Socialites are taking over the world
After literally months of putting it off, I was finally bored enough to return to this book. Willpower!
DISCLAIMER: One of the biggest reasons why it took me so damn long to read it is because my mother actually started reading it (!), got farther along than I had (!!) and had accidentally told me the ending (or at least, her guess at the ending, which turned out to be right). Major turn-off. Another turn-off? The narrator never tells us her name.
Here we go. Little Miss Narrator isn't technically a Bergdorf Blonde, since she herself is a brunette, but she lives a highly stylish, clothes-obsessed, fabulously rich life anyway. Her BFF is Julie Bergdorf, the most superficial and self-centered young woman in Manhattan (possibly the whole country). Missy, who is really sweet and only a third as superficial, helps Julie land a Prospective Husband - because fiances are so in right now. But Missy herself is having major romance problems, becoming involved in a string of bad relationships where the guy is either emotionally abuse or already attached (or both). She keeps meeting up with Charlie, a good-looking struggling indie director who always ends up helping Missy out of a jam. Oh, and her Engish-entrenched (but American-born) mother is trying to set her up with an earl for no other reason than being obsessed with titles and wanting to control her daughter.
Let's get the good stuff out of the way: Little Miss Narrator is devastatingly sweet and good-natured, and doesn't deserve half the shit she's put through in this book. Julie was good for a laugh, and their friendship seemed oddly sweet; in fact, there was really no Mean Girl action to speak of. Charlie was the only sane character in this book, and I looked forward to his scenes.
Bad stuff? Well, the no-name thing was a bummer. There was no real plot or climax. Also, it was tres hard for me to relate to Missy not only because we're worlds apart, but because she had an English upbringing even though she, like her mom, was born in America. She has a job that she hardly does (writing for some magazine - as if we're supposed to believe she's a writer) which we rarely hear about. Also, for a young woman who was the most sensible socialite in the book, she had her stupid moments: at one point, she tries to commit suicide by taking four Advil pills. She even dresses up in her sexiest nightgown because she's trying to go for "glamour." Am I supposed to laugh? I guess I don't get the joke. Instances like that reminded me that I am not the demographic for this book, and yet girls - like me - who don't get to live this kind of lifestyle supposedly are. But sentences like, "She was dressed like she had hired her outfit from a Halloween store on Bleecker Street" and "a man has many wonderful things in common with a handbag, like the fact that there's a wait list for the best ones" leave me going, "huh?" And Julie not only has multiple boyfriends, but doesn't "allow" them to break up with her. Everybody except Charlie and perhaps Missy were one-dimensional stereotypes. Of course, I'm willing to admit I'm just missing the point - the fact that Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, praised this book (and Plum thanks Wintour in the acknowledgments) is telling. Suffice it to say that when it comes to reading "this season's 'it' book," I couldn't be bothered to care.
Rating: 2 Hermes Birkin bags out of 5.