Rumors (Luxe, #2)

by Anna Godbersen

[Katie King]

I reread Rumors to prepare myself for Envy and Splendor, which have been sitting on my TBR shelf for quite a while. Now that I've finished it again, I have to say I'm not sure I ever quite finished it the first time around, because I don't remember any of the details from the second half of the book. So I suppose it's good I read it!

All the same characters are there, which is unfortunate (in my case), because that includes Will and Lina. For Will, I don't necessarily mind him being with Elizabeth and everything, I just don't like HIM. I don't think they're really meant to be together and I wonder if Elizabeth "would've" (I say that because obviously she's fictional) gotten over him if they had been stopped and she remained in NY without him. So suffice to say I'm satisfied with the ending.

Lina bothers me because she's just a pathetic social climber. It's one thing to work hard to become one of them, but she's just a con artist, a pretender, who happened to get lucky and try to con a very nice, lonely old man who now takes care of her. She's forgotten where she started and become petty and nasty like all the rest of them.

And of course there's still everyone else I loved, even Penelope a.k.a. basically Satan. There's all the gossip and scandal and secrets I loved about The Luxe. This is an enjoyable series for me, though not particularly thought-provoking.

The Luxe series (a.k.a. this series) has never really pretended to be something more complex than it is. It is foremost a "guilty pleasure" type of read. Some say it's like Gossip Girl set at the dawn of the 20th century, and I completely agree. But I think Rumors introduces some plots that will ultimately payoff as proof of how good just a "guilty pleasure" can be. I really look forward to Envy.