear the best makeup, drop the appropriate references, but she is always afraid people can see her true nature, which is darker than anyone can imagine. She finds herself haunted by the disparity between them. Lavinia has so much, and Louise so little, despite her yearning. Nightlife--the music, the buzz, the dim lights--is the great equalizer. But morning always comes, and Louise will do whatever it takes to keep the party going. This delicious debut takes a classic tale of obsession and makes it undeniably modern"--
"Part THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, part Bret Easton Ellis's THE RULES OF ATTRACTION, about a small-town girl trying to survive in New York and become part of the city's literati, who forms an intense friendship with a troubled socialite, leading to extreme consequences"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Highly recommended for fellow Tartt / Secret History fans. ( )