Review: Vixen by Jillian Larkin
Vixen (The Flappers #1)
by Jillian Larkin
Gloria Carmody is so bored by her restricted, goody-two-shoes life. When she sneaks into a speakeasy with her best friends Lorraine and Marcus, a whole new world is revealed to her. Her handsome, perfect fiancé Sebastian and the structured, upper-class life they have planned together no longer appeals. Now Gloria wants to be a flapper, drinking and dancing in secret bars and falling in love with the soulful dark eyes of a black jazz pianist.
Meanwhile, Gloria’s cousin Clara is struggling to put her flapper past behind her and reinvent herself as a proper society girl. Her sweet, ‘fresh off the farm’ routine seems to be working. Clara quickly befriends Gloria’s classmates and their families, while Marcus is clearly besotted with her. Unfortunately, a lover from Clara’s days in New York City has followed her to Chicago, and threatens to destroy her new life.
Lorraine has always been Gloria’s best friend, but now Gloria’s keeping secrets from her. She’s always loved Marcus, but Marcus has eyes for Gloria’s stupid farm-girl cousin. Consumed by jealousy, Lorraine is desperate to regain her place at the center of attention.
So we have three pretty young things fighting and clawing at each other as only teenagers can. It makes for some pretty good entertainment. Vixen is a pretty risqué book, with underage boys and girls constantly drinking, gangsters perpetually a heartbeat from killing, and lots of sexual tension. The book does tastefully cut away from steamy, explicit sex scenes, but all in all I think the book’s a bit too racy for younger teens.
I was pretty surprised by the interracial relationship between Gloria and Jerome, the jazz musician. Even now, it’s pretty rare to see a black man and a white woman together, right? But in the 1920s, when many states had miscegenation laws on the books, such relationships were forbidden.
Vixen ends on a rather hopeful note for Gloria. Her life is changing as she leaves the security of her family for the live-fast-die-young world of the flappers. But the story’s ruthless, too - even as Gloria finds success in the underground world, Clara’s trying to escape it and Lorraine is being dragged under. For a young adult book, it can get pretty dark. But this whirling roller coaster of glamour and danger, drama and passion is definitely a fun ride worth taking.
4 out of 5 stars
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