Social Creature

by Tara Isabella Burton

"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"--

• ISBN10: 0385543522
• ISBN13: 9780385543521
• Publish Date: 5 June 2018
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Doubleday Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[maggiefan]

Do you ever feel like you have a love-hate relationship with a book? Well, I did feel that with this one.
I can't explain how I feel about this book. It has a very interesting message, it's weird (which I love, btw), the plot is quite intriguing, it had potential. But on the other hand, it was underdeveloped. Something was off. I felt like it could be so much more but it wasn't.

[kristy]

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley for a review. First off, I absolutely love the cover of this book. It immediately caught my eye and was the reason that I was interested in it in the first place. Initially I was a bit thrown off by the writing style of the author, I had to re-read a few times and it took me a while to get drawn in to the book but once I was I was hooked and finished it within a few hours. I'm not sure if you are suppose to really like the main character or not, but I personally ended up liking her and enjoyed how the story played out. I think that the description of New York/all of the parties was interesting and even though that lifestyle would not be for me I enjoyed getting to live it through the characters for a time.